1965 Cadillac Deville Base Convertible 2-door 7.0l on 2040-cars

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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

2019 Cadillac ATS-V, CTS-V get cool color, weird name

A lot of special-edition cars are really not all that special. They consist of some special paint combo, and maybe a couple of optional features made standard. The Cadillac ATS-V and CTS-V Pedestal Editions are actually pretty much that. But they make up for the mild content list with a really nifty color, great exclusivity and also a weird name. They also help celebrate the ATS-V and CTS-V before they disappear from the line. First let's take a look at the color. It's a shade called Bronze Sand Metallic. It's an earthy, dark brown with a yellow-green tinge to it. We suspect it probably looks more impressive in sunlight, and it's unlike most browns we've ever seen. It's sure to garner attention in any parking lot stuffed with black, silver and white luxury cars. It's matched with sand-colored ultrasuede inserts and bronze-threaded carbon fiber trim on the interior that look sumptuous. Each also comes with carbon fiber exterior trim, red brake calipers, and the CTS-V adds the performance data recorder and Luxury Package. The name really is strange, though. Cadillac says, "The special-edition variants are named in tribute to Cadillac V-Series' time spent at the pinnacle of luxury high-performance." So it seems the thinking was that these cars are up on a pedestal compared with other performance luxury cars. But even in that sentence from Cadillac, there's a word that would be better and more recognizable for excellence: pinnacle. We can think of other great words for marking the peak or the top of performance and luxury, words such as "apex" or "climax." Well, maybe not that one. One of the big appeals of these cars is that there won't be many of them. There will only be 300 built, and that's the total between the ATS-V coupe and CTS-V sedan. The final total for each model will be determined by orders. Ordering opens up on the first week of November, with production coming at the end of that month. The cars will only be available to buyers in the U.S., Canada and the Middle East. There are significant price differences between the two cars. The ATS-V coupe starts at $77,090, while the CTS-V starts at $102,590. That puts the ATS-V at roughly $10,000 more than a base model, and the CTS-V at roughly $12,000 more than its base model. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2019 Cadillac ATS-V and CTS-V Pedestal Edition View 9 Photos Image Credit: Cadillac Cadillac Coupe Luxury Performance Sedan cadillac ats-v

Cadillac Escalade driven by Tony Soprano for sale

If you're a fan of The Sopranos imagining a trip to the Bada Bing, then check out this white 2003 Cadillac Escalade ESV for sale by RR Auction. James Gandolfini drove this luxury SUV in the role of Tony Soprano for the last three seasons of the mafia-themed series. Gandolfini also signed the interior to give you something to show off to your buddies. If you've ever watched the show, you've almost certainly seen this white SUV before. According to the auction listing, the series featured two Escalades, and this one was used for exterior shots. The Caddy even starred in an action scene in season 5 when Tony chased after Phil Leotardo. Gandolfini's signature appears inside twice: once with "Thanks for the truck, James Gandolfini" and again with just his name. The auction also includes a letter of authenticity that's signed by the actor, and a second document asserts the SUV's use in the series. Apparently, Gandolfini had a habit of signing messages in his vehicles from the show – at one point he wrote a threatening "Be nice to my car" message in a red Chevrolet Suburban from earlier episodes. The auction for Tony's Escalade runs from November 12-19, which still leaves plenty of time for a meeting of the families to decide to buy it. Bidding starts at $5,000, and according to The Drive, the consignor estimates a final price between $30,000 and $50,000. This sale should at least come to a more definitive end than The Sopranos did. Related Video: