Two Dead Models, Chrysler's Uncertain Future, Cadillac's "Air Bridge"

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Hey, Jill.

Hey.

That is Jill Siminello.

She is the contributing editor here at consumerguide.com

and North American Car of the Year juror and a freelancer.

Yes.

Today is one of those days we remember why we live in Chicago.

You know, it totally is.

Oh my God, what a day.

This is absolutely the nicest day so far this year.

A hundred percent.

It's like 60.

It's not humid.

It's sunny.

It's 70.

All my cats are lined up around the windows.

Yeah.

Just looking long and the outside.

Yeah, you don't look weird wearing shorts today.

Get right.

You actually look like you fit in.

I have returned into my element.

I went for a walk before the podcast today

because today is not my running day.

That would be tomorrow.

But I went for a walk and there are a lot of people out

in like tank tops and shorts running on the path today.

Chicago people do that.

Like the minute the weather breaks,

everyone's running around naked.

Yeah, they are.

Which makes us a great city.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe not Palatine.

I saw like so I like to go through like by the high school

campus over by Lane Tech.

Over by Dare.

The largest freaking high school on the planet.

It's certainly in Chicago I think.

It's huge.

And there was actually a woman

and I don't think it was a high school kid

but a woman in a bikini on the lawn next to the school.

I don't get that here.

Yeah.

I didn't see any bikinis today.

Yeah, I saw a bikini.

In fact, I have to have to come down from that high note for a moment.

I made a mistake.

I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago.

But I talked about the model team moment pickup truck

that Ford is building.

The $30,000 electric pickup.

Yes.

And I had noted that it's going to make use of 48 volt architecture.

No one is going to care.

But I was sort of wrong.

The 48 volts just the low voltage side.

Okay.

So it's going to use a 48 volt system,

not a 12 volt system, blah, blah, blah.

It's not the same thing as using 48 on the high voltage side,

which did make a whole lot of sense.

Okay.

But anyway, thank you to Marty Dent for pointing that out.

Okay.

Marty wants to get on the show.

We should talk to Marty.

Yeah.

About having him on.

He's a longtime journalist.

Yeah.

Respected in this field and he's a good guy,

so we should have him on.

So that's the mistake I made.

Thank you, Marty.

Reach out to me.

I'll get you scheduled.

And then bigger news that could be,

which could precede huge news.

Okay.

Chris Fewell, recently our guest on the podcast,

has stepped down as CEO of Chrysler.

Yes.

And for people who aren't keeping the whole thing clear,

that's Chrysler the brand, not Stalantis.

Yes, the company.

Because Chrysler used to be the whole.

Right, right.

I still have shirts with the Chrysler logo on it.

Yeah, yeah, because it was Chrysler,

and then it was Daimler Chrysler,

and then it was Chrysler again.

Well, then it was Cerberus,

and then it was Fiat Chrysler,

and then it was Stalantis.

Yeah, Stalantis.

It was PSA in there somewhere, I don't know.

They merged with PSA.

Right.

And through the really weird,

really weird tumultuous world of business,

Opal, which used to be a General Motors division in Europe,

is now part of Stalantis.

Yes.

The world's a weird place.

The world is a weird place,

but that's not the news.

The news is.

No, is that Chris stepped down

from a brand that has one product.

Right.

Now that product is probably safe.

Right.

Because it sells in volume,

it makes money,

and it's being freshened as we speak.

However, I'm just going to throw this out there.

We can talk about it now.

We'll talk about it more later as evidence builds up,

or it does not.

The odds of Chrysler dropping Chrysler,

I'm sorry, of Stalantis dropping Chrysler,

I think are very high right now.

Well, so I would hate to see that happen,

because Chrysler.

It was the brand.

But they just didn't feed it.

And remember, they were supposed to have that airflow.

It was going to be an electric SUV.

Yeah, right.

We looked at the Halcyon concept.

I remember the airflow concept that preceded the Halcyon.

An airflow is a historic name in the Chrysler.

But that was where they introduced a new badging

that it appears is going to be on the updated Pacifica.

Have you seen those spy shots?

I have.

That front end does not look good.

It looks modern.

I didn't think there was anything wrong with the old van.

I thought the old van looked remarkably fresh.

Well, so here's the thing.

I'm going to call this the Kia Carnival effect,

because you had the Kia Carnival come out a couple of years ago,

and that's the newest minivan on the market.

And it was hot.

Like as a minivan, it was really hot.

