Upfront Would you pay $100,000 for a Cadillac? Until the 2006 model year, no Caddy had ever had such a high list price. Then along came the '06 Cadillac XLR-V, a supercharged version of Cadillac's two-seater XLR convertible that came out in January. The XLR-V is priced at a whopping 100 Gs, including a $1,700 gas guzzler tax and an $815 destination tax, making it the most expensive Cadillac ever.
The XLR-V is part of a shift in strategy at Cadillac as it attempts to shed its stodgy image and really compete head-to-head with BMW and Mercedes. The introduction of the new V versions of Cadillac models is the latest step in that process.
The V's—yet another element of General Motors (GM) Vice-Chairman Robert Lutz's plan to add pizzazz to the company's lineup—are GM's equivalent of Mercedes' AMG models: big, souped-up, high-priced versions of the vehicles aimed at appealing to demanding, performance-oriented customers. In addition to the XLR-V, the company has introduced V versions of the Cadillac STS and CTS sedans.
A big part of the XLR-V's cachet is that, like the XLR, it's based on the same platform as the new, sixth-generation Chevy Corvette. Though both are two-seaters, the XLR-V is more luxurious and heavier, with a curb weight of 3,810 lbs as opposed to just 3,179 for the 'vette. The XLR-V also has a bigger engine, a re-engineered and supercharged version of the Northstar V8 that delivers 443 horsepower, up from 320 hp for the standard Northstar V8.
When you lay out a hundred grand for an XLR-V you automatically get every available extra, including a navigation system, a fancy 250-watt Bose sound system, leather upholstery and wood trim, traction and stability control, big cross-drilled brakes, headlight washers, parking assist, and other gear that normally would cost extra. There are no options.
Also standard is an easy-to-use retractable hardtop. Just push a button and the top folds down into the trunk, or comes back up again and latches itself in place automatically in about 30 seconds. It's impressive to watch: A panel opens up behind the seats and the trunk lid rises and splits into two parts, making way for the hard top to fold down into a rectangular space in the trunk. The trunk opens and closes automatically, too: You just push a button on the underside of the lid and it closes itself.
Power features are nothing new on a Cadillac, but this car's styling is a radical departure from the past. The XLR-V has a wide, low stance, big, spoked wheels clad with macho-looking Pirelli run-flat tires, a sharply raked roofline, boldly squared-off rear end, and a striking, very Cadillac-like chrome mesh grill. It's undeniably an American-looking car, but every bit as distinctive as, say, a Mercedes SL55 AMG.
As with the SL55 and other similar cars, the rakish roofline looks great but makes headroom very tight. In the XLR-V, headroom is only listed at 37.6 in., and legroom isn't all that great, either. I'm five-ten and the visor seemed dangerously close to my forehead. If you're much taller than I am, you'll probably feel cramped in this car.
The XLR isn't intended to generate huge sales. It's a "halo" model mainly intended to generate excitement around the brand. But even with that caveat, across the board, XLR models haven't been selling very well. Sales are off 20.3% so far this year (through May), to a mere 1,506 units, while overall Caddy sales are only down 5.2% to 87,355 units. And it's not clear that the XLR-V will do much to improve that performance.
Behind the Wheel What's the XLR-V like to drive? In a word, fast. In two words, very fast. In fact, I found it even quicker from a dead stop than the base-level Corvette with an automatic transmission (though, of course, nowhere near as blazingly fast as the Z06, which only comes with a stick shift).
Unlike the Corvette, the XLR-V does not come with an in-dash stopwatch that measures hundredths of a second, but it does have an "elapsed time" clock that counts off the seconds. I did some 0-to-60 runs on a deserted blacktop road and the time repeatedly came in at four seconds (meaning somewhere between four and five seconds). That's very fast: On the same stretch of road, the best I could do in a 'vette with six speed automatic was five seconds flat.
The standard six-speed automatic transmission on the XLR-V is very smooth and refined. It can be used in a sequential, manual mode if you want to do the shifting yourself, though there are no steering wheel mounted paddle shifters, as there are on the six-speed automatic version of the '06 'Vette.
I took the car on the winding road along the west branch of the Lackawaxen River in northeast Pennsylvania one cool summer evening and had a wonderful time, even when I let the automatic do all the shifting. It seems to be programmed to downshift when you throw the car into hard curves, which is a good thing because it lets you up to come out of curves very fast. Of course, it's even more fun to put the transmission in manual mode and do it yourself.
The XLR-V holds the road well, though it feels like there's more body roll than the 'vette or the BMW 650i, despite the fact that the Cadillac weighs nearly 500 lbs less than the 650i. But this car's dominant feature is power rather than super-sharp handling. Even at speeds well above normal highway speed, the car leaps forward when you punch the gas (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/21/06, "Bimmer Winner").
Adding to the XLR-V's sex appeal is an exhaust note similar to the one the Corvette. As in the 'vette, it sounds as if hurricane force winds are starting to gather behind you when you push the car a bit. That's a deliberate design feature, of course: During fast acceleration, a valve opens up in the XLR-V's muffler system to allow more air to pass through the system, and the engine really wails.
The Bose sound system is also pretty sexy. It's so heavy on bass that I went into the nav system to check the settings because I suspected the car's previous driver had jacked the bass way up. Nope. It was set right in the middle and yet was really rocking. You can tone it down, if you want. But a heavy-duty sound system goes with the zeitgeist of driving with the top down.
Unfortunately, you'll need loud sound when the XLR-V is running at highway speed. With the top down there's a considerable amount of wind buffeting around the passenger compartment, even with the side windows up. The passenger compartments of BMW 650i and Porsche Carrera felt calmer at 75 mph than the XLR-V feels at 55 or 60.
There are several other big negatives to this car. By far the biggest is the lack of trunk space. With the top down, there's almost as little room for luggage as in General Motors' less expensive Lutz-inspired new sportscars, the Pontiac Solstice (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/14/05, "Solstice: A Brawny Beauty") and Saturn Sky (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/31/06, "Sky High").
The thing is, you're even less willing to put up with the inconvenience of it in a car that sells for $100,000. There's barely space for a couple of small sports bags and an extra pair of shoes—which is ridiculous because it means you have to either never take overnight trips, or always drive with the top up. What fun is that on a beautiful summer weekend?
As in the Solstice and Sky there's also very little storage space in XLR-V's passenger cabin. There's no rear seat, for starters, which puts this car at a severe disadvantage to rival models such as the BMW 650i and the Porsche 911.
If you have even one kid, you can't travel as a family. There is a little storage compartment between the seats at the back of the passenger area, but it's barely big enough to hold a purse. It also has a cheap plastic latch and opener very similar to the ones in the Solstice and Sky, which list for one-quarter what the XLR-V lists for. You'd like to see a little more effort there on Cadillac's part.
Otherwise, the XLR-V's interior is fancy enough, though not quite up to the standard set by BMW and Mercedes. The dash is all done up in stitched black leather, and there is leather trim on the seats, doors, steering wheel, and the roll bars behind the headrests. But the perforated suede-like cloth inserts in the seats and door panels seem to belong in a much less expensive car. So do the carpet mats on the floor, which resemble the ones in a midrange family sedan.
The "Zengana" wood accents are nice but appear to be painted on metal somehow and bear little relation to real wood. Then again, the wood trim in the Caddy is no more phony-looking than the wood in the BMW 650i. And some other interior enhancements in the XLR-V, such as the "kinetic" metal around the door handles and instrument panel dials in olive-tinged off-white, are very classy looking.
Buy it or Bag it? The SLR-V is a nice enough car, and it's definitely a speed demon. But it seems grossly overpriced. To me, it feels as if it should be priced at about the same level as the regular XLR convertible, which starts at $77,295 and itself seems overpriced.
True, the XLR-V goes for a lot less than the two-seater Mercedes SL55 AMG convertible, which starts at $127,825, including the gas-guzzler tax and destination charges. The Mercedes is a tad faster—it can do zero to sixty in 4.5 seconds—and has more prestige. But the rival vehicle that seems like a screaming buy to me in comparison to the XLR-V is the BMW 650i.
It lacks the sheer speed and power of the other two, though it will do 0 to 60 in a respectable 5.6 seconds. But it's very fast on the open road, handles wonderfully, and is significantly cheaper: The 650i convertible starts at $79,495 (vs $72,495 for coupe), plus a $1,300 to $1,700 gas-guzzler tax if you don't get the automatic transmission.
On top of that, the 650i has a rear seat and a lot more trunk space with the top down (12 cubic feet, as much as the Caddy has with the top up), which makes it a lot more practical. And if you can do without a backseat, why not just buy a Corvette convertible, which starts out at $52,190?
The XLR-V gulps premium gasoline even faster than some of its main rivals. In a stretch of 254 miles of fast mixed highway and local driving I got only 16.4 mpg, vs. 18.9 mpg in the 650i. The 'vette does better on fuel economy too.
The XLR-V will have its fans. Its looks alone will win over some buyers. And Cadillac has made major strides in improving its quality, according to the latest J.D. Power Initial Quality ratings. It now ranks well above average, and way ahead of BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (though behind Porsche, Lexus, and Jaguar).
If you want a showy car that's wildly different from all the German luxury convertibles you see on the road it definitely fits the bill. And if you're into buying American, the XLR-V is the pure, unadulterated honest-to-goodness real thing. Just beware that, even by comparison with some rival models, this is a show car, not a practical set of wheels.
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