Wednesday, August 17, 2005

GM / Cadillac 2006 Cadillac DTS

Product preview

Polished Cadillac DTS earns respect

New look draws in younger buyers, maintains the brand's core values

By Anita Lienert / Special to The Detroit News

GM / Cadillac 2005 Cadillac DeVille GM / Cadillac The DTS takes its inspiration from more youthful Cadillac products. GM / Cadillac Cadillac ordered up a fresh cabin for DTS with burled walnut treatment. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

ANN ARBOR -- A friend of ours is a hip, thirty-something executive who is fortunate enough to drive a company car, a big Cadillac DeVille sedan.

But Steve says he hates it because of the "disrespect" he gets from other drivers at stoplights and four-way intersections.

It seems that younger drivers assume whoever is behind the wheel of the DeVille is an octogenarian who will crawl along at a sedate pace. They blast past Steve and cut him off on a regular basis, and he finds it infuriating.

That disrespect may be about to end.

The old-school DeVille is being put out to pasture. Its replacement is the 2006 Cadillac DTS, a jazzy-looking, full-size luxury sedan that makes competitors like the Lincoln Town Car look like they're ready for the retirement home.

The front-wheel-drive DTS takes its name from the high-performance model in the old DeVille lineup, and carries over the basic mechanical architecture of its predecessor, but with refreshing new styling inside and out.

The DTS is on sale now with a surprisingly low price tag -- nearly $5,000 less than the car it replaces.

The '06 DTS will start at $41,990, including a $795 destination charge. The new sticker is $4,850 less than the base price on the 2005 Cadillac DeVille. A top-of-the-line performance version of the '06 DTS starts at $50,490.

We drove a production-version of the DTS with a high-end Luxury III package that starts at $48,490 and includes such features as burled walnut interior trim, massaging seats for front passengers, a Bose audio system and 17-inch chrome wheels.

Our daylong trip took us from General Motors Corp.'s Milford Proving Ground to the environs of Chelsea and back.

After our excursion, we feel that Cadillac should be applauded for walking that narrowest of tightropes with the new DTS: redoing its look to draw in younger buyers, while maintaining the core values that will further endear it to longtime supporters.

In other words, Cadillac's flagship sedan is still a great and comfortable highway cruiser with acres of space, but it's gone a long way toward shedding the dowdy image inside and out.

The new DTS has an edgy demeanor that takes its inspiration, as well as design cues like vertically stacked headlights and an egg-crate grille, from more youthful Cadillac products like the CTS sedan and the XLR roadster.

Cadillac is making a big play for lots of bling with the DTS, starting with an exclusive gold exterior color, still unnamed, that will debut in January and will be an exclusive shade for the DTS in its first year and available on other Cadillac products in the future.

If our friend Steve ends up with a new DTS in place of his DeVille, the drivers whom he leaves in the dust will get an eyeful of the new "spider optics" in the taillights of the sedan.

Tiny lines of light radiate off each LED in the taillights, giving the appearance of a spider's web and making for a memorable exit. Even the larger wheels on the DTS are new, and veer more toward the tastes of the hip-hop urban market, with bold spokes that extend to the edges of the wheel.

But Cadillac didn't throw its loyal DeVille customers -- who have an average age of 63 -- under the bus when it created the DTS. Nor should they, since DeVille buyers are legendary within the GM domestic luxury brand for their tendency to plunk down cash for their purchases.

Although the cabin in the DTS has been through an extreme makeover, the big sedan still looks relatively conservative with the type of wood-and-leather ambience you'd find in a traditional home.

The Hamtramck-built DTS remains true to its core audience by steadfastly offering six-person seating.

A five-passenger model with front bucket seats is standard, while a six-passenger variant with a front bench seat is optional. The standard five-passenger DTS comes with a center-console-mounted shifter. With the old DeVille, you could only get that arrangement on the pricier DTS model.

In keeping with its "something old, something new" theme, Cadillac ordered up a fresh cabin for the DTS with an eye toward more modern materials.

Gone is the classic "zebrano" wood treatment that was looking a little long in the tooth, in favor of burled walnut, which looks like it would be right at home in a Lexus.

The digital speedometer, which also looked dated, is gone, replaced by a clean-looking, sophisticated analog gauge. At night, the interior is illuminated with white LED lights that have a bluish cast, instead of the old yellow tones. It's the same effect as bleaching your teeth. Touches like that make you and your car look and feel younger. And the new leather seats in the DTS feel softer and more luxurious than the top-of-the-line ones in the DeVille.

What didn't get updated in the DTS was the powertrain.

The sedan can be equipped with one of two versions of Cadillac's Northstar 4.6 liter V-8. The base engine makes an estimated 275 horsepower and 292 pounds-feet of torque; the uplevel engine delivers an estimated 291 horsepower and 286 pounds-feet of torque. Cadillac says the engine gets an estimated fuel economy of 18 miles per gallon in city driving and 27 miles per gallon on the highway, regardless of tune.

The engine is mated to a four-speed automatic transmission, which, with all the cosmetic improvements to the DTS, seems like one of the vehicle's few throwbacks. A five-speed transmission, which might have improved the car's fuel economy, would have brought the sedan another step further into the postmodern world.

And there are other high-tech features for 2006, including new ultrasonic front park assist, which aids in parallel parking.

Adaptive cruise control will be available about three months after launch.

The DTS also has an adaptive remote start feature that allows you to press a button on the key fob and start the car from a distance. The adaptive part of that automatically adjusts the temperature in the cabin, turning the heat on full power in cold weather or the air conditioning in hot.

The standard safety list now incorporates six standard air bags, including side curtain air bags, as well as antilock brakes and traction control. Adjustable pedals would have been nice so smaller people could better position themselves behind the wheel of such a big sedan, but they are not offered. StabiliTrak, GM's version of stability control, is standard on the Luxury III DTS we drove, as well as on the performance package.

One of our favorite things about the DTS is the ride quality, which is firmer than we expected and not at all the floaty, marshmallowy type of ride that has come to be associated with some full-size luxury sedans from Detroit.

And through dozens of intersections, from Milford to Ann Arbor to Chelsea, we were happy to note that several other drivers deferred to us. We took that as a clear sign of respect for the new DTS.