2007 Cadillac Escalade Limousine By Legendary 20 Passenger on 2040-cars

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Drive like a prince: Join us for a walk through Monaco's car collection

Small, crowded, and a royal pain in the trunk lid to drive into during rush hour, Monaco sounds like an improbable location for a huge car museum. And yet, this tiny city-state has been closely linked to car culture for over a century. It hosts two major racing events every year, many of its residents would qualify for a frequent shopper card if Rolls-Royce issued one, and Prince Rainier III began assembling a collection of cars in the late 1950s. He opened his collection to the public in 1993 and the museum quickly turned into a popular tourist attraction. The collection continued to grow after his death in April 2005; it moved to a new facility located right on Hercules Port in July 2022. Monaco being Monaco, you'd expect to walk into a room full of the latest, shiniest, and most powerful supercars ever to shred a tire. That's not the case: while there is no shortage of high-horsepower machines, the first cars you see after paying ˆ10 (approximately $11) to get in are pre-war models. In that era, the template for the car as we know it in 2023 hadn't been created, so an eclectic assortment of expensive and dauntingly experimental machines roamed whatever roads were available to them. One is the Leyat Helica, which was built in France in 1921 with a 1.2-liter air-cooled flat-twin sourced from the world of aviation. Fittingly, the two-cylinder spun a massive, plane-like propeller. Government vehicles get a special spot in the museum. They range from a Cadillac Series 6700 with an amusing blend of period-correct French-market yellow headlights and massive fins to a 2011 Lexus LS 600h with a custom-made transparent roof panel that was built by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet for Prince Albert II's wedding. Here's where it all gets a little weird: you've got a 1952 Austin FX3, a Ghia-bodied 1959 Fiat 500 Jolly, a 1960 BMW Isetta, and a 1971 Lotus Seven. That has to be someone's idea of a perfect four-car garage.  One of the most significant cars in the collection lurks in the far corner of the main hall, which is located a level below the entrance. At first glance, it's a kitted-out Renault 4CV with auxiliary lights, a racing number on the front end, and a period-correct registration number issued in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France. It doesn't look all that different than the later, unmodified 4CV parked right next to it. Here's what's special about it: this is one of the small handful of Type 1063 models built by Renault for competition.

Cadillac's de Nysschen takes aim at Porsche 911, Cayenne

Johan de Nysschen has big plans for Cadillac. He's moved the brand from Detroit to New York, revamped its model nomenclature, and planning a raft of new models for the near future – including a $250,000 luxury sedan to take on the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. But the veteran executive of luxury automakers has some more performance-oriented machinery in mind, too. Speaking with Car and Driver at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week, de Nysschen suggested Cadillac could be ready to launch a flagship sports car sometime in the next decade. The halo model would take aim at the Porsche 911 and do for Cadillac what Audi did with the R8, Mercedes is doing with the AMG GT and Acura once did (and is aiming to do again) with the NSX. Just what form it would take remains a big unknown, but de Nysschen indicated that the brand would need to be built up further before the sports car would be launched, lest it emerge too detached from Cadillac's image. The last time Cadillac delved into that territory was with the Corvette-based XLR, of which it sold only 15,000 or so examples – far below initial targets. The 911 rival isn't the only performance model de Nysschen has in mind, however. He plans to further expand the V series into a more substantial sub-brand to include a crossover to take on the likes of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, BMW X5 M and all those many AMG-tuned Mercedes utilities. The idea of an entry-level model to slot in below the ATS was mooted as well. A range of diesel engines are slated to help Cadillac break into overseas markets in similar fashion to how Maserati has expanded its market reach with oil-burning versions of the Ghibli and Quattroporte. And we wouldn't be surprised to see Cadillac get in on a new flagship SUV being launched by Opel in Europe, either.

Cadillac ELR regen on demand brakes win 2014 Green Car Technology award

Just like the Oscars, Green Car Journal decided a few years ago to up the number of nominees for its annual award. For the annual "Green Car of the Year" award, given out at the Los Angeles Auto Show each year, there are five finalists. For the "Green Car Technology" award, there are a fantastic ten. At the 2014 Washington Auto Show today, the Cadillac ELR and its regen on demand brakes managed to beat out the nine other finalists to claim the second annual "Green Car Technology" award. What is the purpose of the "Green Car Technology" award? Green Car Journal says it wants to reward "technologies that enable significantly improved environmental performance in vehicles today," which is why only fuel-saving technologies that were "in use on American highways during the award year" can be considered. The Caddy's brakes beat out the Acura Sport Hybrid SH-AWD powertrain, the Audi 3.0-liter turbodiesel engine, the BMW carbon-fiber passenger shell from the i3, the 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine used by Ford, the plug-in hybrid powertrain in the Honda Accord, Hyundai's hydrogen fuel cell technology, the regenerative brakes in the Mazda i-ELOOP, the plug-in hybrid powertrain used in some Porsche models and, finally, the Ram 3.0-Liter EcoDiesel engine. Last year, Green Car Journal gave Mazda's Skyactiv technology the inaugural Green Car Technology award. Cadillac ELR Regen On Demand Wins 2014 Green Car Technology Award Green Car Journal Lauds Cadillac's Electric Car Tech at Washington Auto Show WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Cadillac's innovative Regen on Demand technology has taken top honors as the winner of Green Car Journal's 2014 Green Car Technology Award™. The prestigious award was presented at a Green Car Journal press conference during the Washington Auto Show's second Policy Day. "Cadillac has cleverly evolved a common electric-drive efficiency system into an intriguing feature that adds a new dimension to the driving experience," said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and CarsOfChange.com. "Ever-increasing efficiency is crucial to our driving future, yet efficiency itself is not an attraction for a great many car buyers.