It's also three and a half grand cheaper than the cheapest Pacifica.

But it looked like an SUV.

It was muscular.

And it had really forward-thinking design.

And you're like, that's a minivan?

The bachelor dad party pack.

I mean, way better than the swagger wagon.

But it is good-looking.

And I think there's no shame in driving it,

even if you don't like minivans for some reason.

And there's nothing wrong with minivans.

So here's the thing.

Chrysler could be gone.

Chrysler and Dodge could be gone.

I don't think Dodge is going anywhere.

I mean, if I were going to pull out my crystal ball,

which is a little bit murky today,

because it's 78 degrees in Chicago.

So that murkies up the crystal ball.

But I would say Dodge is going to go back

to being a performance brand.

We've already started seeing-

There's no business there in the performance brand business.

But I think that they're going to-

So like-

Name another successful performance brand on sale in the US.

Nope.

But that's just it.

There is none.

Porsche.

So here you have something that nobody else has,

white space, so to speak.

And if you create this charger that has an EV powertrain,

a six-cylinder powertrain, and a Hemi powertrain,

you are now appealing to everybody.

And if you can flexibly and easily interchange

those powertrains,

I think that that could be very successful

and that could build out a brand with other vehicles.

How many chargers do you think

Dodge sold last year?

3,000.

10,000.

Okay.

But still, a drop in the bucket compared to things like-

Well, they dropped the Hemi.

Compared to Wranglers.

And if they bring it back, is that going to boost sales 50%?

Maybe.

That takes you to 15,000?

I know, I know.

I don't think it's there anymore.

I'm not, I'm holding out hope.

I'm holding out hope that it is not dead.

And I mean, what I would like to see happen,

and again, murky crystal ball,

what I would like to see happen is

Chrysler becoming more of the passenger car brand,

you know, with the sedan, with the compact SUV,

you know, a real mainstream brand in addition to the minivan.

Then you have Dodge being the performance brand.

They kept trying that over the Chrysler 200.

They killed the Chrysler 300 and didn't replace it.

I mean, they're not really thinking about that or like that.

I don't even know what you added to the Chrysler lineup.

Now they were going to add a mid-sized crossover

that I believe was supposed to be electric.

So we know that's dead.

Yeah.

So I don't know what's left for Chrysler.

And to move, to make the minivan a Dodge is easy.

And frankly, to make it a Ram is not.

I don't know that making the minivan a Dodge is easy anymore

because of Dodge having had the focus of performance.

In some ways, I think it would be easier

to take Dodge and make it Chrysler.

Well, the thing that, yeah, I suppose,

the real thing here to do is just make the minivan

a Ram and turn all the dealerships into Jeep Ram dealerships.

Then all of a sudden you have two franchises that make big money,

do big volume, and sell just things that are popular.

All of a sudden your lot is less cluttered,

cluttered with things like hornets or chargers.

I don't know.

I give high odds to the likelihood that Chrysler is dead

and relatively middling odds that Chrysler and Dodge are both dead.

Remember, this is a company that just wrote down $26 billion.

Yeah.

They don't really need to support two extra brands that don't really make money.

No, but again, I go back to the fact that I think the previous leadership

was leading the company a little bit astray.

And I firmly believe that the Wagoneer S and the Charger Daytona,

the electric version, should have been under the Chrysler brand.

I firmly believe that and I feel like the...

Yeah, I don't even know what Wagoneer S is.

It's a fun vehicle to drive and it's a really good look.

I don't think it should have been a Jeep.

No, we probably shouldn't.

And we talked about this I think a couple of weeks ago.

There's a product called the Jeep Avenger sold in Europe.

That is a front-wheel drive EV, weird use of the Jeep name.

Well, because Dodge Avenger, remember?

Yeah, I do.

So here's the deal.

Something maybe percolating.

Percolating?

Percolating there and there may be changes.

Christy will sit standing down, stepping down,

feels like precursor to news.

And then Dodge leader, what is his name here?

Matt McLear.

That guy took over Chrysler and she was also running Alpha.

Right.

So he's got those under his belt.

Was it Alpha or was it Fiat?

Alpha.

Okay.

Yeah.

So all right, that's that story.

We'll get back to it.

There will be more news.

Yeah.

And there'll be news if there isn't news.

Yeah, I hope I'm not wrong,

but I could be wrong.

Yeah.

I think we should be open to the idea that Chrysler and Dodge go away.

If you're going to kill one, kill them both at the same time,

you know, use one bandage.

