2013 Cadillac Xts Luxury on 2040-cars

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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Cadillac moving to NY as separate business unit

Cadillac is under new leadership, and the automaker is committed to turning itself (back) into a global luxury powerhouse. It's got a strong product offensive (of products currently in showrooms, and much more on the way), and now it will have a new location to call home.
Following earlier speculation, GM has confirmed that it is moving Cadillac's base of operations from Detroit to New York. Lest you think it might rent offices in the Chrysler Building (which is, after all, one of the tallest in the city), the new Cadillac global headquarters will be located in the Soho area with a "multipurpose brand and event space in conjunction with modern loft offices." The company is still evaluating which staff will move along with it to Manhattan, and which will remain in Michigan where technical operations will still be based.
The move from Detroit to New York is the first major change being instituted by new Cadillac chief Johan de Nysschen, who previously undertook a similar shift in moving Infiniti away from Nissan headquarters to its own facility in Hong Kong. Ford had attempted a similar move in relocating its luxury portfolio under the Premier Automotive Group (which then included Lincoln, Mercury, Land Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Volvo) from Dearborn to Irvine, CA, but ended up moving Lincoln (the last one still under the Ford umbrella) back to Michigan. Other luxury automakers like Audi (Volkswagen) and Maserati (Fiat) are headquartered away from their parent companies as well, but have a longer history of independent operation.

GM invests $175 million to replace 3 Cadillac sedans with 2

We've already had confirmation that Cadillac is sunsetting the ATS compact sedan and strong hints that Caddy would discontinue the full-size XTS (pictured above) and midsize CTS, too. Now all three are confirmed, with GM saying it's investing $175 million to build two replacement sedans. GM has already begun installing new tooling at its Lansing Grand River assembly plant in Michigan. That will go toward building two new sedans, which reports suggest are likely to be called the Cadillac CT5 and CT4, or possibly the CT3. It's part of Cadillac's plan to introduce a new vehicle every six months by the end of 2021. A spokesman told the Associated Press that the new cars will debut within that time frame and that the changes won't affect staffing levels at the plant, which employs 2,000 people. Of the three, the XTS is expected to go away entirely, while the CT5 would replace the CTS, straddling the line between a compact and midsize four-door. The CT4 or CT3 would take the spot of the ATS and likely be smaller. That would leave the CT6 as the brand's largest sedan and leave Cadillac with three sedans starting with the 2019 model year. Meanwhile, Cadillac has only one model, its top-selling XT5, representing the all-important and red-hot luxury crossover segment. It's prepping a midsize XT4 crossover for sale later this year as a 2019 model. Cadillac's global sales rose 15.5 percent in 2017, thanks largely to growth in China, but sales in the U.S. fell 8 percent for the year to 156,440 vehicles. Sales of the ATS fell 39 percent, dropped 35 percent for the CTS and 27 for the XTS last year. Related Video: