Sunday, February 22, 2004

V is for Victory?

Cadillac - 100 years of Innovation

I've got to hand it to Cadillac. They're making the effort. Their new CTS-V sports sedan -- a tricked-out version of the stealth-fighteresque CTS -- boasts a whopping 400 horsepower and 395 ft-lbs. of torque. Serious by any standard.

Priced under $50K (sticker), my real metric for the V's success will be reliability. Plain and simple, every person I know who's owned a Cadillac -- myself included -- has had major issues. We're talking fuel pumps, water pumps, brake systems, you name it. And, frequently, with well under 100K miles on the odometer.

They say GM has matched Japanese quality. I say: prove it. For years I read the Consumer Reports auto reviews with the black and red circles indicating reported problems. You could glance at a page and figure out which vehicles were American simply by the predominant color on the page. I hope things have improved since those days.

Cadillac - 100 years of Innovation

The V will be a good test case. It's up against a supercar (BMW's M3) that is on every enthusiast's short-list. The V will end up either a joke (and an obscure footnote in automotive history) unless Cadillac really gets the quality game mastered.

Sold my coupe, bought a CTS-V

Sunday Funnies

Dilbert!I
could be wrong, but I think this is one of a series of public-service posters produced by Microsoft in the 50's.

Classic

1
classic Dilbert cartoon.

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