You wound me.

Yeah, I don't feel good about it.

Dodge is a historic brand.

Chrysler is a historic brand.

Bums me out.

But I mean, I feel like that's, you know,

I mean, General Motors didn't get rid of Chevrolet.

They got rid of Saturn.

So I just don't know how.

Yes, but Chevrolet was selling a million units a year.

I know, but I just, I don't know.

I just don't know how they could, they could do it.

I think they need a complete reorg and re-think

of what they're doing with their brands.

Is Chevy the highest volume brand in the U.S., or is it Toyota?

I don't know, but they're not going to get rid of you.

You know who would know that?

I bet Sam Fiorani would know that.

We would know it.

Sam Fiorani, you're listening.

You should text us.

Anyway, so that's that story.

It's going to be a story.

We'll be talking about it more.

We have some goodbyes to say.

And I'm bummed about all of them.

The Kia Soul discontinued after 2026.

Yeah.

Delightful vehicle.

Yes.

A vehicle I sort of been forgetting lately,

but it's a really good entry-level vehicle.

It plays the role of crossover,

though it's not available with all the drive.

Good packaging, great looks.

It was one of those vehicles

that just crossed the generational divide.

It was a great entry-level vehicle

for somebody who was just starting to drive,

but because of the high hip point

of entry and exit to the vehicle,

it was also really great for people

who were on the older side of the spectrum

and couldn't get down or into a sportier car

or get up into a large SUV.

Hilariously.

I think that's part of what did in the whole boxy vehicle

because there was the Soul,

there was the Scion XB, the Nissan Cube,

which was way too eccentric looking,

and the Honda Element.

Right, right.

All of these were,

obviously they tell you they're aimed at youth.

No one tells you that a car is aimed at old people

with bad hips,

but all of them were purchased

by old people with bad hips.

Right.

Well, you know, I mean the element,

I think it would probably be the exception to that

because that was such a functional vehicle,

that it had holes in the floorboard

that you could drain water out of.

Yeah, and that wasn't exactly plain

against these vehicles.

It had sort of a different mission.

You remember, it had composite fenders

in case you were going off-road with it.

It was available with all wheel drive,

and the dual, what was it?

The suicide doors on the side.

Yeah, and I feel like it had the flip-up seats

in the back so you could put a bike in the back seat.

Yeah, so it was super functional, super useful,

and it sold in some volume.

The Scion XB, when it first launched,

was tiny, fun to drive,

unbelievably functional,

it's super easy to customize,

had some fun, then they redid it

and it got bigger and heavier

and more expensive and the fuel economy fell.

And the Cube was just too darn weird.

You know what?

Oddly, my dad wanted the Cube,

and I was like, who are you?

And what have you done with my dad?

We had a long-term Cube at Consumer Guide

that we had for a year,

and it was a fine vehicle.

We didn't have any complaints about,

no, I mean, Kirk complained about it being slow.

Kirk complains about everything.

But no, there were really no complaints there.

But the interesting thing about the Cube,

I think, and the single most important thing

is that there was an option

to get a little piece of Velcro rug

on the dashboard.

Which they called the two-pay.

Yeah, my dad wanted that.

And I'm like, what?

And he's like, I just think it's weird.

And I was like...

He's right.

Okay.

He's right, it was weird.

What was weird, too, is that once you were in it,

didn't feel that weird.

Yeah.

Very conventional.

Yeah, I feel like he had it as a rental car or something.

He was like, this is amazing.

And I was like, oh, you're weird.

But of the little boxy things, man,

the soul took it.

It just, it ran with it.

And I think that the extra warranty was good,

the low price was good,

the fuel economy was good.

The hamsters.

A lot of people, people still remember that.

From 2015, I think it was.

I mean, you claim to not remember things from last week.

And then...

No, that would be you.

You're the one who texts me and asks me,

what car were we reviewing every week?

I didn't do that this week.

You did.

Well, we talked about it at once.

I might be wrong, though.

They sold 1.5 million souls.

That's amazing.

In the US.

Yeah.

So that's crazy talk.

All right, another car going away.

And we just talked about this.

We just talked about this.

The Audi A8.

Yes.

And that's not the US, that's global.

Going away.

And we talked about these numbers.

I wrote them down again just because these used to be

the flagships of these brands.

But BMW sold 11,007 series last year.

Mercedes-Benz sold just 6,400 S-classes.

Genesis sold 1,700 G90s.

That is a car not getting the love it deserves.

