2001 Cadillac Deville Base Limousine 4-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Cadillac toned down ATS Coupe design due to customer feedback [w/poll]

Automakers always face a difficult decision when it comes to styling their cars. Design them too blandly and nobody will get excited about them. But style them too aggressively and they'll often end up turning off potential buyers.
Cadillac, for its part, is no stranger to aggressive design, but when it came to the new ATS Coupe, it elected to tone things down a bit. Speaking with The Detroit News in a wide-ranging interview, Cadillac design director Bob Boniface revealed that the original design for its compact coupe was edgier - closer to that of the CTS Coupe - with a wedgier profile, a more steeply raked beltline and a more severe grille. But potential customers surveyed in clinics apparently didn't like it. They found it looked heavy, inefficient and not fun to drive. So Boniface and his team literally went back to the drawing board and "took as much visual mass out of the car as [they] could." The resulting coupe, while handsome, looks far more similar to its four-door companion than did Cadillac's CTS.
What do you think, does the new ATS Coupe look just right, or is it too conservative? Voice your opinion in our quick online poll.

Cadillac could 'flourish' in Australia, says marketing chief

Cadillac might have its best product mix in recent history, and GM's luxury brand is looking to expand. In fact, it might even be making a trip Down Under, at least according to the company's global marketing chief.
Uwe Ellinghaus spoke with Australian site Car Advice at the Geneva Motor Show and said the brand could be quite successful there. "[The] goodwill that the Cadillac brand has is such a good starting base that once we get proper volume commitment and a dealer network behind it we can easily flourish," he said, though he warned that the plans are still in their earliest stages and years away. First, Cadillac will expand in markets with the highest possible sales, like China and Russia.
Ellinghaus said that the most likely models for Oz would be the SRX, Escalade and CTS; the latter would probably act as a replacement for the Holden Commodore. GM's Australian arm is ending local production in 2017, and there have been many rumors about what is happening to the big sedan. However, Ellinghaus admits exporting cars from the US to Australia is going to mean higher prices. In addition to the expense, Cadillac doesn't currently build any right-hand-drive models. It would likely take until the end of the decade before the Aussie models could be ready.

We really want to use an eCrate to restomod an old GM car. Here's what we'd build

You hopefully saw the news today of GM's introduction of its Connect and Cruise eCrate motor and battery package, which effectively makes the Bolt's electric motor, battery pack and myriad other elements available to, ah, bolt into a different vehicle. It's the same concept as installing a gasoline-powered crate motor into a classic car, but with electricity and stuff.  This, of course, got us thinking about what we'd stuff the eCrate into. Before we got too ahead of ourselves, however, we discovered that the eCrate battery pack is literally the Bolt EV pack in not only capacity but size and shape. In other words, you need to have enough space in the vehicle to place and/or stuff roughly 60% of a Chevy Bolt's length. It's not a big car, but that's still an awful lot of real estate. There's a reason GM chose to simply plop the pack into the bed and cargo area of old full-size SUVs. Well that, and having a rear suspension beefy enough to handle about 1,000 pounds of batteries.  So after that buzz kill, we still wanted to peruse the GM back catalog for classics we'd love to see transformed into an electric restomod that might be able to swallow all that battery ... maybe ... possibly ... whatever, saws and blow torches exist for a reason.  1971 Buick Riviera Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski: If you’re going to build an electric conversion, why not do it with style? ThatÂ’s why IÂ’m choosing a 1971-1973 Buick Riviera. You know, the one with the big glass boat-tail rear end that ends in a pointy V. Being a rather large vehicle with a big sloping fastback shape, IÂ’m hoping thereÂ’s enough room in the trunk and back seat to pack in the requisite battery pack. That would likely require cutting away some of the metal bulkhead that supports the rear seatback, but not so much that a wee bit of structural bracing couldnÂ’t shore things up. The big 455-cubic-inch Buick V8 up front will obviously have to go. Remember, this was the 1970s, so despite all that displacement, the Riviera only had around 250 horsepower (depending on the year and the trim level). So the electric motorÂ’s 200 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque ought to work as an acceptable replacement.   1982 Chevrolet S10 Associate Editor Byron Hurd: OK, so the name "E-10" is already taken by a completely different truck, but let's not let labels get in the way of a fun idea.