1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible! Leather Seats Low Milage We Ship World Wide on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1997 Cadillac Catera

GM's Cadillac Division was having a tough time in the early 1990s, with an onslaught of Lexuses and Infinitis pouring across the Pacific to steal their younger customers while high-end German manufacturers picked off their older customers. Flying an S-Class-priced model between assembly lines in Turin and Hamtramck hadn't worked out, so why not look to the European outposts of the far-flung GM Empire for the next Cadillac? That's how the Catera was born, and I have found a rare first-year example in a North Carolina car graveyard. Across the Atlantic, GM's Opel and Vauxhall were doing good business with prosperous European car buyers by selling them the sleek rear-wheel-drive Omega B (whose platform also lived beneath the Holden VT Commodore in Australia). Here was a genuine German design that competed with success against BMW and Audi on their home turf! So, the Omega B was Americanized and renamed the Catera. Opel wasn't a completely unknown brand to Americans at the time, since its cars were sold here with their own badging through Buick dealerships from the middle 1950s through the late 1970s (for a much shorter period, American Pontiac dealers attempted to sell Vauxhalls). Even after that, plenty of Opel DNA showed up in the products of U.S.-market GM divisions. The Catera was by far the most affordable Cadillac for 1997, with an MSRP starting at $29,995 (about $59,113 in 2024 dollars). Being a genuine German car, it looked much more convincingly European than the DeVille ($36,995), Eldorado ($37,995) and Seville ($39,995). Inspired by the ducks on the Cadillac emblem (they were really supposed to be martlets, mythical birds with no feet and occasionally lacking beaks), Cadillac's marketers went after youthful car shoppers with a whimsical animated duck named Ziggy. For the 21st century, the birds were removed from the Cadillac emblem in order to attract California buyers under 45 years of age. As we all know, the Catera flopped hard in the marketplace. What sold well in Europe turned out not to translate so well in in North America, especially when bearing the badges of such a historically prestigious brand. The Catera's engine was a 54-degree 3.0-liter V6 rated at 200 horsepower and 192 pound-feet. Just as had been the case with its predecessor, the Allante, no manual transmission was available.

GM Cadillac chief: New CT5 will replace 3 sedans; EVs coming

DETROIT - The head of General Motors' Cadillac luxury division said on Thursday the brand will shrink its lineup of sedans and expand its offerings of sport utility vehicles and hybrid and electric vehicles in response to market shifts. Expanding Cadillac's global sales is central to GM's overall profit strategy, and Cadillac has reported a 27 percent increase in worldwide sales through the first half of the year. However, in the United States, now the brand's second largest market behind China, Cadillac sales are down 1.6 percent and combined sales of the brand's four sedan models have plummeted 16.3 percent through the first half of the year. That has forced GM to order layoffs at two Michigan factories that build Cadillac cars, and raised questions about the long term future of the plants. "We have to rebalance our sedan portfolio," Johan de Nysschen told Reuters in interview, offering new details about the strategy. Cadillac will not directly replace the current XTS, CTS or ATS sedans when they end their life cycles in 2019, he said. Instead, Cadillac will use a single new car called the CT5 to appeal to consumers shopping for sedans priced between $35,000 and $45,000. New versions of the CT6 sedan will be offered to customers who want a larger car starting at $50,000. Sources had told Reuters last week that GM was considering ending production on six cars including the CT6 and XTS and models from Chevrolet and Buick. That report now appears only half-right as far as Cadillac is concerned. The new CT5 will be built at a factory near Lansing, Michigan, that currently builds the slow-selling Cadillac ATS and CTS models. A small luxury sedan to compete with the Audi A3 will be built in the same plant, de Nysschen said. Cadillac will offer more SUVs, starting with a compact model called XT4, followed by a larger SUV with three rows of seats due by 2019 to compete with vehicles such as Volvo's current XC90 model. Volvo, owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, scored a public relations coup by announcing plans earlier this month to power all its vehicles with either hybrid or all-electric technology starting in 2019. The move challenges Tesla, which has eclipsed more established brands with tech savvy luxury buyers. Cadillac has plans "not dissimilar to what Volvo has announced," with more electrified vehicles launching in the second half of the next decade, de Nysschen said.

2014 North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year finalists announced [w/poll]

The 2014 North American International Auto Show is right around the corner, which means it's high time we found out which cars and trucks would be finalists for the prestigious North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year awards.
The finalists - three in cars and three in three trucks/utilities - are dominated by American brands, with two-thirds of the finalists hailing from either General Motors or Chrysler (don't worry Ford, there's always next year), while outliers from Mazda and Acura can be found in each contest. Here now is the list of finalists for the big prizes:
2014 North American Car of the Year: