1960 Cadillac Sedan Deville on 2040-cars

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Don Draper's 1965 Cadillac Coupe de Ville up for auction

Few have ever nor ever will embody the sheer confidence and style of Don Draper, the main character on the hit AMC drama Mad Men. But if you can't quite match his style, at least you can drive his car. Now that the series has now concluded its eight-year run, the studio behind it is selling off a whole mess of artifacts from the show through ScreenBid, a specialist Hollywood memorabilia auctioneer. There's a good 1,300 lots up for grabs, from props to costumes. But the lot that's caught our attention is this 1965 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Don picked this car up in the fifth season and drove it until the penultimate episode. These are the wheels he (spoiler alert!) drove across the country, got repaired in Oklahoma, and ultimately gave to a kid working at the motel before making his way by bus to the Bonneville Salt Flats in the final episode. At the time of writing, bidding had reached $25,000 with four days still to go. Cadillac first used the de Ville as a trim level on the Series 62 before spinning it off into its own model line. 1965 was the first year of the third-generation de Ville, stretching a massive 224 inches (over 18 and a half feet!) long. Powering over 4,600 pounds of personal American luxury was an equally massive 7.0-liter V8 that drove 340 horsepower through a three-speed automatic transmission. The name wasn't retired until 2005 when the final DeVille (as it was styled by then) was replaced by the DTS, which itself was shorthand for DeVille Touring Sedan. Cadillac produced the last DTS in 2011, finally putting to rest a name that had, in one form or another, been used since 1949. Few cars had the kind of presence that the third-gen Coupe de Ville did, though, and Draper knew it. Or at least the show's producers did.

Beast mode on the open road: New presidential limo close to delivery

Signs of the Beast have been seen on the open roads around Milford, Mich., home of GM's Proving Grounds. The Beast, in this case, being the nickname for the next-generation presidential limousine. We've seen this car previously in spy shots while parked or driven, going back to January 2016. This is our spy photographers' latest look at the vehicle, and the first on public roads. Which may be a sign that it is almost ready for delivery. It replaces the current Beast, which has been in use since 2009. And "car" isn't exactly the right word for this rig, as it's actually a unique vehicle with Cadillac styling cues custom-built atop a medium-duty truck frame. There may possibly be more than one Beast 2.0 delivered, because two limos are sent anywhere the president goes, to provide a backup or decoy. The grille has touches of the Cadillac Escala concept car, which is heavily influencing Cadillac's evolving future look. But it's what's inside that intrigues everyone. Here's what we know, or at least has long been rumored, about the current Beast and the new Beast 2.0. 1. It has its own airplane. It and its twin follow the president around the globe aboard a C-17 Globemaster cargo plane. 2. It's heavily armored, with 5-inch-thick glass, 8-inch-thick doors that weigh as much as a commercial aircraft door, and its components include titanium, ceramics, and a bombproof plate that covers the underside. As such, the old Beast was estimated to weigh between 14,000 and 20,000 pounds. You can therefore imagine how it got its name. 3. It's equipped like the Batmobile or the Green Hornet's Chrysler Imperial Crown, with run-flat tires and night-vision gear. It can fire gas canisters out the front bumper. 4. It has a diesel engine because of its weight and size (see the gallery below for a sense of scale). And of course, diesel is less flammable in a firefight. The old Beast supposedly gets 8 mpg. 5. Its Secret Service codename is Stagecoach. 6. There's a shotgun by the driver and God-knows-what in the trunk. 7. It supposedly has a stock of blood in the president's type, along with a defibrillator and other emergency gear. 8. And it's pretty nice inside, by all accounts. Since this is not Trump's own personal vehicle and may well serve his successor, let's assume the gold leaf has been kept to a minimum and it's done up in tasteful leather and wood. But then again, who really knows, outside of the Secret Service and a handful of GM engineers.

Hotter Cadillac CT5-V prototype spotted with a manual transmission

Fans of the old Cadillac CTS-V (and high-performance sedans in general) may have something to be excited about. A series of interior photos leaked Tuesday reveal that prototypes of the forthcoming higher-output variant of the CT5-V Sedan have been equipped with a manual gearbox. Exclusive: Photos show the wilder Cadillac CT5-V will have a manual transmissionhttps://t.co/Ta8hZ804eg — The Drive (@thedrive) March 10, 2020 Photos obtained by our friends at The Drive show a partially camouflaged CT5-V prototype with a full interior and what appears to be a manual gear selector. While the shifter and its boot are partially obscured by a plastic covering, it's obvious that the knob is not the same one paired with Cadillac's automatic gearboxes, such as the one featured in our expertly augmented photo above.  This is not the first time the potential for a stick-shift option in the new, higher-end "V" cars has been floated. Rumors suggesting that the as-yet-unnamed higher-output CT4-V and CT5-V models might be so-equipped (at least optionally) circulated late in 2019. This, in addition to significantly higher power outputs and revised suspensions will set them apart dramatically from the base CT4-V and CT5-V, which are intended to compete with the likes of the Audi "S" line of vehicles.  CT4-V spied View 40 Photos GM has been quite cagey when it comes to details about these new models. We know they'll follow in the footsteps of previous-generation "V" cars, which were aimed squarely at Europe's powerhouse sport sedans. The hotter CT5 variant is expected to employ the automaker's 6.2-liter supercharged V8, which made 640 horsepower in the now-dead CTS-V.  We reached out to Cadillac for comment and were told by a spokesperson, "The ultra-performance variants of our Cadillac CT5-V and CT4-Vs are still under development.  We will have more details to share in the next few weeks and the CT5-V and CT4-V ultra-performance versions will debut later this year. Until then, I can only confirm that these cars will build on V-SeriesÂ’ respected legacy." Hopefully, GM won't make us wait too much longer for official details of these new high-performance models, including what we should expect in terms of powertrain availability and launch timing. Stay tuned. Related Video: