2013 Cadillac XTS — the world at your fingertips

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Cadillac has more details available for the Cadillac XTS.   It is arriving with every gadget possible, and some new ones.  The basic car appears to be a larger , all-wheel drive model with the LFX 3.6L V6 for 300 hp.  The show car was a hybrid, so hopefully we’ll see that to follow.  Releases posted here and here.

Please click on images to zoom in, then hit back to return here.

A key feature will be a 12.3″ reconfigurable cluster — the part where the gauges are is all an electronic screen.  Cadillac CUE is the highly customizable user interface that exemplifies XTS’ blend of advanced technology and artistic design. The heart of CUE, which stands for Cadillac User Experience, is the standard eight-inch (203 mm) screen in the “center stack,” the faceplate below the screen and the steering wheel controls. CUE features several industry firsts, including capacitive-touch control with proximity sensing, gesture recognition and natural voice recognition.

Two levels of control-and-alert protection are offered in the XTS’ Enhanced Safety Strategy (ESS) packages.

ESS I includes:

  • Lane Departure Warning
  • Forward Collision Alert
  • Safety Alert Seat
  • Side Blind Zone Alert
  • Rear Cross Traffic Alert
  • Reflected LED display.

ESS II includes all ESS I content plus:

  • Head-up display (in color)
  • Front and Rear Automatic Brake
  • Adaptive Cruise Control
  • Automatic Collision Preparation

The  Cadillac XTS will be priced above the CTS.  Initial pricing has not been announced but it will perhaps start at $44K.

Arkansas vs South Carolina Football Cadillac Road Trip

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My Wife and I drove from Plano, Texas to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit family & attend the Arkansas-South Carolina football game over the weekend.   This was our first road trip in our Cadillac STS-V.  The V is a high performance Cadillac model, which makes it a fun car for a road trip.  It is roomy and has many luxury features, such as comfortable, fully adjustable leather seats, roomy cabin,  individual climate zones, and entertainment features.

2008 STS-V Suede Seat center inserts

The V is NOT economical, unless you consider odd metrics that consider power and MPG together.  In its current setup the STS-V is making 490+ hp at the crank.  We averaged just over 21 mpg each way, somewhat better coming down the Boston Mountains than going up.  I think this is a good trade off for a performance touring car, as the STS-V has more range than I care to drive in a sitting anyway.  We certainly had plentiful power for highway touring.

There was road construction almost all the way through Texas and across Oklahoma.  Good to see jobs at work, but not convenient for traveling.  Overall the roads were good, and traffic to/from Fayetteville was fine.

We used the nav system in the STS-V for monitoring progress to/from and for getting around town while in Fayetteville.    I like the constant feedback from the system about how many miles left to go and predicted time required to get there.   My Wife pointed out that the system seemed to be assuming some very sporty speed of travel toward the end of the trip, but the predicted time was close.

Lots of traffic on game weekends — it was also Arkansas’ homecoming — so one mistep and you’d be stuck waiting to get back into traffic again.    I updated the nav disk to the current one earlier in the year.  The nav system was accurate and helpful.  We turned off the voice prompts frequently, but because the nav system gives updates in the heads-up display I was able to navigate just great in run silent mode.

I didn’t know how to change the time for daylight savings, although when my son did the same thing I had been trying it instantly and easily went to time adjust mode.  Clearly I was doing something wrong but ‘hold down the button that shows the time to change the time’ seems simple and hard to get wrong.  Anyway, all good and I could have cracked the manual at a gas stop if it were more urgent.  My son assured me the problem was age-related.

Originally the STS-V came with runflats, as it has different size wheels and tires front to back, and no spare tire.  I changed the runflats to normal tires, but added a can of tire goo and an air pump for emergencies.   I am still of the opinion that touring cars should have a full size spare, but we had no tire issues on the trip.

We had great seats for the game, and it was a close game until toward the end.    Overall a fun trip.

Herman Cain, Kim Kardassian — Taking a Cadillac moment

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Two very disparate news items this week, one about Herman Cain as a Presidential candidate dealing with a story from his past, and one about Kim Kardassian and her recently announced premature footnote to her celebutante wedding.  Both these developing stories however strike me as situations which could have benefited (and may still benefit)  from taking a moment to reflect.

That’s what I like about driving a Cadillac, even with the performance V Series model I enjoy as a daily driver.  It gives me some quiet time on the way about my day.  I try not to have the sort of stresses that Mr Cain or Ms Kardassian seek out, but I still find that I need some isolation from the day to day noise and traffic.  Nothing does that better than surrounding yourself with sculpted wood and leather with the surety of precision machinery.

What is a Cadillac moment?  To me a Cadillac moment is that opportunity to listen to cool jazz or the latest pop tune while cruising along to my destination and enjoying the journey.  Taking a Cadillac moment means instead of responding to the latest stress unprepared or off the cuff, taking a moment to reflect on the context and impact of the issue and of your response, and gaining some perspective.

Things that seem an unfair attack on your campaign at first, can get better or worse in terms of perspective depending on your response.  Your response helps to define the issue.

When you meet and date and marry someone, especially if you choose to do so in a very elaborate, public, televised manner, there are probably multiple points which could benefit from a moment of reflection.  Is this someone I want to spend my life with?  Is this someone that I can go through thick and thin with?

Stress is not what happens to you, it is how you respond to what happens to you.   When you do have something(s) come up in your life, take a Cadillac moment and attempt to gain some perspective before you respond.    You will certainly in the long run be glad you did.

Living the Cadillac lifestyle includes keeping a lot of perspective.