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Despite De Nysschen saying it won't, Cadillac cuts struggling CTS prices

Ah, well that didn't last long. Not even two years after elevating the price of the then-new third-generation Cadillac CTS by $7,000, the company is now stepping back, telling dealers it will be slashing the price of the 2015 model by anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. It seems that there are two reasons behind Cadillac's move. First, and most obviously, are its slumping sales, down seven percent last year. That figure is made worse, Automotive News reports, by the seven-percent gain made by the greater luxury market, not to mention gains from fellow American luxury brand Lincoln. Cadillac, meanwhile, also likely faced pressure from its dealer body, which AN reports hasn't been so keen on the price increases. The price reduction is something of a surprise following statements made by Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen shortly after he took office. In September of last year, the 54-year-old exec, who took charge of Cadillac in July of 2014, defended the company's decision to raise prices, telling Automotive News a price cut was "not going to happen." It seems current conditions contradict de Nysschen's statements, though. "We're taking what we've seen are the more desirable optional features for customers and making them more readily available," Cadillac's Dave Caldwell said of the price cut. "Once a car has been on the market for a while, it's not unusual to look at the customer behavior and try to optimize for it." In what's sure to be a pleasant surprise for anyone in the market for a CTS, the most expensive models are getting the biggest price cut, with the price on the Premium and Performance Collection sedans dropping $3,000, AN reports. The 2.0T will get a $2,000 drop, while certain optional extras will now be standard on the Luxury trim, including a panoramic sunroof, navigation and Bose stereo.

Junkyard Gem: 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special Sedan

If you lived in North America in 1967 and you wanted to show the neighbors you'd clawed your way to the peak of the success pyramid, only one car would do: Cadillac Fleetwood. Today's Junkyard Gem is 4,685 pounds of General Motors luxury hardware, finally knocked off the road at age 53 by an unfortunate wreck and now residing in a Denver self-service wrecking yard. The Cadillac brand endured some rough years during the 1970s and 1980s, but rode high during the 1960s. The Fleetwood Sixty Special Sedan started at $6,423 in 1967, or just over $50,000 when figured using inflation-adjusted 2020 dollars. A Mercedes-Benz 250SE sedan set you back $6,385 that year, but it weighed barely half as much and packed just 148 horses against the Cad's 340. Really, you had to get a genuine Rolls-Royce to out-swank the Fleetwood-driving Joneses back then (the Lincoln Continental and Imperial didn't have quite the snob appeal at that time), and the Roller cost more than several Fleetwoods combined. This car has been around during its long life. On the windshield, we see 1980 and 1981 parking stickers from the Keeneland Club in Kentucky. This car was already 13 years old by that time, but still very classy. At some point, the car must have migrated to California. Here's a U.C. Berkeley sticker. This ancient In-N-Out sticker comes from the Southern California-only era of the famous hamburger chain. Sometimes it's tough to determine the reasons that an old car ended up in a place like this, but that's not a problem here. Let's hope the car's occupants had their belts on (lap belts only in 1967, but still better than nothing), because these old Detroit land yachts didn't have much in the way of energy-absorbing crumple zones. The paint and interior are quite rough, so this car depreciated from being worth perhaps a couple of grand to scrap value in an instant.  Cruise control was a very rare option in 1967, and this car has it. The famous Fleetwood triple-tone horns were still there when I got to this car. Under the hood, 429 cubic inches (7.0 liters) of super-smooth Cadillac pushrod V8. This engine grew to 472 and then 500 cubic inches during the following few years. The paint shows some great patina. Did I buy the horns? Of course I bought the horns — I always bring my trusty lightweight junkyard toolbox when I head out to shoot some Junkyard Gems. Related Video:

Cadillac introducing V2V communications on 2017 CTS sedans

While Audi has introduced vehicle-to-infrastructure technology in select cars in select cities, Cadillac is focusing on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, and it all starts with the CTS sedan. Starting this month, the company will be adding V2V equipment to 2017 models. The feature will be standard on cars in the US and Canada. These V2V devices will allow these new Cadillacs to communicate with each other up to 980 feet away. The cars will be able to transmit and receive information on speed, direction, and location. An example of how this data can be used is in detecting a car coming up a side street that could pose a possible collision risk. The cars will also be able to transmit data about brake use, hazard lights, and low traction situations for advance warning of hazards. The warnings can be displayed on the instrument panel and heads-up display. Currently, the system only communicates with other CTS sedans equipped with the technology. According to Chris Bonelli at Cadillac part of the reason is that the CTS will be the only car with the equipment on US roads at the moment, but it also isn't currently set to communicate with other cars if they were to be offered right away. However, he said that the company is absolutely willing to work with other companies to make the system compatible if or when other cars are offered with the technology. This V2V system also doesn't send data to any sort of network, instead only communicating with nearby cars. For the time being, this precludes the possibility of receiving road condition information from cars that are farther away. But as Cadillac points out, it should work under any conditions with no delay since it isn't dependent on information from a network. As far as security is concerned, Bonelli told us that the Cadillac system does have firewalls and other security measures to keep it protected from interference. He also said the cars don't store any data they receive. In addition, none of the data could be used to identify a particular person. The cars use a radio frequency set aside by the government for this use. The introduction of this technology also puts Cadillac well ahead of proposed legislation by the Department of Transportation. The organization wants this type of short-range V2V communications equipment to be a standard feature by 2023, believing the technology could prevent many injuries and deaths due to crashes. Related Video: