ECHO
motors-merseyside
T O T H E B O N E CAD
.co.uk
Friday, August 29, 2008
By EDWARD STEPHENS
M
scious.
OST motorists today are notoriously brand con-
What you drive says a lot about you and how successful you are. In a lot of cases that success tends to be reflected in buying models from one of three premier German brands. For anyone looking for the same sort of prestige motoring, but with a more individual flavour, there is the Cadillac CTS. Drive one of these and I guarantee your neighbours’ curtains will be twitching. It couldn’t be more distinctive, and it is a Caddy for the UK not the USA. The CTS has a suspension designed fairly and squarely for UK and European drivers. That doesn’t mean making any compromises. Its sporty suspension and road holding is up there with the best. The ride is firm and sporty yet impressively comfortable, specially in the 3.6-litre
STATUS: The Cadillac CTS is specially made for the UK market
Gadget geeks will love this model, the larger of the two about to go on sale in Britain. While the previous generation CTS was a little too slab-sided for me the lines of the new one have more flair and appeal. The body panels have softer, more flowing lines, thanks in part to the two-inch wider track. The distinctive Cadillac vertical headlights and rear tail lights have been retained, but they have a smart new look with vertical daylight running lights within the
headlamps and strips of red LEDs within the rear lights. Inside is as distinctive as the outside. In a recent survey motorists chose it over those of comparable Audis, BMWs and Mercedes-Benz models. Distinctive hand finished saddle stitching on the leather clad dashboard and seats give it a distinctly up-market appearance, while wooden or carbon-fibre-look inserts on the dash and doors give it a traditional or more modern appeal, depending on which you prefer.
But one of the most remarkable things about the STS is the amount of on-board equipment you get as standard, particularly when it comes to infotainment. Gadget geeks have been known to lock themselves inside the car for hours at a time to play with the very latest in in-car entertainment and navigation. An eight-inch pop-up touch screen features the latest in satellite navigation as well as doubling up as your on-board television screen.
There is a 40-gigabyte hard drive to house all your music and full iPod integration means that playlists appear on the touch screen. An in-car first on the CTS is the hard drive’s digital recording capability, which means motorists can pause and rewind radio broadcasts. So if you are listening to a football match or a serial and have to leave your car you can catch up with the programme later. This capability is all the more enjoyable because of the
10-speaker Bose cabin surround sound system. On the road the CTS is one of the quietest cars around. Cadillac decided to engineer-in sounds so you would actually hear some of the otherwise silent switches. The V6 engines are mated to a six-speed automatic gearbox, with the 3.6-litre also having paddles on the steering wheel for manual gear changes. Performance is sporty yet refined with the larger of the two engines capable of 150mph and a 0-62mph time of 6.3 seconds, and the 2.8-litre hits 62mph in nine seconds on its way to its top speed of 127mph. Both models average just over 25mpg The smaller engined car is £26,995 on-the-road, and the 3.6-litre is £32,995. Cadillac expects to sell between 200-300 CTS models a year in the UK. So if you have an urge to stand out from the motoring crowd this latest offering from across the pond could just be for you.
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