Mega-performance is about to hit the Cadillac brand — and I’m talkin’ MEGA as in all caps! But first . . .

Jump with me into the wayback machine alllllllll the way back to 1970 or so. Although we didn’t know it at the time, it was the end of an era — the Muscle Car Era. You could go down to you local big-three dealer and pick from a plethora of mega-motored beasts of machines like a Chevy SS 454 Malibu or El Camino, a Pontiac GTO Judge with Ram-Air IV, or an Olds 442 HO or a Buick Stage-1 GS, all with mid-400 cubic inch displacements, not to mention the Dodge/Plymouth Chargers, Challengers, Road Runners and Cudas with 440 Six Packs or even the awesome 426 Hemis. Even little old American Motors had its biggest motors stuffed in the Rambler American model called the SCrambler and a mid-sized one called the Rebel Machine. Ford had its Boss 429 Mustangs and Cobra Jet Torinos. Good times could be had by all!

What was supposed to come next made these pale in comparison. In a long-ago-forgotten 1970 car mag, or maybe Popular Science or Popular Mechanics(I Googled around a bit this AM but couldn’t find anything) I remember reading about the next generation of mega-motors that GM had planned for its upcoming generation of mid-sizers, (now come to think of it I believe it was a Hot Rod issue), all with aluminum blocks, humongous displacements and dual-overhead cams! It looked like GM was gonna slaughter ‘em all in the horse-power war, and then — it happened. The muscle cars died out almost without a whimper.

What caused their demise is well documented as stated in this article in Wikipedia:

The muscle cars’ performance soon became a liability during this period. The automotive safety lobby, which had been spearheaded by Ralph Nader, decried the irresponsibility of offering such powerful cars for public sale, particularly targeted to young buyers. The high power of the muscle cars also underlined the marginal handling and braking capacity of many contemporary cars, as well as the severe limitations of their tires. In response, the automobile insurance industry began levying punitive surcharges on all high-powered models, soon pushing many muscle cars out of the price range of their intended buyers. Simultaneously, efforts to combat air pollution led to a shift in Detroit’s attention from power to emissions control, a problem that grew more complicated in 1973 when the OPEC oil embargo led to price controls and gasoline rationing.

With all these forces against it, the market for muscle cars rapidly evaporated. Power began to drop in 1971 as engine compression ratios were reduced, high-performance engines like Chrysler’s 426 Hemi were discontinued, and all but a handful of performance models were discontinued or transformed into soft personal luxury cars.

OK Okie, that was then and this is now — what’s up with that Caddy you mentioned at the beginning?

Well, since you asked nice and all . . . the next generation Cadillac CTS is gonna be a beaut, which I’ve written about before: Caddy Hammers a Homer for ‘08. That’s a pic of the standard model CTS. In this month’s Motor Trend they break the news that the ’09 CTS-V, see pic here, will have 600-supercharged horsepower! 600! That’s off the charts more than the Germans’ BMW M5, Audi S models and even a good bit higher than the Merc’s AMG V-8 models. Talk about another horsepower war. The even more radical news is that this Caddy’s 6.2 liter motor is a detuned version of the mill going into the next Z07 Corvette, which will have 700+ hp. That one should be a snake killer!

But, once again the writings are appearing on the walls of reason, good sense, whatever. As we seem to be hitting another performance zenith, made possible by sophisticated computer engine management and the migration of exotic materials like carbon-fiber, magnesium and multi-material composites into our daily drivers, the forces of government and buzz-killers everywhere are lining up to once again force us into bland, pathetic little commuting boxes with nary a fun, smoky burnout in sight. The global warming hysterics are blaming cars for their nightmare scenario of planetary destruction, the safety-advocates have never really gone away and are looking forward to a Clinton White House where they can run amok in their attempts to destroy one of the last U.S. manufacturing entities via oppressive regulation. We’ve been down that road before, too.

So Okie, who really needs a 600-hp Caddy? Uh, no one? Actually, maybe we all do. For an American automotive company to devote the engineering resources necessary to put that mill in a Cadillac that will come with a 10-year, 100,000-mile power train warranty speaks mightily of the turnaround happening at General Motors. Their vehicles’ quality is going up dramatically as shown by the consumer ratings increases, they used to be at the bottom of the barrel, not competing with Audi, Acura and BMW. But, they still have a ways to go to be in the Lexus/Toyota/Honda league. Exercises like the V-series Caddys can help with that. A body structure that can handle those power numbers should be golden with the 300-hp V-6, which is a super-sweet little motor in its own right.

Now, if 35 mpg CAFE can be thwarted, we might get to enjoy these super-toys for a bit longer. However, those corporate-fuel-economy mandates and 600+ horsepower are pretty much mutually exclusive. Gotta sell a boatload of Cobalts or Saturn Green line hybrids to counter one ’09 CTS-V, that’s for sure.

It really does matter who you vote for — on a whole lot o’ levels!

[Cross-posted at Hot Wheels Blog]

Technorati Tags: Cadillac, Muscle Car Era, CTS-V, Z07 Corvette

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under '60s / '70s Redeaux, Automotive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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