2012 Cadillac Srx Lux 3.6 Pano Sunroof Nav Rear Cam 17k Texas Direct Auto on 2040-cars

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1959 Cadillac Eldorado and more featured in latest 'Forza Horizon 4' car pack

It's that time again, time for another Forza Horizon 4 car pack. This one is a bit bittersweet, because while there are some great cars, it will also be the last one included with the Car Pass, which covered every downloadable car pack for a discounted price. So either we won't see many additional cars in the coming months, or we'll be paying extra for them. On a brighter note, the cars in this pack are cool, particularly the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible. Threading this aircraft carrier of a car through British streets should be highly entertaining. It's also stylish as all get-out. There are more appropriately sporty cars coming, too, including the 1994 Honda Prelude Si, 1994 Nissan Fairlady Z Version S Twin Turbo and the all-new TVR Griffith. Some reward cars being added come from the role-playing video game Final Fantasy XV. They're the Quartz Regalia Type F and Type D. The Type F is another big luxury convertible in the vein of the Cadillac, and the Type D is the monster truck version. The car pack is available now, and is free to owners of the $29.99 Car Pass. The individual car packs are available for $6.99 separately, and individual cars are even available for $2.99 a piece if you only want specific ones. Related Video: Image Credit: Turn10 Studios / Playground Games Toys/Games Cadillac Honda Nissan forza horizon 4

Cadillac: The standard of what?

Cadillac's tagline "Standard of the World" goes back to 1908 when it won the Dewar Trophy. While you might think that the moniker and the trophy have something to do with a feat of racing and daring-do against a cadre of British, French, and German marques, it's nothing of the sort. Rather, Cadillac achieved the trophy because of interchangeable parts. The parts they were producing back then were so well-made that Henry Leland, who established Cadillac, was able to disassemble three Model Ks, mix up the parts, and then put together three functioning cars. This amazed the Brits who handed him the trophy, and the "Standard of the World" was born. During the past several months, Cadillac has been producing news releases that would seem as though the company is the Standard of the World: "Cadillac Global Sales Rise 44.2 percent in January ... 18 percent in February ... 22.1 percent in March. . .40.9 percent in April ... 33.8 percent in May ... 7.2 percent in June." Like the Dewar Trophy being about manufacturing not performance, things are not necessarily what they seem. That is, Cadillac's growth is predicated on performance in China, not in the US. Through June, its China sales are 80,357 vehicles for the first five months of 2017, versus 72,073 in the US. The China number is a 75.4-percent year-over-year increase while the US number is a 1.6-percent decrease. For the entire globe, Cadillac has sold 164,174 vehicles. Of them, 65,250 were the XT5. That was followed by the ATS, at 34,277 units. In the US, the XT5 is doing reasonably well, as it has moved 29,798 units during the first six months. The ATS, conversely, is doing not particularly well, as it is down 26.2 percent with sales at just 7,209 for the year so far. To put that into some sort of context, know that Cadillac has sold 7,370 copies of the generally derided XTS, which is down 24.7 percent. The CTS is down 36 percent at 5,059 units, and the only other car in the lineup (we'll pretend that the ELR doesn't exist anymore and it shortly won't), the CT6 sedan, is up 172.7 percent – but they have sold only 5,397 CT6s. While Caddy talks a good game about competing with the likes of the BMW 5 Series and the Mercedes E-Class, know that those two sedans have been sold 17,036 and 20,783 times this year in the US respectively. So what is Cadillac chief Johan de Nysschen to do? According to Reuters, it is to cull the lineup.

GM Design shows what could have been and what might be

We periodically like to check in with GM Design's Instagram account to see what they're cooking up. Even better is when we catch a glimpse of an alternate history of what legendary designers from The General's past were thinking, though those ideas may not have made it into production. This week, for example, the account posted some illustrations from George Camp, whose career at GM spanned nearly four decades, from 1963 to 2001. One of the renderings is of what appears to be a 1971-72 Pontiac GTO Judge, but with two headlights instead of the production unit's quad beams. The rear departs from the canonical version most dramatically, with a massive integrated wing. Other bits that didn't make the production cut include large side vents, a gill-like side marker and rectangular intakes below the headlights that wouldn't be out of place on a modern design today. Amazingly, from what we can make out of the date, it appears that the drawing was done sometime in 1965, which makes it quite prescient.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by GM Design (@generalmotorsdesign) There's also a very aerodynamic interpretation of a Corvette ZR-1. To our eyes it splits the difference between the 1986 Corvette Indy concept and a fourth-generation F-body Pontiac Firebird, so perhaps parts of Camp's work on this sketch did make it into physical form. There's also a radical sports car concept from May 1970 that resembles the Mazda RX-500 concept from the same year, a Syd Mead-looking Cadillac coupe, and an Oldsmobile with a cool take on the company's trademark waterfall grille and elements of the Colonnade Cutlass at the rear. Other recent posts include a FJ Cruiser-like off-road EV, a sleek coupe with the Chevy corporate grille, and a rendering of a Silverado-esque pickup that looks far better than the current production version.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by GM Design (@generalmotorsdesign) It's pretty easy to lose hours in the account, but it's always fascinating to see GM's visions of what could have been and what might be. Related Video: