1955 Cadillac Deville on 2040-cars

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Ghostbusters' new Ecto-1 is an oddly uninspiring '82 Caddy

The Ghostbusters, or at least the movie franchise, will emerge from Hollywood's cobwebs this summer, but instead of the iconic 1959 Cadillac known as Ecto-1 that delighted big screen audiences in 1984, the new model may leave some scratching their heads. That's because this latest Ghostbusters draws its vehicular inspiration from a decidedly less interesting period in American automobile production: the 1980s. Starring alongside Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones is a 1982 Cadillac DeVille hearse. The studio dressed up this tired Caddy to look the part, but something's amiss. Instead of the flamboyant fins and shiny chrome, the '82 is decidedly pedestrian and uninteresting. Even in 1982, it was kind of a dull choice for luxury car buyers. There's a reason Murilee Martin deemed the '70s and '80s the "malaise era." Built a couple of years before the original, Academy Award-winning Ghostbusters hit cinemas, the '82 DeVille represents one of Cadillac's lowest points bar the Cimarron. Under its hood might be Cadilac's new-for-1982 HT 4100 V8 engine, which featured what the brand referred to as "digital" fuel injection. With 135 horsepower and 190 pound-feet of torque, the DeVille didn't win stoplight races back then. Oddly, the V6 engine that came standard in the '82 Sedan DeVille produced the same horsepower but delivered an extra 15 torques, which made it both faster and more fuel efficient than the V8. These were bad times for General Motors, clearly, but the gas engines paled in comparison to Cadillac's first diesel. The company's LF9 5.7-liter diesel V8 was optional on the DeVille and we pity the unlucky buyers who checked that box. Generally credited as the engine that made "diesel" a haunted word in Detroit for 30 years, the 350-cubic-inch unit might actually be fitting for the Ghostbusters. On the bright side, the '82 is new enough that it may have carried a box or two of Hi-C's stellar, Ghostbusters-inspired Ecto Cooler. Maybe the mortician took his kid to Kroger one time, you never know. Fitting in In the original 1984 Ghostbusters, the '59 Caddy was a forlorn and forgotten piece of machinery waiting for a new lease on life. Character Dr. Ray Stantz picks it up and admits in the film that it needs "some suspension work and shocks ...

Cadillac HQ has a New York address

The new home of Cadillac will be in the 330 Hudson building in New York City's Hudson Square, putting the luxury marque smack dab in the middle of three of the city's hippest areas, SoHo, Greenwich Village and Tribeca.
The announcement is yet another milestone in the company's controversial decision to relocate administrative and marketing operations away from Detroit and into the Big Apple.
"The addition of a headquarters office in New York is a key step in Cadillac's ongoing global expansion," Cadillac boss Johan de Nysschen said, according to The Detroit Free Press. "There is no better atmosphere in which to better immerse ourselves into luxury consumer and brand expertise."

Jay Leno welcomes a 2016 Cadillac CTS-V into the garage

After checking out a multitude of classic cars and customs over the past few weeks, Jay Leno switches things up with a modern performance machine in the latest video from the garage – a 2016 Cadillac CTS-V. Leno is curious about Caddy's attempt to challenge the BMW M5 and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S, and he takes a long, technical look at the sedan with chief engineer David Leone. Not content to just peek under the hood, Leno puts the CTS-V up on the rack to see what it packs underneath the svelte body. Once he gets the lowdown on the Caddy's engineering, it's time for a drive. Leno also flexes his interviewing skills while behind the wheel and gets even more info about the CTS-V's capabilities from Leone. He seems fairly impressed, but Leno's most entertaining question about the 640-horsepower sedan is whether it can do a burnout. He provides a definitive answer to that at the end of the clip. Related Video: