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Cadillac Doesn't Need The Blackwing
Cadillac Doesn't Need The Blackwing-July 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:12:28

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Cadillac showed its new stick shift , with a twin-turbo V6 and supercharged V8. I guess they’re meant to be Cadillac’s swan song for internal combustion today. I couldn’t be happier.

My coworker , including a nice look at their twin-plate clutch and an easter egg hiding on the limited-slip diff.

This is the end. Cadillac, a brand with a rich history of stuffing gigantic gasoline motors under…

It’s a treat to see what feels like almost old-school performance car tech coming out brand new, as David wrote:

The auto industry is , so it feels a bit strange for Cadillac to be debuting two entirely-conventional flagship sedans. But this is the last stand for performance gasoline Cadillacs, and my god is GM’s premium brand going out swinging.

The thing is, I’m glad that this looks to be the end for gasoline performance for Cadillac. It’s last thing the company needs.

Cadillac has been running this game for decades. Make an outstanding chassis, have it look sharp and drive sharper, with modern design on a retro layout. Ever since the first CTS-V in, god, 2004, we’ve had this rear-drive/V8 format. Has Cadillac “taken on the Germans” in any meaningful way? Of course not. Cadillac makes its bones selling SUVs and crossovers. Nobody’s buying an XT5 or XT6 because they think it handles better than a BMW, and I don’t think they’re buying it because of the V cars sitting on the other side of the showroom floor.

If you’re curious about Cadillac’s model-by-model breakdown, . Cadillac sold more than twice as many XT5s (its best seller) as CT5s, seven times as many XT6s as CT6s.

Clearly, sedans aren’t doing it for the brand, and the high-performance variants aren’t helping one bit. What Cadillac needs is effective, efficient, luxurious transportation. Something stylish, something techy, something quiet.

You could make the case for that meaning electric cars. Cadillac would do better being the company that gives us the first full-size all-electric SUV with meaningful range; something desirable. Something GM could show off. Something that isn’t even available at the BMW dealership on the other side of town. I’m not sure that image is achievable if Cadillac is still selling supercharged V8s.

Take, for example, the one car in the Cadillac lineup that still feels like a Cadillac. The only one that reads as a Cadillac on the road: big, opulent, imposing. , and if it was electric, nobody would notice or care.

Dear GM, there is only one proper Cadillac left and it's the Escalade. You're debuting the 2015…

And even if you think Cadillac’s push into all-electric-everything is a mistake, you can’t really argue that V cars are helping the brand one way or another. could have gone to promoting something people actually want. Something like SuperCruise! Something like interiors that don’t make you clunk up on cheap plastics! Something that feels good.

There’s been some buzz (from us as well as our friends at Road & Track and The Drive) about how…

The Blackwings are fan service at best, a distraction at worst. It’s time to leave these cars behind.

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