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Cadillac's XT6 is not, for better or worse, a mini Escalade

In its latest attempt at reinvention, Cadillac has created a trio of admirable sedans — the ATS, CTS, and CT6 — cars that challenge or beat the competition on their own terms, and do so with audacious exterior styling rendered in a distinctly American idiom. But American customers have been ditching cars in favor of high-riding crossovers, and what Cadillac has not had up until recently is a suite of appropriately (or bizarrely) sized crossovers to offer potential consumers, something competitors have been deploying for years or even decades. And so the new, full-size(ish) three-row Cadillac XT6, unveiled officially last week at an event in Detroit, is intended to help address the premier domestic automotive luxury brand's current product shortcomings. "I guess we had so many priorities and had to decide what's the most important thing," says Andrew Smith, Cadillac's executive director of design. "We decided to approach this one from an interior perspective, to do things like provide ease of use for owners, upgrade the infotainment, and allow time for ourselves to learn lessons from the launch of XT4." The XT6 doesn't exactly break any new ground within the segment, but that's not necessarily a criticism. Though huge from a sales perspective, the two-box crossover category is not the industry's leader in beauty or innovation. Still, Caddy's most recent previous crossover, the size-Small XT4, managed to create handsome proportions and a premium appearance at first glance. The XT6 doesn't feel quite so ambitious or coherent, with a front end that is at once sneering and soft, a lengthy flank that feints at muscularity without delivering, and a rather abrupt tailgate that blends the rectilinear and the anodyne. Maybe consumers won't notice? "Our biggest challenge was giving the vehicle a character that works on this scale and platform," says Smith. "We want to make sure all of our cars feel different. We didn't want it to be a mini Escalade. No one wants a mini anything. But we wanted to give it Escalade presence, but in scale. So it's this combination of nice, and aggressive. I'm convinced we will sell more than we think we'll sell." Maybe he's right, and we definitely don't see this vehicle cannibalizing sales of the Escalade. People who want a bold Cadillac can still get that one, and will have a brand new option later this year, we expect, when a new Escalade is released.

Best and Worst GM Cars

Oh yes, because we just love receiving angry letters from devoted Pontiac Grand Am enthusiasts, we have decided to go there. Based on a heated group Slack conversation, the topic came up about the best and worst GM cars. First of all time, and then those currently on sale, and then just mostly a rambling discussion of Oldsmobiles our parents and grandparents owned (or engineered). Eventually, three of us made the video above. Like it? Maybe we can make more. Many awesome GM cars are definitely going unmentioned here, so please let us know your bests and worsts in the comments below. Mostly, it's important to note that this post largely exists as a vehicle for delivering the above video that dives far deeper into GM's greatest hits and biggest flops, specifically those from the 1980s and 1990s. What you'll find below is a collection of our editors identifying a best current and best-of-all-time choice, plus a worst current and worst-of-all-time choice. Comprehensive it is not, but again, comments. -Senior Editor James Riswick Best Current GM Vehicle Chevrolet Corvette We were flying by the seats of our pants a bit in this first outing and my notes were similarly extemporaneous. When it came time to tie it all together on camera, I failed spectacularly. Thank the maker for text, because this gives me the opportunity to perhaps slightly better explain my convoluted reasoning. I chose the C8 Corvette because it's simply overwhelmingly good, and it's merely the baseline from which this generation of Corvette will be expanded.  While the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing (more on that in a minute) is an amazing snapshot of GM's current performance standing and its little sibling so enraptured me that I went out and bought one, their existence is fleeting. Corvette will live on; forced-induction Cadillac sport sedans, not so much. So while all three are amazing machines when viewed in a vacuum, the Corvette stands above them as both a reflection of GM's current performance credentials and a signpost of what is to come. So, given the choice between the C8 and the 5V-Blackwing right now, I'd choose the C8. In 10 years, when the Blackwing is no longer in production and Corvette is in its 9th generation? Well, that might be a different story. Now, just pretend I said something even remotely that coherent when we get to the part of the video where I try to make an argument for the 5-V Blackwing as best GM car I've ever driven. Or just laugh at me while I ramble incoherently.

Junkyard Gem: 1973 Cadillac Eldorado

The 1971-1978 Cadillac Eldorado was a gloriously ridiculous personal luxury coupe, packing a monstrous 500-cubic-inch V8 (that's 8.2 liters for you freedom-hating metric types) under its acre-sized hood for the first five years of production. Fuel economy was comfortably into single-digit territory, which meant you had to be a real high roller to be able to feed a new Eldo after OPEC turned off the oil spigot. I found this '73 in a Denver wrecking yard earlier this spring. View 18 Photos This car appears to have been sold new in Denver, and the extensive bodywork and sanded areas indicate that it was someone's project car prior to coming to the end of the line. The front-wheel-drive system used in the Cadillac Eldorados and Oldsmobile Toronados of this era was known as the Unified Powerplant Package, and it used a longitudinally-mounted engine feeding a chain-drive setup that proved to be amazingly sturdy and reliable. So sturdy, in fact, that it was used in gigantic front-wheel-drive GMC motorhomes. Everyone agrees that these cars are cool, but few are willing to rescue a rough example and take on the difficult and expensive job of a full restoration. This one isn't rusty, but that wasn't enough to save it. Related Video: