Second time's the charm? (Will the XLR succeed where the Allante did not?)
Written: Aug 17 '04 (Updated May 26 '06)
Product Rating:
Seat Comfort:
Build Quality
Roominess:
Handling And Control:
Pros: Styling, refinement, power, handling
Cons: Pricey, numb steering, low end could be stronger, downscale interior, doesn't feel solid
The Bottom Line: A far more complete effort than the Allante, and just about worthy of the high price. Revise the steering and seats and the car would be just about perfect.
This review is based on a few quick laps around an autocross-type course (i.e. cones in a large parking lot). I’d like to have had more seat time, but I nevertheless formed some strong impressions about the car. Read on if you’re interested in hearing them.
Update (May 2006): I have now driven the XLR on public roads. It did not fare as well in this environment. See the update following the original review.
Background
A little background: the XLR is Cadillac’s second attempt to field a competitor to the Mercedes-Benz SL roadster. The first, the Allante of 1987 through 1993, had the styling and interior to compete with the dated SL of the late 1980s, but lacked a proper structure. Based on the Eldorado, not only was it front-wheel-drive but the structural rigidity expected of a high dollar roadster just wasn’t there.
The Allante might still have succeeded, but GM (at the time a contender for “world’s most arrogant corporation”) felt that the car would be perceived as worthy right off the bat and priced it just a few hundred dollars under the $55,000 Mercedes. (The next most expensive Cadillac at the time started at less than half that amount.) This was folly. Luxury cars especially must earn their reputations. Hence the successful Lexus strategy of pricing the 1990 LS at $35,000, and then quickly ramping the price over $50,000 within five years. Between the insufficient structure, an underwhelming engine (the DOHC Northstar V8 debuted in the 1993 Allante, about six years too late), and high price the Allante was widely seen as not only a tactical but a strategic failure. Cadillac dreamed of moving its whole range upmarket, but after the Allante lesson backed off of this plan.
Does the XLR have what it takes to succeed where the Allante failed? Before even stepping into the car, it has a number of advantages. First off, although the Evoq show car on which the XLR is based was the first public showing of Cadillac’s “art and science” design theme, the XLR trails the successful CTS sedan and SRX SUV in Cadillac’s latest move upmarket. So unlike the Allante the XLR doesn’t beg a game of “which one of these is not like the others…” Second, it has a passable powertrain in a revised Northstar V8 paired with a five-speed automatic. Third, based on the Corvette it is rear-wheel-drive and should handle well.
Questions remain. The Corvette has never possessed the refinement necessary in a luxury car. Do the revisions for the XLR give it this refinement? Is the structure solid enough? GM has had trouble executing competitive interiors in car’s half the XLR’s price. Does the XLR’s interior hold up to those in the competition?
Finally, there’s the price. The CTS is priced against smaller German sedans and well under those its own size. A smart move at this stage, when Cadillac is still working to earn back the prestige of its glory years. But the more recent SRX is priced at the same level as the BMW X5. In my review I hypothesized that the vehicle was very good but the price was too high too soon, and this hypothesis was born out in initially slow sales. At $76,000, the XLR’s price also strikes me as a bit high. It is roughly $15,000 less than a comparable SL, a good thing, but $12,000 more than the Lexus SC 430. Initially demand has outstripped supply, but it’s still very early. This sort of car is almost always hot its first six months. What about next year? (Especially since GM has already announced that supply will be increasing.) At the event I attended, people kept talking about how much they liked the XLR, but also how they couldn’t believe it was priced so much higher than the Lexus.
I’ve been wanting to drive the XLR to get a clearer idea of its chances, but dealers want to see a firm intent to purchase first. Thankfully another manufacturer gave me the opportunity.
Styling
People generally love the low, sharp lines of this car. Over and over I’ve read that this is easily the best execution of Cadillac’s “art and science” Stealth fighter theme. I’m not so sure myself. While I certainly find the car attractive—the wide-low proportions are especially tasty in person (photographs don’t do the car justice)—I’m not quite in love with it. I feel the CTS, though less elegant, makes a stronger statement. If you’re going to style a car to look like a brick, shouldn’t it be a massive-looking brick instead of a doorstop?
One weakness of the Allante was a hopefully complicated manual soft top that tended to leak (at least the first few model years). The XLR’s power-folding hard top is not only effortless to raise and lower, but with a sharply raked backlight looks at least as good raised as lowered. Very sleek.
One styling detail does not work for me. The XLR’s doors are electrically operated, so there is no conventional handle marring the exterior appearance. That said, the cut-out for the door button (think trunk release) at the rear of each door could have been executed more artfully.
The XLR contains the highest quality interior I’ve experienced in a GM product. This time around nothing stands out as cheap. But all is not perfect. While the CTS/SRX interior has widely been perceived as cheap, its high-tech theme is refreshingly distinctive. In contrast, the XLR’s interior is thoroughly conventional. One example: the XLR’s instruments were styled by Bulgari—and are labeled as such—but while nice to look at they’re nothing special. I suspect Cadillac realized that the distinctive high-tech theme of the CTS/SRX interior was (at least) a bit over the top for most big buck buyers, and opted for more traditional designs in the new XLR (and soon-to-arrive STS).
Accommodations
With two-seat cars interior room tends to be an issue. The XLR is borderline here. While roomier than most such cars, it falls a bit shy of the Lexus in this area and won’t please many drivers who are well over six feet. I’m 5-9, yet I drove the car with the seat all the way back. The low seating position combined with a relatively high cowl and beltline don’t help in this area. Shorter people might feel buried in the car and even those of average height might feel a bit closed in by the design. (Though less so than in an Audi TT.) No one’s going to be driving with an elbow out the window. Getting in and out isn’t too hard for such a low car—the sills aren’t too wide, and the seats aren’t heavily bolstered—but that’s not saying much. If you’re getting up in years and your legs aren’t what they used to be there’s no way entirely around the fact that this is a very low car.
The views to the sides and rear are limited, but that forward is passable. I always feel a bit more disconnected in cars where my sightline isn’t high above the instrument panel, and this remained true with the XLR. In the Lexus and Jaguar the view forward is much more open. To the Cadillac’s credit, the windshield isn’t raked so far back that the A-pillar seems to be aimed at your head. (The 2005 Corvette will similarly benefit from a return to a less raked, more livable windshield angle.) Also, unlike in the Jag, the windshield header is high enough above the driver’s sightlines that it doesn’t intrude. Too many roadsters fall down in this last area.
Seat comfort might be a problem area. I drove a lot of cars that day, and each time I got back into the Cadillac its seat cushions struck me as oddly shaped. The seat bottom feels slightly convex rather than concave, as if it’s over-inflated. The seatback, with dual adjustable lumbar supports, is comfortable. Perhaps because the XLR is intended to be a luxury roadster rather than a sports car, side bolstering is on the low side of adequate. Which is, incidentally, much more than can be said of the comfy but very wide seats in the Lexus. As for the Jag—I could not wait to get out of that car. Its drivers seat was way out of alignment with the steering wheel and pedals, forcing a very awkward, shockingly uncomfortable driving position.
The XLR I drove had the top down, but I have sat in them before with the top up. Head room should be acceptable if you’re not too far over six feet.
Trunk space is pretty good for a roadster—with the top up. Put the top down, though, and seven of the eleven cubic feet go bye-bye. The top on the new Mercedes SL stows much more compactly. Likely to give the complex hinge mechanism a fighting chance to remain properly aligned, the trunk lid is power operated.
On the Track
For the XLR the Northstar has been revised, gaining 20 horsepower—for a total of 320—in the process. Part of the gain follows from variable valve timing, which GM has finally adopted after years of claiming the feature wasn’t worth the expense and design complexity. But a few of the extra horses come from a more dubious revision. I appreciated it when the Northstar was revised to run on regular unleaded a few years ago, and lament the return of “premium fuel recommended” with the latest revision. Are five to ten extra horsepower really worth an extra twenty cents a gallon? I will grant that the answer is more likely “yes” with a car that costs $76,000 and will often only be driven a few thousand miles a year.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Cadillac’s 4.6-liter Northstar V8. Its throaty sound has always seemed too much like a traditional American V8 and too little like the imported DOHC powerplants its specs emulate. Thankfully, the revised engine sounds more refined, if far from quiet. Perhaps it’s a matter of finding the right application. In the top-down XLR the exhaust note—prominent whenever you dip into the throttle—admittedly sounds fantastic. It lends the car a much sportier character than it would have with, say, the quieter Lexus V8. Refinement might lag Lexus, but it’s plenty high for a roadster.
The other aspect of the Northstar I never cared for was power delivery—for such a large engine it always felt a bit soft below 4000 RPM. Variable valve timing should help, and it does a bit. Still, the revised Cadillac engine still does not feel as strong at lower RPM as the Lexus V8, much less BMW’s impressive 4.4-liter unit (a 545 was also on-hand). These impressions are born out by the stats: although smaller than the Cadillac unit, the Lexus and BMW V8s both produce more torque at a lower peak (3400 and 3600 vs. 4400 RPM). If low-end grunt is your thing, you’ll be much happier in a Corvette. Get the new engine over 4000 RPM, though, and it screams. Literally and figuratively. A nice scream.
For those who really want a XLR, but must have their low-end torque, an XLR-V with a supercharged V8 is being developed. (Update: now available.)
Getting the engine over 4000 RPM is partly the responsibility of the transmission. Since at least the 1980s GM has tried to convince the world and itself that the additional gears in competitors’ transmissions are unnecessary. (Chrysler also liked to play this game, but more out of necessity.) Sorry, but more gears translate to shorter, more tightly spaced gears, and this is helpful in getting the best performance out of any engine, and especially out of peaky DOHC engines. The front-drive Northstar Cadillacs have always been hobbled by four-speed automatics. Thankfully the XLR’s transmission has a fifth ratio. While the new SL automatic has seven, five earns a pass. Just shorten up first and second a bit more…
So far, the car earns at least a pass, maybe even a high pass. Now for the bit that truly disappointed me: the XLR’s steering. As with the seats, but even more so, each time I got back into the Cadillac roadster the steering came as a shock. At parking lot speeds effort is feather light. Which isn’t too much of an issue, as you don’t need feedback in parking lots. I suppose I could get used to it. The problem is that the steering does not firm up enough once above parking lot speeds. I did not get to drive the XLR over 50 MPH—the course was too tight for that. So maybe the steering finally does firm up nicely at highway speeds. It has in a number of recent GM products. The problem is that I do most of my enjoyable driving at suburban speeds, say between 25 and 50. At these speeds the XLR’s steering is light and numb. I relied on my butt and inner ear to tell me what was going on where the rubber meets the road.
A shame, as the chassis is otherwise excellent, with great balance and grip. Lean in hard turns is well controlled, and there’s no plow to speak of. A balanced weight distribution no doubt enables this, but I’ve driven cars with nearly equal weight distributions that nevertheless understeered heavily. The tuning also has to be right, and here it is. The stability control system allows a touch of power oversteer and, unlike the system in the CTS, doesn’t cut in early and obtrusively to kill the joy. After my initial unease, I learned to just point the car where I wanted it to go (around the cones, not through them) and trust that the chassis would get me there. Steering feedback would greatly enhance my driving pleasure, but I guess it’s not technically necessary.
I did not have an opportunity to evaluate ride quality, as the track surface was nicely paved. That said, even the outgoing Corvette rode smoothly for a sports car, so I’d expect the XLR to perform well in this regard. The surface was not entirely flat, and the XLR maintained excellent body control over the undulations. No float, and also no harshness. The XLR comes standard with GM’s impressive magnetic ride control shocks. To my knowledge, these are the fasting acting automatically adjusting shocks on the market. Though they have received mixed reviews in the Corvette (the conventionally damped Z51 and Z06 suspensions remained the handling champs), they make a night-and-day difference in the SRX, and no doubt do much to enhance both ride and handling in the XLR.
Similarly, I could not evaluate how the XLR would perform on extended road trips. Many roadsters prove tiresome on long drives. With the partial exception of the seat cushions, I believe the XLR would perform well at this task. With the beltline so high and the windshield at a reasonable angle wind buffeting should be minimal. Though the exhaust is audible it is never obnoxious and grows fairly quiet when not deep into the throttle. And since the top is not soft noise levels with it raised should be much like those in a luxury coupe.
One of my fears proved unfounded: the structure feels very tight, significantly tighter than a C5 Corvette and at least as good as the Lexus. The steering might be too light, but the XLR does have the general rock solid, thoroughly refined feel expected in a $76,000 car. As with the interior appearance, nothing about the driving experience suggested cut corners or rushed development, even compared directly with the Lexus. As much as I hate to admit it, since steering feel is so important to me, the XLR’s overall top quality character is more necessary to its success than how the steering feels.
Pricing
I’ve already said plenty on pricing. The only thing I left out is that just about everything is standard, including keyless entry and ignition (just have the fob in your pocket), heated/cooled seats, automatic cruise control, rear obstacle detection, and a nav system. With the exception of the last, these are expensive options with the Mercedes. The only option at this point is satellite radio. Personally, and I might not speak for the typical purchaser of a $76,000 car here, I’d rather see a base car without these features standard for $70,000.
Last Words
So, does the big buck top down Cadillac have what it takes this time around? Overall, it does. The styling is distinctive, the interior is up to snuff, the structure is solid, the chassis is excellent, and the powertrain is at least competitive. The basics are all present. Now for the relatively easy stuff. The seat cushions could be better shaped. And, as in many recent GM products, the steering needs to provide more feedback.
Well, when I sat down at the computer I thought this was going to be a brief review…
Update: On the Road
In May 2006 I took a used 2004 XLR for a test drive on public roads. The car had 19,000 miles on it, and was still fitted with the original tires with at least one-third of their tread remaining, so it had not had a hard life. My father, who is more the intended market for this car, also drove the car.
Most of my impressions remain the same. But two changed significantly, and not for the better.
First, after driving a Jaguar XK8 the Cadillac's interior looks and feels downscale, and not at all befitting a car in this price range. The right side of the instrument panel appears especially plain, and the metal trim clashes with the tan interior; a gray or black interior would be better.
Second, I was able to drive the XLR over rough pavement this time, and although the ride is fairly smooth the car, like the Corvette, doesn't feel nearly as solidly put together as the imported competition. I don't know if the structure itself flexes, or if the composite body panels and other bits attached to it shimmy about, but either way the XLR feels cheap in the way a $75,000+ car never should. A new one might perform a bit better in this regard, but with only 19,000 miles this car should have felt like new.
On a positive note, wind noise with the top up is equal to that in a coupe, and road noise is minimal. Given how much the rear tires roar in the Corvette, this is quite an achievement. Most of the noise entering the cabin comes from the engine. Also, I didn't mind the light steering as much on the road as I did on the track; mostly I just wish that the huge steering wheel were smaller in diameter. (The Corvette suffers from a similarly large wheel.)
Overall, both my father and I liked the sporty handling of the XLR--the new Jaguar XK8 feels huge in comparison. He also likes the exterior styling quite a bit; I continue to feel the car needs a more raked beltline. However, we both also felt it lacked the premium look and feel a car in this price range needs. I could personally forgive the shortcomings of the interior (my fatehr could not), but the XLR absolutely must feel more tightly put together.
I have reduced my rating to two stars, and no longer recommend the XLR.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 76,000
Model Year: 2004 Model and Options: The only way they come.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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