GTP Cool Wall: 1992-1997 Cadillac Seville
- Thread starter Wiegert
- 54 comments
- 3,469 views
It's still a FWD car with a V8, a Cadillac, a "comfort cruiser", it's heavy (for 1992), and it has only a four-speed automatic. I don't know where "underpowered" comes from, particularly since all that power and torque driving the front wheels is part of the problem, but every one of those things is uncool (sorry @Tornado), so I'll be the one to back @Leonidae@MFT on those.
And to clarify from the last time I talked with @Tornado in a CW thread about a luxury car, the Seville's weight is not a knock against it by relation to its competitors/contemporaries. They all lose points for it. Luxury is uncool.
And to clarify from the last time I talked with @Tornado in a CW thread about a luxury car, the Seville's weight is not a knock against it by relation to its competitors/contemporaries. They all lose points for it. Luxury is uncool.
- 40,499
Okay.
https://books.google.com/books?id=fuMDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=seville+comparison+test&source=bl&ots=1BZ7XbPAjI&sig=VSp57S4HORsbEQJnxG5yGkhXDfk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjal5K-2tTKAhXIeSYKHUJ3CvYQ6AEILTAF#v=onepage&q=seville comparison test&f=false
Even with the boat anchor 4.9 in it, the 4th generation car was not slow when it was new.
That one Wikipedia page that links to performance estimates for the European model and then lists them as accurate performance data anyway, and another Wikipedia page that links to a brochure that isn't actually accessible when you try to look at it, sure shows that the E34 540i was "considerably faster".
- 6,242
- Ottawa
- Pyano1132
Probably the best looking 90's caddy.
Low cool.
Low cool.
- 28,921
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
In all honesty I think this car looks fantastic and still looks fantastic today. I'd really quite like to have one but... it is a Cadillac and unfortunately that image problem is never going away. Only an old bloke who bought one new or a drug dealer too poor to afford a CTS would be seen in one of these.
Uncool
Uncool
- 4,487
- YorkshireLand
- SVTlover
Not a bad looking car but that's about the best thing I can say about it. Uncool.
- 13,185
- GTPlanet
- Street-King-07
- Quattro Saltire
The styling looks okay and it'll likely be a really comfortable cruiser.
If it was RWD it would be a low cool, but it isn't so it's a Meh from me.
If it was RWD it would be a low cool, but it isn't so it's a Meh from me.
- 1,035
- United States
- LM7325
I was a freshman in HS when these came out. I thought a 140 mph+ capable Cadillac was just insane back then. The Northstar was an all new engine so I read everything I could about it. Car and Driver magazine was my primary source of information at the time. I never really considered it cool though. My dream Luxury sedan of that time period will always be the Mercedes 500E.
- 40,499
Anyway, there is a major problem with this. Everyone can waffle about how this "needed" to be RWD to be taken seriously even though it was one of the better handling, faster and smoother riding cars in the segment and constantly finished towards the top of comparison tests (usually behind the 540i, since it wasn't until the W210 that Mercedes began slashing prices in a panic so any V8 E series was dramatically out of the price range of everything else). And people can bring up the Northstars infamous problems (it did admittedly have design problems that GM should have known better about) if they want to ignore the prices to fix the ridiculously overengineered anything in the LS400 or the expensive hydraulics in the Q45 or the everything in every 1990s Audi. A lot of the problems with this particular car are ones that the 5th generation suffered the most from, and this one just gets retroactively applied to. That's fine, because none of that is really relevant.
Chuck Jordan designed an absolutely beautiful, striking and aggressive shape. Pictures really cannot do it justice, because in real life this car looks almost impossibly low slung. It has some detail problems that I think the 5th generation fixed (albeit while sterilizing some others), mostly at the back, but this is easily the most standout car in the segment without getting actively weird like the Q45. GM equipped it with a class leading engine (soon enough, at least), a great drivetrain package (initially) and surrounded it with state of the art electronics and technology that largely (but not entirely) made it overcome the problems with putting all that weight over the front axle and making it drive the front wheels (helping was that at the time where stuff like traction control and stability control were extremely uncommon so RWD was still a risky proposition). They read the market and gradually improved the car as competitors were improved, changing the suspension design entirely a couple of times. This was the closest GM ever got to matching Europeans at their own game, and they didn't really do it again until the most recent CTS came out. Audi were basically a nonentity after spending the 80s selling cars that disintegrated with the best of the domestics, and the unintended acceleration thing. Mercedes was still charging the prices they were able to charge before Lexus scared them stiff. Lexus put together a home run of a luxury car, but one that drove like a 1970s Lincoln. Lincoln themselves were a no show in the segment, because the Continental sedan was nothing like the Continental coupe. Infiniti was unproven, untested and (again) weird. The 5-series was the only real benchmark, and was getting long in the tooth, but was still the one the Cadillac had the hardest time with once it got its own V8.
