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2014 Cadillac ELR leases for $699 a month

Most Autoblog readers thought the $75,000 price tag on the 2014 Cadillac ELR was too high. If you can't swing the MSRP all in one go, how does a lease price of $699 a month sound? That's the amount that Cadillac is offering on the official ELR website, with some caveats, of course. First off, it appears that this lease price is for just for "current owners and lessees of all 1999 or newer GM vehicles." They will also have to pony up $4,999 at signing (all others will need $5,999). Second, the $699-a-month price is for a 39-month lease. Then, of course, "tax, title, license, dealer fees and optional equipment [are] extra" and "each dealer sets own price." Also, it appears that this lease deal is only good until the end of January. Cadillac started shipping the ELR plug-in hybrid coupe to dealers last month. There are two things to note in the fine print. The most surprising is that the payments are based on "a 2014 Cadillac ELR with an MSRP of $76,000." That's $1,000 more than the official MSRP announced in October. Then we get to the real kicker: The lease limits you to a mere 32,500 miles, which is just 833.3 miles a month. Well, 'limit' isn't the exact word, since you can certainly drive more. All you have to do is pay 25 cents per mile for each mile over 32,500. Drive the national average of 13,476 miles in a year? That comes to 43,797 miles over 39 months, which is 11,297 extra miles and an extra $2,824.25.

2016 Cadillac CTS-V First Drive [w/video]

A million insects lost their lives today. Boxelder bugs and mayflies making the ultimate sacrifice in Elkhart Lake, their carapaces no buffer against a rocketing rectangle of safety glass. Their bodies gorily streaking into spangles along the diamond-faceted face of the Cadillac CTS-V. Road America is a four-mile ribbon of pavement snaking its way through the emerald center of the country's northern heartland. Since the 1950s it's seen uncountable fields of diverse racing machinery rocket over its hills and around its 14 corners. I would imagine that on those occasions the tramping of onlookers and hubbub of vehicles, both competitive and commonplace, would dissuade a great number of our six-legged friends from making their way onto the track. But today it's just me turning laps. Inconceivably just one journalist, driving the baddest roadgoing Cadillac ever made, on one of the loveliest circuits America has ever carved out. So big-winged bugs made it out to me in a vast array and a tragic sum, and I drilled through them oblivious to anything but one of the greatest days of driving I've ever had. Cadillac has turned its CTS-V from a performance sedan to a monster. For 2016 Cadillac has turned its CTS-V from a performance sedan to a monster worthy of the carnage described above. The words "epic" and "awesome" are hilariously overused on the Internet, but in the case of the CTS-V's 6.2-liter supercharged V8, their literal meanings are fitting. The capacity to produce 640 horsepower and 630 pound-feet of torque is astounding. Feeling those outputs come to growling life under my foot arch, uncorks different reactions in my brain as the day wears on: first trepidation, next cautious optimism, finally red-eyed bloodlust. A glance at the power and torque curves will show you that the charged V8 behaves more like a naturally aspirated thing than a turbo'd on/off switch. Peak torque arrives at 3,600 rpm, horsepower at 6,400, giving the engine lovely, linear power delivery. Even with top torque happening near the middle of the tach, there's no small amount of the stuff when the engine first spins up, so launching all 4,145 pounds of Detroit iron still feels exotic. Launching all 4,145 pounds of Detroit iron still feels exotic. On the roads around Wisconsin, using all of the available power is hardly advisable, but I have no trouble driving this fast car slowly (sort of).

Buy a Mosler Twinstar, the V16 Cadillac you almost wanted [w/video]

Cadillac was once famous for opulent, V16 luxury vehicles, but this bizarre 16-cylinder 1999 Eldorado that's for auction on eBay Motors isn't much like its ancestors. Dubbed the TwinStar, this beast features a Northstar V8 with 275 horsepower to drive the front wheels and a second Northstar with 300 hp is in the trunk to spin the rear axle. Each mill has its own four-speed automatic gearbox, and the result is a total of 575 hp of all-wheel drive fury in an incredibly weird package. The TwinStar's interior and exterior certainly don't hide the odd powertrain setup. To fit the engine in the trunk, the builders pushed the rear wheels further back and lengthened the wheelbase. There are also scoops low on each side to funnel air to the V8. Inside, there's a second ignition on the side of the center stack, and a digital instrument cluster replaces the glove box. It's sure to confuse any passenger you can convince to take a ride in this thing. Mosler, the supercar company known for models like the MT900, built five TwinStars, according to the auction. The seller links to the original review by Car and Driver, and the magazine noted that the sensation of the two engines working in tandem was rather odd. However, the TwinStar was a capable performer and ran to 60 in 5 seconds in its test. If you want to start your new year with the oddest vehicle possible, the TwinStar's auction sits at $5,600 with the reserve not met as of this writing, and it ends January 2, 2016, at 8:00 PM ET. If you can't wait that long, the dealer lists the car online for $39,900. There's also a spirited conversation on Bring a Trailer about this automotive oddity.