Drew Dowdell

I want to dust off my bike and go riding again. *looks at my travel schedule* I wonder if US Airways will let me put it in the overhead.....

Oh! So you admit that the cause of a sales dud could be something other than which wheels drive the car!?

FWD based and transverse mounting have nothing to do with the luxury of the car... and when 80% of BWW 1-Series owners think their car is FWD that should really tell you something. Your blame is misdirected. You want to pin the failure of certain Lincoln models on the fact that they were front wheel drive, but in fact it was neglect on the rest of the car by Lincoln that caused the demise. When the Continental switched from RWD to FWD in 1988 it went from Zero to Hero. I owned an '85 Continental and really liked the car, but they were an absolute sales dud. When the FWD '88 Continental came on the scene, it was a huge sales surge and success for Lincoln. What happened? Lincoln neglected the car. They left it without refreshes for too long and didn't offer an option of a V8 for the entirety of the first FWD generation. A 140hp V6 in 1988 was questionable and a 160hp V6 in 1994 was suicide. Even the Ford Tempo and Chevrolet Cavalier came with a 140hp V6 in 1994. Also, Lincoln let the interiors of these cars age ungracefully. That, along with wide spread issues with the air suspension turned off a lot of buyers when the 1995 model came around. The MKS is an embarrassment to the brand, not because of which wheels drive the car, but because of the so-called luxury appointments. The second FWD generation ran for 7 years... again neglected by Lincoln with only minor updates and a decidedly unluxury-like interior that could have served duty in the Windstar better than the Continental, the Continental name was put to rest in favor of the Lincoln LS. The switch to RWD couldn't save that car from Lincoln's neglect and it was canceled after 6 years with basically zero updates. The same story repeats itself, nearly verbatim, over at Cadillac. Though Cadillac had the sense to use 8-cylinder engines, the HT4100 was a reliability disaster on top of being low on power. The downsized models in 1986 were not well received, but when the '92 Eldorado and '92 Seville came out, Cadillac was really back in the game. Again sales soared. Again Cadillac ignored. They let the Eldorado go for 10 years with only minor updates. Imagine driving into a Cadillac dealership in 2002 in your 1992 Eldorado and driving out in basically the same car but with zero miles!! The Seville fared better with a redesign and platform change in 1998, but by that time beat the drum beat for Cadillac to become the American BMW was too strong to overcome. The reasons these cars eventually failed has nothing to do with which wheels drove the car. The Catera, the LS, the Mark VIII, the S-Type, the STS, the first SRX, the Q45, the M35/45, the J35, the GS, the K900, and I'm sure more that I'm not remembering, all have failed hard.... and they're all RWD. What matters most is the experience. If the Continental can deliver the luxury Lincoln is promising with AWD and sufficient performance. Buyers will come and not care which way the engine is facing. The 1-Series is BMW overreaching because they need the extra sales volume to remain viable as a large automaker. If it sells it sells because of the badge on the hood. The Lincoln does not have that, uh... luxury. Like Cadillac it has to work harder just to tread water in the eyes of a buying public that is sceptical about Detroit iron. It isn't rational, but neither are the 80 percent of 1-Series buyers, right? Bottom Line: if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, Lincoln is the Joker. Actually, that's the problem for the 1-Series... it doesn't sell. BMW struggles to move just 12,000 1-series and 2-series each year... so much so that the 1-series itself is actually dead in the US and BMW is only selling the 2-series here. So much for that saviour of RWD. You're right about the definition of insanity.... that's why Lincoln is saying they are going with a real luxury interior in the Continental instead of the low-rent MKS interior they're doing now. You seem set on blaming the drive wheels of the car while ignoring the whole host of other issues MKS has. I think you're wrong. I think the reason for Lincoln's failures have been 60% interior appointments and 40% exterior styling.

Oh, and I'm also curious how going unibody will help the Navigator drop 1,000 lbs. when the difference in that test between the GL and the Navigator is only 500lbs and the GL is a good bit smaller (6 inches shorter in height and length, 2 inches narrower in girth).

What a steaming pile of fanboyism. I'm sure Cadillac will miss all 11 of those GL600 sales. Again, they can't even make enough Escalades to meet demand. Cadillac is getting known for their supercharged V8s... so IF Cadillac were to do a V-series Escalade to go up against the AMG G-Class they could go that route... My guess, if they feel the need for a GL550 competitor, they'll use a version of the TTV8... 4.0 liters at around 500 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque.

Cadillac is about to launch the CTS-V.... I'm sure she has some pull with Johan.

FWD based and transverse mounting have nothing to do with the luxury of the car... and when 80% of BWW 1-Series owners think their car is FWD that should really tell you something. Your blame is misdirected. You want to pin the failure of certain Lincoln models on the fact that they were front wheel drive, but in fact it was neglect on the rest of the car by Lincoln that caused the demise. When the Continental switched from RWD to FWD in 1988 it went from Zero to Hero. I owned an '85 Continental and really liked the car, but they were an absolute sales dud. When the FWD '88 Continental came on the scene, it was a huge sales surge and success for Lincoln. What happened? Lincoln neglected the car. They left it without refreshes for too long and didn't offer an option of a V8 for the entirety of the first FWD generation. A 140hp V6 in 1988 was questionable and a 160hp V6 in 1994 was suicide. Even the Ford Tempo and Chevrolet Cavalier came with a 140hp V6 in 1994. Also, Lincoln let the interiors of these cars age ungracefully. That, along with wide spread issues with the air suspension turned off a lot of buyers when the 1995 model came around. The second FWD generation ran for 7 years... again neglected by Lincoln with only minor updates and a decidedly unluxury-like interior that could have served duty in the Windstar better than the Continental, the Continental name was put to rest in favor of the Lincoln LS. The switch to RWD couldn't save that car from Lincoln's neglect and it was canceled after 6 years with basically zero updates. The MKS is an embarrassment to the brand, not because of which wheels drive the car, but because of the so-called luxury appointments. The same story repeats itself, nearly verbatim, over at Cadillac. Though Cadillac had the sense to use 8-cylinder engines, the HT4100 was a reliability disaster on top of being low on power. The downsized models in 1986 were not well received, but when the '92 Eldorado and '92 Seville came out, Cadillac was really back in the game. Again sales soared. Again Cadillac ignored. They let the Eldorado go for 10 years with only minor updates. Imagine driving into a Cadillac dealership in 2002 in your 1992 Eldorado and driving out in basically the same car but with zero miles!! The Seville fared better with a redesign and platform change in 1998, but by that time the drum beat for Cadillac to become the American BMW was too strong to overcome. The reasons these cars eventually failed has nothing to do with which wheels drove the car. The Catera, the LS, the Mark VIII, the S-Type, the STS, the first SRX, the Q45, the M35/45, the J35, the GS, the K900, and I'm sure more that I'm not remembering, all have failed hard.... and they're all RWD. What matters most is the experience. If the Continental can deliver the luxury Lincoln is promising with AWD and sufficient performance. Buyers will come and not care which way the engine is facing.

not that there's anything wrong with that....

Driving a car without active cruise control after logging 700+ miles in a car with it.... is difficult.

I believe it is selling on both aspects. If it was a crappy truck, it wouldn't sell despite price and size. i loved the Z71 I rove and it had basically everything I would want plus some. Well... no... I feel that the GM trucks are rather expensive for their size. As some have pointed out, full-size trucks aren't much more expensive. The GMers are selling in-spite of their price... not because they are cheap.

I'm one of those who doesn't care what metal the block is made of or how it goes about making its power as long as it makes its power in a way that is satisfactory to me. No direct injection or VVT? Don't care as long as it returns the power I want with competitive fuel economy. In that regard, the Hemi still has it. They can add direct injection to the Pentastar, but it is already getting fantastic fuel economy and usually better than the LFX... and it did even when it was running a 5-speed auto. The Hemi and the Pentastar are two bright spots at FCA. FCA needs to concentrate on an all-new 4-cylinder family and do it now.

The GM trucks aren't selling on price, they are selling on smaller size. There are plenty of people who would like to have a truck but don't want to wheel around the behemoths the 1/2-ton models have become.

I feel the same way! This kind of car(unless I plan on competing in it) should be a manual transmission car. I understand how superior the auto is but that doesn't make it a more fun car. It makes it less fun. Even if I'm on a track I want a manual. The only time I want the auto would be is I was seriously competing and every tenth counted, for whatever reason. ..also coming from a man in a mommy-mobile.. Also, the 8spd is only faster than the Porsche DCT at full throttle upshifts(I know that is when it counts the most) not all of the time, just pointing that out. I guess..... in such a car I would just pick the version that got me the best performance regardless.... As if you(or me) could extract all 650hp correctly anyway..lol If one transmission lets me get closer than the other... then sure.

And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon. More power doesn't always mean better results.... and with the GLs FloatMatic suspension, the only performance metric a 550 version might win is in the straight line.

Clearly not. There are currently plenty that are still failing in spite of it.

The lumps under the camouflage mules that are running around suggest that the exterior will be almost spot on with the concept in shape.

RWD is the answer, it is just that Cadillac doesn't have brand cache and they just now are moving to 8-speed transmission and they don't have hybrids, diesels, DOHC V8, V12, convertible, etc. Their product line is still thin and powertrains to reliant on what Chevy uses. Lincoln will not be able to sell this car in the $60-80k range if that is the target price, too high for a fwd based car. As far as China goes, The Continental or CT6 won't sell there because they don't have 4 rings on the grille. If RWD is "The Answer™®©", why hasn't Infiniti, Genesis sedan, Jaguar, and the K900, taken off? (and, in fact, the most growth Infiniti had experienced has come from FWD models) Could it be that maybe there is more to it than a singular trait on the car?

The reason the mid-size truck market died is because the products were left to rot on the vine. That's why there were no sales. GM is proving the existence of a market now with worthy products.

I can return the favor from earlier, my girlfriend does ASMR all the time to wind down before bed. My favorite vids are by a person named "Heather Feather." She has some odd roll playing that I'm not into, but she also has several guided meditations and one called an "aural message" that will relax you from head to toe, it's crazy! Gotta use headphones though to get the best effect. I've used a series called The Meditation Podcast for years to help me sleep. They use something called binaural beats, but it's nothing like this ASMR stuff. The two series I found online also have a bit of odd roleplay scenarios, but at least last night, I found them far more effective than what I was using previously.

Depends. As much as I like the new 5.3, I would have a hard time picking it over a Hemi + 8speed. And I'd pick a Jeep GC with a Pentastar over any of the Lambdas. Lacrosse V6 v. 300c V6.... Powertrains feel about equal, but I prefer the 300 for other reasons. On 4-cylinders, it's GM all the way.

So I've done directed audio meditation for years to help deal with the stress and anxiety I get at work. Today I stumbled on something called ASMR on youtube. It is basically people whispering a simulated conversation to you and making various very soft sounds like scratching or tapping on either side of a stereo microphone. It seems really really strange at first... but then I feel like "hey! this might actually be working!" The kicker: I found it while looking for a video of a carnival band organ.... something exactly the opposite in volume as this ASMR stuff.

Try EWR, LGA, JFK, PHL, DCA, ORD, and MIA.... just a small sampling of my typical haunts. The reason Cadillac is moving away from the XTS is that it no longer fits the image they want to convey. Lincoln is specifically going after "Quiet Luxury"

Also true... but being used as an airport shuttle doesn't seem to hamper S-Class sales.

that sounds like a question for Dodgefan... maybe he'll wander in here

I really don't think people getting picked up to go to the airport or the opera care about the platform under the car as long as the car is luxurious enough for them