06 Dts Heat/cool Seats Certified Warranty We Finance!!!! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

The syrupy sweet tale of the Pink Cadillac Margarita

In our last installment of the irregular and irreverent series on drinks loosely connected to – or named after – automobiles, we sipped a Taxi cocktail, which in its original form tasted a bit like a margarita infused with Blackjack chewing gum , except worse. This time, we explore mythos behind a drink so pink it usually doesn't make you stop and think. But that's what we're going to do. And, as always, enjoy cocktails (and reading about them) while you're not behind the wheel. Our brother lives in Detroit, where old American cars go to not die. On the streets of the Motor City, you will see all manner of holey-mufflered, salt-rotted, spring-sagging Big Three iron plowing along shoddily. Our brother's next-door neighbor is a connoisseur of such vehicles, and thus populates his driveway with a cache of Malaise Era Cadillacs. (His dog lives in one.) His latest addition, which our brother texted us a photo of recently while we were eating fish tacos in Los Angeles, is a Desert Rose 1977 Coupe DeVille (seen below). Since we're always thinking about cars or drinking (or both), and we were eating Mexican, this put us in mind of a cocktail our cousin's trashy bridesmaid made us try at her wedding in Charleston: the Pink Cadillac Margarita. Suddenly, we were thirsty. The Pink Cadillac Margarita is, quite obviously, a pink drink – a somewhat cloying, if deliciously chuggable concoction colored with a spritz of Ocean Spray, or Chambord liqueur if you're classy. Pink drinks get a bum rap. Blame it on the Cosmopolitan, and everyday misogyny, but many people find pink drinks frivolous. As expert drinkers, and drink experts, we would counter that the consumption of alcohol is, at its essence, about being frivolous. Never mind that the chemical is a depressive; Consuming it is about putting on your rose (or rose) colored glasses, and getting ready to make some mistakes. The Pink Cadillac is apparently so named not just because of its signature color and the irresistible musical connection between Cadillacs and pinkness (see: Aretha, Springstein, Natalie Cole). The moniker also derives from the quality of the ingredients – drawing on the historical expression "The Cadillac of..." to signify something top-shelf. "It's difficult to know quite how that name was derived," says Melody Lee, Cadillac's director of brand strategy.

Cadillac's de Nysschen takes aim at Porsche 911, Cayenne

Johan de Nysschen has big plans for Cadillac. He's moved the brand from Detroit to New York, revamped its model nomenclature, and planning a raft of new models for the near future – including a $250,000 luxury sedan to take on the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. But the veteran executive of luxury automakers has some more performance-oriented machinery in mind, too. Speaking with Car and Driver at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week, de Nysschen suggested Cadillac could be ready to launch a flagship sports car sometime in the next decade. The halo model would take aim at the Porsche 911 and do for Cadillac what Audi did with the R8, Mercedes is doing with the AMG GT and Acura once did (and is aiming to do again) with the NSX. Just what form it would take remains a big unknown, but de Nysschen indicated that the brand would need to be built up further before the sports car would be launched, lest it emerge too detached from Cadillac's image. The last time Cadillac delved into that territory was with the Corvette-based XLR, of which it sold only 15,000 or so examples – far below initial targets. The 911 rival isn't the only performance model de Nysschen has in mind, however. He plans to further expand the V series into a more substantial sub-brand to include a crossover to take on the likes of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, BMW X5 M and all those many AMG-tuned Mercedes utilities. The idea of an entry-level model to slot in below the ATS was mooted as well. A range of diesel engines are slated to help Cadillac break into overseas markets in similar fashion to how Maserati has expanded its market reach with oil-burning versions of the Ghibli and Quattroporte. And we wouldn't be surprised to see Cadillac get in on a new flagship SUV being launched by Opel in Europe, either.

Best and Worst GM Cars

Oh yes, because we just love receiving angry letters from devoted Pontiac Grand Am enthusiasts, we have decided to go there. Based on a heated group Slack conversation, the topic came up about the best and worst GM cars. First of all time, and then those currently on sale, and then just mostly a rambling discussion of Oldsmobiles our parents and grandparents owned (or engineered). Eventually, three of us made the video above. Like it? Maybe we can make more. Many awesome GM cars are definitely going unmentioned here, so please let us know your bests and worsts in the comments below. Mostly, it's important to note that this post largely exists as a vehicle for delivering the above video that dives far deeper into GM's greatest hits and biggest flops, specifically those from the 1980s and 1990s. What you'll find below is a collection of our editors identifying a best current and best-of-all-time choice, plus a worst current and worst-of-all-time choice. Comprehensive it is not, but again, comments. -Senior Editor James Riswick Best Current GM Vehicle Chevrolet Corvette We were flying by the seats of our pants a bit in this first outing and my notes were similarly extemporaneous. When it came time to tie it all together on camera, I failed spectacularly. Thank the maker for text, because this gives me the opportunity to perhaps slightly better explain my convoluted reasoning. I chose the C8 Corvette because it's simply overwhelmingly good, and it's merely the baseline from which this generation of Corvette will be expanded.  While the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing (more on that in a minute) is an amazing snapshot of GM's current performance standing and its little sibling so enraptured me that I went out and bought one, their existence is fleeting. Corvette will live on; forced-induction Cadillac sport sedans, not so much. So while all three are amazing machines when viewed in a vacuum, the Corvette stands above them as both a reflection of GM's current performance credentials and a signpost of what is to come. So, given the choice between the C8 and the 5V-Blackwing right now, I'd choose the C8. In 10 years, when the Blackwing is no longer in production and Corvette is in its 9th generation? Well, that might be a different story. Now, just pretend I said something even remotely that coherent when we get to the part of the video where I try to make an argument for the 5-V Blackwing as best GM car I've ever driven. Or just laugh at me while I ramble incoherently.