2013 Cadillac Escalade Luxury on 2040-cars

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2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year entries announced

Over 40 vehicles will compete for the 2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year awards. If that name looks a little strange, it's because the competition added a third category. In years past, pickup trucks, crossovers, SUVs, commercial vans, and minivans competed for the same award. That's why there were occasionally weird comparisons, like last year's competition between the Volvo XC90 and Nissan Titan XD. The new format separates pickups and commercial vans into the truck contest and CUVs, SUVs, and minivans into the utility competition. A complete list of eligible vehicles is below, but here are a few highlights. For one, the entire list of entries has a luxurious lean. Of the 43 vehicles, nearly half of them are from premium brands. There are two eligible Bentleys – the Bentayga and Mulsanne – the Rolls-Royce Dawn, Jaguar F-Pace, Audi Q7, and the Mercedes-Benz GLS-, E-, and S-Class Maybach. The performance ranks are lofty, too, with the Audi R8, Acura NSX, Alfa Romeo Giulia, Mercedes SL- and SLC-Class, Porsche 718, and F-150 Raptor. The mainstream entries are just as comprehensive. From the Chrysler Pacifica to the Chevrolet Cruze to the Fiat 124 Spider to the Mitsubishi Mirage, NACTOY has covered an enormous price range with this year's contestants. Of course, these are only the eligible vehicles. They'll need to run through three rounds of judging, starting in September at NACTOY's traditional Hell, MI, test drive. The Canadian and American journalists involved in the judging will announce this year's nine finalists – three in each category – on December 6. Cars Acura NSX Alfa Romeo Giulia Audi A4 Audi R8 Bentley Mulsanne Buick Cascada Buick LaCrosse Cadillac CT6 Chevrolet Bolt Chevrolet Cruze Fiat 124 Genesis G90 Hyundai Elantra Infiniti Q60 Jaguar XE Kia Cadenza Lincoln Continental Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan Mercedes-Benz S550 Maybach Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Mercedes-Benz SLC-Class Mini Clubman Mitsubishi Mirage/G4 Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman Rolls-Royce Dawn Toyota Prius Prime Volvo S90 SUVs Audi Q7 Bentley Bentayga Buick Envision Cadillac XT5 Chrysler Pacifica GMC Acadia Infiniti QX30 Kia Sportage Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class Jaguar F-Pace Mazda CX-9 Nissan Armada Trucks Ford F-Series Super Duty pickups Ford F-150 Raptor Honda Ridgeline Nissan Titan half-ton Related Video: Featured Gallery Bentley Bentayga View 23 Photos News Source: Automotive News - sub.

Cadillac CTS-V gets Stealth Blue and Silver Frost limited edition models

A little more than a year and a half ago, former weekend editor Alex Nunez and I were talking about how sweet it would be for Cadillac to offer a CTS-V in the Corvette's Supersonic Blue paint, and as if General Motors eavesdropped on our conversation, this showed up. And while the Stealth Blue car you see here isn't an exact duplicate of the hot-looking sedan GM showed off in prototype form, it's really close. And really sweet.
New for 2013, the Cadillac CTS range gets two new colorful editions, starting with the Stealth Blue package available on the CTS-V (in sedan, coupe and wagon bodystyles) as well as the naturally aspirated CTS coupe. In addition to the unique paint, blacked-out grille and dark satin wheels, Stealth Blue cars can also be done up with an optional Twilight Blue leather interior. (And you thought blue-on-blue color schemes died in the '90s.)
Cadillac is also offering a new Silver Frost package, but it's a bit more exclusive. Only 100 examples will be built, all in CTS-V Coupe form. The Silver Frost paint is a low-gloss matte finish, in that while it technically has a clearcoat covering, it's reduced in a way that the surface still appears flatter than standard paint. Even so, Cadillac states that the car should be hand-washed only.

Cadillac considering ultra-luxe, $100k+ Escalade

The Cadillac Escalade has pushed incrementally up-market over the years. From its humble Chevy/GMC truck underpinnings, the latest Escalade starts at $72,970 and tops out at $96,940. But according to the latest reports, Cadillac is weighing an even more upscale version. Though the exact nature of the upgrades that would push the Escalade further up-market remain unknown – and perhaps undecided at this point – the impetus for such a move is crystal clear. European luxury SUVs keep getting more and more expensive, both from established players and new challengers. Bentley just launched the Bentayga, and other luxury marques like Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Maserati, and Lamborghini are all getting into the game. All the while manufacturers like Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz keep rolling out ever more expensive offerings, like the Range Rover Autobiography and anticipating forthcoming Maybach sport-ute. To challenge those European imports with their astronomic price tags, Cadillac could go with an even higher trim level than its existing Platinum spec – or it could go with a more powerful, performance-oriented Escalade V or Vsport. Getting that big a vehicle to hustle would require a lot of power, but then General Motors has never been one to shy away from slotting a bigger engine into its vehicles. One thing's for certain though, and that's that Cadillac isn't quite done with pushing the Escalade higher up the market.