People that GM had spent the entire last decade trying their hardest to swear off all GM cars with disaster after disaster (V8-6-4, HT4100, Oldsmobile Diesel, the horrific downsizing attempt) came back because of this car (and, to a lesser extent, the companion Eldorado).
And GM didn't know what to do with it.
This is an STS. Export model, but that's not really the point. It's aggressive. It's mean. Low, long and wide. Big wheels. Fat tires. Clearly a 90s design because all of the complex shapes are made of hard edged simpler shapes (compared to the more "modern" curvature and such from the 5th generation), and it is a bit pidgeon toed, but you look at it and you know its purpose. It made the Allante completely pointless overnight. It's all the more impressive when it was the direct follow-up to this hideous thing:
There couldn't be a more striking difference between the person who styled the "Greyhound" Seville (the handpicked successor to Bill Mitchell who was passed over by corporate anyway) and the styling by numbers bean counters who dictated that the 1985 Cadillac flagship needs to look so similar to the $7,000 Grand Am even though it they shared nothing and were dramatically different in size:
No one could consciously make that decision, right?
Even the interior:
Remember this cost more than an LS400.
Night and day. Yes, it initially shared some stuff like that horrific steering wheel that looks like something out of an Aries, but even that was quickly fixed:
And continuously improved:
All the way through the final year:
Yes, you could see the threads showing in the first year, with the carryover engine and specific bad interior pieces smacks of old GM, and anyone who spent a lot of time in GM cars from the 1980s could pinpoint that nonspecific "feeling" in it as well, but still. This was a car that someone high in the corporate hierarchy cared about. For early 1990s GM that was not a given at all; especially when they released a new car that was supposed to be a humongous turnaround from what it replaced.
For example, this is a 1991 Lumina:
And this is a 1994 Lumina:
So we have a constantly upgraded and improved car that was immediately competitive when it was new in pretty much all facets, so how didn't GM know what to do it?
They also refused to let go of the old fogey market. GM decided that even with their flagship car that they were making so many waves with, even with the revised DeVille (always known by me as the "drug dealer DeVille") already imminent, even with the Fleetwood Brougham just being redesigned, that GM needed to have a version that they could dump on incentives and strip the expensive pieces out of to sell exclusively to old people. The STS got the Northstar as soon as it was ready (arguably a bit before then), and the SLS/base had to wait another year. The STS was loaded with stuff like real wood and top of the line electronics and slick buttoned down looks. The base car had most of the wood removed, as many electronic options as could be pulled, and bumperettes and stand up ornaments. How much money could GM possibly have saved by deleting the foglights and body colored side molding and front air dam and alloy wheels, making that aggressive sharkish red car resemble the pontoon boat above? How much money could GM possibly have saved by equipping entry level models with those horrible 1980s GM digital gauges and a column shifter? And it's not like it worked. No one bought stripper Sevilles. STS' outsold SLS' something like 4:1; nevermind SLS' with no options.. The car was incompatible with the old fogey mindset when they could march into a GM dealer and buy this:
Or this:
For much less money. And that's fine. The mid-1990s was the last gasp for the big full size American sedan, and there were plenty of fogeys around who bought nothing but those all the way up until the DeVille was "replaced" by the DTS. But the Seville wasn't that, and it was never designed to be. So the fact is that even GM at their greatest, their absolute saving throw desperation shot, couldn't keep themselves from being GM. And it absolutely doomed the 5th generation car that followed.
Uncool.
Chuck Jordan designed an absolutely beautiful, striking and aggressive shape. Pictures really cannot do it justice, because in real life this car looks almost impossibly low slung. It has some detail problems that I think the 5th generation fixed (albeit while sterilizing some others), mostly at the back, but this is easily the most standout car in the segment without getting actively weird like the Q45. GM equipped it with a class leading engine (soon enough, at least), a great drivetrain package (initially) and surrounded it with state of the art electronics and technology that largely (but not entirely) made it overcome the problems with putting all that weight over the front axle and making it drive the front wheels (helping was that at the time where stuff like traction control and stability control were extremely uncommon so RWD was still a risky proposition). They read the market and gradually improved the car as competitors were improved, changing the suspension design entirely a couple of times. This was the closest GM ever got to matching Europeans at their own game, and they didn't really do it again until the most recent CTS came out. Audi were basically a nonentity after spending the 80s selling cars that disintegrated with the best of the domestics, and the unintended acceleration thing. Mercedes was still charging the prices they were able to charge before Lexus scared them stiff. Lexus put together a home run of a luxury car, but one that drove like a 1970s Lincoln. Lincoln themselves were a no show in the segment, because the Continental sedan was nothing like the Continental coupe. Infiniti was unproven, untested and (again) weird. The 5-series was the only real benchmark, and was getting long in the tooth, but was still the one the Cadillac had the hardest time with once it got its own V8.
People that GM had spent the entire last decade trying their hardest to swear off all GM cars with disaster after disaster (V8-6-4, HT4100, Oldsmobile Diesel, the horrific downsizing attempt) came back because of this car (and, to a lesser extent, the companion Eldorado).
And GM didn't know what to do with it.
This is an STS. Export model, but that's not really the point. It's aggressive. It's mean. Low, long and wide. Big wheels. Fat tires. Clearly a 90s design because all of the complex shapes are made of hard edged simpler shapes (compared to the more "modern" curvature and such from the 5th generation), and it is a bit pidgeon toed, but you look at it and you know its purpose. It made the Allante completely pointless overnight. It's all the more impressive when it was the direct follow-up to this hideous thing:
There couldn't be a more striking difference between the person who styled the "Greyhound" Seville (the handpicked successor to Bill Mitchell who was passed over by corporate anyway) and the styling by numbers bean counters who dictated that the 1985 Cadillac flagship needs to look so similar to the $7,000 Grand Am even though it they shared nothing and were dramatically different in size:
No one could consciously make that decision, right?
Even the interior:
Remember this cost more than an LS400.
Night and day. Yes, it initially shared some stuff like that horrific steering wheel that looks like something out of an Aries, but even that was quickly fixed:
And continuously improved:
All the way through the final year:
Yes, you could see the threads showing in the first year, with the carryover engine and specific bad interior pieces smacks of old GM, and anyone who spent a lot of time in GM cars from the 1980s could pinpoint that nonspecific "feeling" in it as well, but still. This was a car that someone high in the corporate hierarchy cared about. For early 1990s GM that was not a given at all; especially when they released a new car that was supposed to be a humongous turnaround from what it replaced.
For example, this is a 1991 Lumina:
And this is a 1994 Lumina:
So we have a constantly upgraded and improved car that was immediately competitive when it was new in pretty much all facets, so how didn't GM know what to do it?
They also refused to let go of the old fogey market. GM decided that even with their flagship car that they were making so many waves with, even with the revised DeVille (always known by me as the "drug dealer DeVille") already imminent, even with the Fleetwood Brougham just being redesigned, that GM needed to have a version that they could dump on incentives and strip the expensive pieces out of to sell exclusively to old people. The STS got the Northstar as soon as it was ready (arguably a bit before then), and the SLS/base had to wait another year. The STS was loaded with stuff like real wood and top of the line electronics and slick buttoned down looks. The base car had most of the wood removed, as many electronic options as could be pulled, and bumperettes and stand up ornaments. How much money could GM possibly have saved by deleting the foglights and body colored side molding and front air dam and alloy wheels, making that aggressive sharkish red car resemble the pontoon boat above? How much money could GM possibly have saved by equipping entry level models with those horrible 1980s GM digital gauges and a column shifter? And it's not like it worked. No one bought stripper Sevilles. STS' outsold SLS' something like 4:1; nevermind SLS' with no options.. The car was incompatible with the old fogey mindset when they could march into a GM dealer and buy this:
Or this:
For much less money. And that's fine. The mid-1990s was the last gasp for the big full size American sedan, and there were plenty of fogeys around who bought nothing but those all the way up until the DeVille was "replaced" by the DTS. But the Seville wasn't that, and it was never designed to be. So the fact is that even GM at their greatest, their absolute saving throw desperation shot, couldn't keep themselves from being GM. And it absolutely doomed the 5th generation car that followed.
Uncool.
Last edited:
- 23,621
- It/It
- GTP_TheCracker
- 9,401
- Western Sydney
- mustafur
Your still thinking practically, this is a cool wall is it not?
- 23,621
- It/It
- GTP_TheCracker
- 31,250
- Hilversum
- Dennisch
xX-Ultimate-DRIFTOR-YOOOH-Xx
It's not about whether the Seville would better serve its owners with RWD. Luxo-barge dynamics are uncool to begin with. Having the front wheels manage 3700lbs. of heft on '90s-sized tires while attempting to deliver V8 torque beneath a car with luxo-barge dynamics is even worse.
Heavy cars with cushioning rides sacrifice agility and performance for comfort, trading a few degrees of safety and compounding an accident with excess weight just to cosset the driver's and passengers' bottoms. That's pretty uncool to me, which is why I tend to vote luxury cars uncool.
Heavy cars with cushioning rides sacrifice agility and performance for comfort, trading a few degrees of safety and compounding an accident with excess weight just to cosset the driver's and passengers' bottoms. That's pretty uncool to me, which is why I tend to vote luxury cars uncool.
