2012 Cadillac CTS Sedan, Coupe and Wagon Gain New Grille and Updated V6 with 318HP

You may be hard pressed to visually identify the changes over the current version by looking at the above photo, but the Cadillac CTS range has received an update for the 2012 model year that brings a redesigned grille, a revised V6 engine and a new Touring Package edition. The improvements will be carried over to all three CTS models, including the Sedan, the Coupe and the Sport Wagon, with first deliveries expected in late summer. Read more »

California Set to Slash Lawmakers' Vehicle Costs in Half, No More Freebies

In an attempt to help reduce California's $26.6 billion deficit, the state's Citizens Compensation Commission has decided that members of the Senate and Assembly who drive state-sponsored vehicles will have their annual vehicle costs cut from $7,453 to $3,600. That boils down to $300 per month for expenses (gas, insurance, etc.), and oh, they'll have to drive their own cars as of December…

California lawmakers average an income of $131,000 per year before retirement benefits, and reducing vehicle costs is one minor cut that's being made for the betterment of the whole. Some people thought the measure was a bit too broad, not taking into account lawmakers' locations.

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Hennessey's HPE1000 Escalade Cracks 60 in 3.3 Sec, bests Nissan's GT-R [with Video]

The concept of turning SUVs into pavement-pounding, drag-racing, supercar-shredding monster rods never ceases to amaze me, and by that I mean my jaw is on the floor and I'm completely boggled. I love me some automobiles (and vehicular transportation in general), but there's something about a nigh-three ton box on wheels and oodles of GO that seems...weird.

However, if monster rods - or high performance in general - are your cup of Starbucks soy latte, then Hennessey has got you covered (as if you didn't know that already, what with their cray-cray 1,000+ horsepower Vipers from way back when). Below, for your viewing pleasure, is video of a 2011 Cadillac Escalade drag racing a 2011 R35 GT-R and beating it.

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2012 Cadillac SRX gains More Powerful 3.6-liter V6 Engine and Equipment Upgrades

Less than two years after the market introduction of the new Cadillac SRX in North America in the summer of 2009, and General Motors has gone ahead and improved its premium crossover for the 2012 model year with a more powerful six-cylinder engine and additional equipment features.

The highlight for the 2012 Cadillac SRX is of course the new 3.6-liter direct-injected V6 engine with 300HP and 260 lb.-ft. (353 Nm) of torque, which replaces the current 3.0-liter direct-injected V6 engine with 265HP and 223 lb.-ft (302 Nm).

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1961 Cadillac Brougham Jacqueline coupe, body by Pinin Farina

full story from Hemmings at http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2009/05/01/hmn_feature9.html

One just sold at Bonhams Auctions, it went for $289,000

The Jacqueline was named for the wife of the American President at the time, it debuted at the 1961 paris Auto Show. In the 1990's the head of Cartier, Alain Perrin had the concept (no powertrain) grafted to a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz

VIDEO: 2014 Cadillac ATS Compact RWD Sports Sedan Spied Out Testing

A prototype version of Cadillac’s upcoming BMW 3-Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class rival, dubbed the ATS, has been caught on video during road testing. Though still heavily camouflaged, it appears that the Detroit firm’s compact, rear-wheel drive sports sedan will continue with Cadillac’s Art and Science design language.

The new ATS sedan will be positioned below the CTS, taking its place as the Cadillac’s entry-level model. The introduction of the ATS will allow the next iteration of the CTS to grow in dimensions to better compete with Germany’s executive saloons like the BMW 5-Series and Audi A6.

The engine lineup of the ATS is pretty much speculation as of right now, though a supposedly official document that leaked onto the internet in January made word of three engine choices including a 270HP 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, a 330HP 3.6-liter V6 and a 470HP 6.2-liter V8 for the range topping ATS-V.

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Cadillac Marks its Return to Racing with a Series of Short Films on the CTS-V Coupe

"Refueled: The Return of the CTS-V" is the name of Cadillac’s new series of short films that were created to give us a behind-the-scenes look at the development of its all-new CTS-V Coupe racing car, with which the company marks it return to competition after a four year hiatus. The newly released footage documents the genesis of the CTS-V Coupe racecars as well as their connection to the production version of the sports coupe.

The Cadillac CTS-V will make its competition debut at the season-opening race of the Sports Car Club of America World Challenge GT series in St. Petersburg, Florida on March 25-27. The GT series’ schedule for 2011 includes eight races in the U.S. and Canada from March to October. Click through to the jump for the videos.

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VIDEO: Top Gear China 15-Minute Pilot Episode Hits the Web, Includes Cadillac vs…Donkey Comparo

We’ve already told you about Top Gear’s plans to export the franchise to China, but today we stumbled upon what is claimed to be the first 15-minute long pilot episode of the TV series. China’s version of the famous car show keeps the familiar format with three male hosts and includes an oddball test where a Cadillac STS is compared to a donkey to see which is better suited to millstone work. If you follow the jump, you can watch the full video while we’ve also added a second clip that contains some English subtitles, though there’s no way of being sure about its accuracy.

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VIDEO: Hennessey’s Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon vs Nissan GT-R and Porsche 911 Turbo

American tuning firm Hennessey has crafted some pretty insane vehicles over the years. One of its most recent tunes is based on the Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon, which leaves GM’s factory with a 556-horsepower 6.2-liter V8 lump, but once Hennessey’s engineers perform their magic under the hood, output is lifted to 650 horsepower.

To show off the tuned CTS-V Sport Wagon’s potential, the Texas-based company brought the Cadillac to the track and drag raced it first against a stock 480HP Porsche 911 Turbo [997] and then a standard 485HP 2011 Nissan GT-R. Watch what happened in the video after the jump.

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Cuban Classics, great photography of the last American cars in Cuba

see more at http://cubanclassics.blogspot.com/

Cadzilla

Love that license plate

Beautiful advertising from 1909 and 1928, from Moment D' Inspiration

See galleries of far more of this small sample at the very cool blog http://momentdinspiration.blogspot.com/2010/11/old-american-cars.html

Photos that made me say "Damnit!"

found on http://autoholics.com

Pontiac Resurrects from the Dead Tries to Sell Me a Buick

Last Monday afternoon I received an unexpected email. Seems Pontiac is back. Well at least the former Pontiac eNewsletter is back and it no longer has a new Pontiac to sell me, but someone at General Motors feels a new Buick Regal is the new GM's answer to Pontiac.

I suppose the Regal is the right answer, since it is trying to position itself as a sports sedan capable of reigniting "Excitement!"

It's an interesting play with Pontiac owners/leasees probably on the hunt for a new car and GM obviously wants to keep Pontiac owners in the family so with the new Regal there is a decent replacement for these customers.

The email also promoted service for Pontiac owners and a new mobile app available for 2011 Buick, GMC, Chevrolet, and Cadillac models. It will be interesting to see how or if the Pontiac eNewsletter will promote other GM vehicles or if it will try to move Pontiac owners to the Buick brand.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: October 2010

BMW continues to rack up Facebook fans quickly. They were near 3 million fans at the end of October and a now over 3 million as of early November. What’s interesting isn’t BMW’s continued rapid growth nor is it Audi following close behind; instead, what’s interesting is another German luxury marquee has decided to play the Facebook fan game. Mercedes-Benz grew an astounding 65% in October and surpassed their own first million-fan milestone.

This month Lexus and Toyota both redid their profile images to include additional messaging. Lexus is cross-promoting their Twitter and YouTube accounts while Toyota takes a page from Dunkin Donuts, but with their own twist by featuring a fan’s vehicle. Toyota is also promoting a new shopping application for mobile phones called mLot.

Some brands kept up their brand page marketing as Cadillac continued to run reachblock ad units featuring their new Cadillac CTS Coupe that drove fans to the main Cadillac fan page. Volkswagen also promoted their brand fan page. The VW ad units featured the new Jetta that launched last month. What was interesting is that VW used to promote vehicles and bring people to their vehicle fan pages, not the main VW fan page. Seems they are making a change and focusing on the main fan page, not surprising as most of the action is on brand pages not vehicle pages.


Also interesting is quite a high number of fan pages seeing 20% plus growth in one month. Several of the brands didn’t seem to have ad units running in October yet they experienced some rapid growth typical of buying media.




Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (October 2010)

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: September 2010

Let’s get the big news out of the way. BMW surpassed the 2 Million fan number September 28th. On July 5th they hit 1 Million fans, so in a mere 3 months they gained over 1.1 Million fans. BMW has been on a fan rampage and finished the month promoting their secret reveal (I’m guessing it’s the new BMW 6-series.)

Hyundai saw a massive increase in fans as they nearly doubled their fans in September from 41,653 to 82,773 fans. This was done in part by some reachblock ad units I did see Hyundai run on the Facebook site. Others doing reachblock ads where Cadillac and Toyota continued to promote their safety and user story ads throughout the month of September.


Honda worked on promoting their Honda CR-Z Hybrid, but the ad units drove consumers to the CR-Z vehicle page. Honda saw a typical 10% gain on the brand page. Unfortunately, I think they missed an opportunity to drive more fan traffic to their primary brand page. It’s interesting to note that at the end of September Honda’s luxury family member Acura decided to abandon their vehicle fan pages. It will be interesting to see if Honda makes a similar move with their product fan pages or if other brands will follow Acura’s lead here, especially as brands probably look to 2011 and 2012 as ways to increase social media efficiency as social destination effectiveness comes clear with years worth of supporting data.

MINI finished their major Facebook campaign where they gave away a MINI Countryman from their Facebook fan page. Fred Manuel Roldan Rivero from Lisbon, Portugal won the MINI Countryman and the brand shared the giveaway PR event with their fans. Overall it was a nice promotion for the Facebook fans but MINI didn’t really see any major bump in fans which I find interesting because this contest may have more to do with energizing its fans than say growing the fan base. I don’t have any of the ad units promoting the event, if there were any, but MINI only saw a mediocre 11% increase in fans in September and XXX% in August. It’s tough to judge the contest as I don’t know what MINI was trying to drive. I assume handraisers and contest entries but Facebook fan growth didn’t seem to be a goal or a goal that wasn’t met.

In another notable move, Scion experienced a 34% jump that probably was due to the launch of Scion in Canada. Previously, Scion was only available in the United States. Scion launched the brand in Canada last month and one can assume the launch helped some fan growth from those to our north.