Cadillac's target customer: Union thugs and pimps.
Posted on 10/24/2014 12:13:24 PM PDT by all the best
Mourn with me.
Cadillac – Cadillac! – no longer sells a single car powered by a V-8 engine. Or such will be the case in about two months, when 2014 fades to 2015. Come Jan. 1, all new Cadillac cars will be powered by fours or sixes. Some will be turbocharged. But none will larger than 3.6 liters.
The last of the V-8 Caddys – the (very) limited production CTS-V sedan/wagon – is being retired. There appears to be a replacement on deck for 2016, but the continued politically viability of V-8 engines within the system (so to speak) is shaky. Not because people don’t want the power. But because government demands “economy” – creating an impossible Catch 22 situation.
The 6.2 liter V-8 in the current (2014) CTS-V produces 556 magnificent horsepower – more horsepower than any ’60s-era muscle car (including the halo’d Chrysler 426 Street Hemi). But its Achilles Heel in this misbegotten age – in which government bureaucrats and political hacks decree car design via regulatory edicts as opposed to the freely expressed wishes of the people who buy the cars – is its hunger for fuel. The CTS-V’s EPA mileage stats are the modern-day equivalent of a racist joke caught on mike: 14 city, 19 highway.conan pic
Hear the lamentations of the women.
And so, GM – like every other automaker – is scrambling to “apologize” for its sins – atonement coming in the form of much smaller (but ironically only slightly more economical) not-V-8s such as the 3.6 liter V-6 that will be the mainstay powerplant in future Cadillac “V” (high-performance) vehicles.
Instead of 556 hp, 420 hp. But hey, 21 city and 31 highway will be your reward. Is it a fair exchange? The loss of 136 hp, two cylinders and 2.6 liters’ worth of engine in exchange for a 7 MPG uptick in city driving – and 12 on the highway?
Mom had a beautiful Silver Teal Metallic Olds Aurora with the Autobahn package and the Cadillac Northstar engine.
Loved driving that car... the driver’s position was like being in an aircraft cockpit... and talk about Balls. Sadly she replaced it a few years ago for an Envoy... it only had 58k on the OD... but was having electrical problems related to a gasket leak in the windshield.
I also remember seeing Cash for Clunkers videos where they were taking perfectly good Auroras and running them wide open with water and sand in the crankcase to failure. It made me sick to my stomach that ANYONE would do such a thing.
Cadillac's target customer: Union thugs and pimps.
Yep, CAFE standards. Toyota is doing the same thing.
Where was this writer 25 years ago?
I owned the last Chrysler car with a V-8 engine (1989 Chrysler 5th Avenue [318ci]) for about two decades. When the M-bodies were phased out and the LH platform came in, NONE of the vehicles had a V-8, not the Intrepid, not the Concorde, not the New Yorker/LHS. Certainly no V-8s went into the Cirrus/Stratus/Sebrings. Not even the Chrysler 300M, which did NOT sport the 300 hp that is normally emblematic of a 300 letter car. Only in 2004 did a V8 come back in a Chrysler automobile.
(Notes: The Dodge Viper had a V-10. The V-8 360 engine was available only in trucks.)
I was told by a Mopar expert that the 425 hp out of 426 cu in rating was a joke. For some reason Chrysler wanted to keep the motor rated below 1 hp per cu in. It may have been insurance. The actual hp was much higher.
That 455 stock is a pig compared to many on the road todat. Even the 6 cylmustang would shame it.
I still have an K5 blazer with a 350 4bbl that I spin over every so often. It’s a bucket of bolts that had it’s day years ago but it’s nice to hear classic dual exhaust despite a bit of lifter chatter.
I have a project CJ7 with a probable dead in line 6. Having an 8 cylinder would be nice but probably not really practical.
More government via bureaucracy.
That's a pretty significant fuel savings and 420 horsepower is nothing not sneeze at.
420hp and 31mpg highway? Try to imagine telling any SAE engineer that in about 1974.
True, but even so, anything near 400 is still a LOT of power for anyone.
HP ratings have changed since then. 420 now was like 450 or 460 then
Engine horsepower and wheel horsepower are not the same thing. An engine with high horsepower and less torque would need to have a transmission that could put that kind of power to the wheels. Besides, with all the computer controls, even the most reckless Cadillac owner would have whatever horsepower and torque the car is capable of “handled” for them.
Cadillac used to be a distinctive car, and pretty good quality too, with solid bodies and good engines.
Now Cads mostly look like cheapo rental cars in the lot at the discount (off-airport) place...
and their body metal is about as sutstantial as Reynolds sandwich wrap.
if you want a cheap Chevy, just buy a cheap Chevy and save yourself a ton of $$
“from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”
Which inevitably renders this corollary, invented in the Soviet union:
“we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”
Communism sucks.
CC
Engines are far different now than they used to be. Formula One cars have gone from V10s to V8s to now V6s.
I love V8s. I rebuilt a 1941 Ford Business Coupe with a flathead V8 tuned with 1950s circle track racing parts.
But time moves on.
If you can get more horsepower out of a lighter unit, all the better. Big block engines in muscle cars made for absolutely dreadful cornering. Great in a straight line, but there’s more to driving than drag races.
With the traction control and automatic trannys of today, it's quite effortless. I know many girls here in NYC who drive 400+ hp cars around the city and they're far from “car girls”.
“The last of the V-8 Caddys – the (very) limited production CTS-V sedan/wagon – is being retired. There appears to be a replacement on deck for 2016”
Will the replacement be a smaller cubed V8? Maybe a 5.3L?
I’m looking at the new Ford Transit and there’s no V8 in it. Beautiful vans, thou.
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