Cadillac Automobile Information
The Cadillac luxury car is manufactured by General Motors. The Cadillac is a symbol of status and prestige. It reigned supreme for more than 80 years as the premier luxury car in North America. General Motors, over the last decade, has taken a financial drubbing, culminating in its 2009 bankruptcy filing. Yet the Cadillac sedan, the STS-V performance models and the Escalade SUV continue as the leading American-made luxury cars.
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History
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Henry Martyn Leland founded the Cadillac Automobile Company in 1902 in Detroit, Michigan, after Leland had a falling out with Henry Ford during Ford's early days of building an automobile company. Leland, however, focused on engineering innovations and developed a steel roof, a reliable and smoothly operated manual transmission, and a full electrical system for his one-cylinder cars.
Luxury Defined
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From the beginning, Cadillac billed itself as a luxury car with an emphasis on performance and comfort. By 1910, Cadillac, now under the umbrella of General Motors, was equipped with an enclosed cabin. Technological feats included a line of reliable and powerful V-12 and V-16 engines in the 1930s rarely found in mass-produced cars.
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Disastrous 1970s
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Cadillac flew high as the world's most popular luxury car during the postwar period but nearly crashed following the 1973 and 1978 fuel shortages. The 1968-72 Cadillac Eldorado was the peak of luxury in the world market. Yet Cadillac was forced to downsize and compete against Mercedes-Benz and BMW for the sports luxury car market. General Motors in the late 1970s and mid-1980s debuted such Cadillacs as the Cimarron and two-seater Allanté that failed to garner much enthusiasm.
New Era
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Cadillac remains today a leading producer of high-quality luxury cars, but it has lost considerable ground to the German-built Mercedes-Benz, BMW and the Japanese-made Lexus. It entered the SUV market in 1999 with the Escalade. The high-performance Cadillac XLR-V arrived in 2005. The STS-V, the high-performance V-Series executive car, was designed to compete against the BMW M5, the Audi RS6 and the Mercedes-Benz E63 vehicles.
STS-V
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The STS-V is Cadillac's offer to the high-performance luxury field and doesn't disappoint youthful but wealthy buyers who normally gravitate to a Mercedes or BMW. It features a 4.4-liter V-8 engine generating 469 horsepower and 439 lb-ft of torque to reach zero to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds. It's equipped with 18-inch wheels in the front and 19-inch wheels in the rear.
SUV
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Cadillac's foray into the sport utility vehicle field was relatively late compared to other Ford and General Motors vehicles. But it rose quickly to the top as the most desired SUV primarily due to its popularity with the hip-hop and entertainment celebrity industry. The Escalade is massive, weighing in at 5,700 pounds. It's powered by a 403 hp 6.2-liter V-8 with a six-speed automatic transmission.
XLR-V
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Perhaps Cadillac's biggest risk in a tight economy is the XLR-V, which was introduced in 2005. It's Cadillac's most expensive model with a price tag of $100,000. Again, Cadillac sees Mercedes-Benz as its chief rival for the sports luxury market and has targeted the Mercedes SL500. The XLR-V costs about $15,000 more than the SL500 but features a supercharged 443-hp 4.4-liter V-8 to achieve a 4.6-second clocking from zero to 60 mph.
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References
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