No.

And then Audi sold just 1,400 A8s in the US.

So going away.

The large sedan, not there anymore.

No.

Interestingly, BMW still sells an awful lot of three and four series cars.

Like, they're the last maker that really has a handle on sedans.

And they're cool sedans.

They're good sedans.

They are driver sedans.

All right.

I got another one here.

Okay.

The Hyundai Ioniq 6.

Yes.

Gone.

Yes.

That's gone.

That was a shocker to me.

Yeah, because it's such a cool car.

That came out just a couple of years ago.

It is a mid-sized sedan about the size of a Hyundai Sonata,

except that it is electric.

It is extremely aerodynamic.

The silent is extremely avant-garde.

It has fantastic range.

361 miles from the right trim level.

Everything about this car is pretty likable,

but it only did 10,000 units of sales last year without the incentives.

I'm sure they're expecting that to slip to more like five.

Right.

So that's going to be a tough sell.

Yeah.

Hyundai is going to focus on the Ioniq 5,

compact crossover, and the new 9, which is really nice.

Oh, it's super nice.

They're big EVs.

So all right.

I mentioned that I was wrong.

All right.

I think we can start talking about our test drive.

Yeah, you mentioned that was like a weird transition.

So because I put it down here, but then addressed it first.

Okay.

See.

So that's a feeling of my notes.

Got it.

Not my fault, my notes fault.

Blaming you anyway, because you were the one who did the notes.

Yeah.

I did do the notes.

You did do the notes.

All right.

You and I had a chance to drive the same vehicle.

Actually, it was a different vehicle.

I think there were different colors.

Yeah, mine's white.

But we drove the 2026 Mazda CX-30 3.3 Turbo S Premium Plus.

CX-70.

Did I say 30?

You said 30.

You've got 30 on the brain.

Feeling of my notes.

3.3 liter turbo.

That's where you got the 3.8 grumps.

CX-30 3.0.

No, CX-70.

3.3 Turbo S Premium Plus.

Anyway, this is Mazda's relatively new mid-sized crossover.

They launched the 90 first.

The CX-90 replaced the CX-9.

Three-year-old crossover.

Very nice.

And it was a big change.

This was 100% a new vehicle.

They went to a rear-drive architecture.

They went to an inline six-cylinder engine,

which is usually the purview of luxury brands.

It's turbocharged.

And then they made more space in back.

Like the whole thing here was the CX-90.

Very nice family vehicle.

Not selling as well as it should.

I think it's an excellent vehicle.

I agree.

But then they decided that the CX-70,

which came later, would be the anti-90.

And if you don't want to haul around the soccer team,

you can't because there's no third row.

Correct.

So they have two mid-sized cars.

It's 90 and 70.

97 passenger or eight passenger.

But the 70 is just a five-passenger vehicle.

Well, I mean, they had the CX-7.

Many moons ago.

So this isn't like a deviation.

This isn't like this is something they've never done before.

So they had the CX-5, CX-7, CX-9.

And now they have the CX-5, CX-50.

That to me is a little bit weird.

And then the CX-70 and CX-90.

Volkswagen also does this with the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport.

Yeah.

I can never keep track of these weird sport cross.

Cross.

I'm pretty sure it's cross-bord.

Anything that means they took a hatchet to the back end

is complicated and hard to remember.

Yes.

But the CX-70 is a heck of a nice car.

Let me just start there.

Yes.

I drove it for a week.

I really enjoyed this vehicle.

And I've driven a lot of mid-sized crossovers lately.

TX, the Lexus TX, the Hyundai Palisade, the Chevy Traverse.

And they all have, they're all good, frankly.

But this vehicle, to me, is the one I probably want most

because it feels the most European.

Well, it feels very European.

It's super sporty.

It handles the road really well.

It's very quiet.

It's the kind of SUV you would get if you like to drive, I think.

Yeah.

Of these, it's the one.

The Lexus is probably the one least tuned for driver excitement.

The Chevy was pretty good.

The Hyundai might have been pretty sporty.

But this is actually sporty.

It feels European.

It feels like a BMW X5 for less money.

Very nice interior.

Very quiet.

Very great on the highway.

There's nothing here not to like.

Also, was this a Bose sound system?

I wrote this down somewhere.

Great audio system.

I'm pretty sure it is Bose.

And so it was really funny because on one of my TikTok

videos that I put out there, somebody said that they would

be curious to see if I felt that the transmission had improved.

And I'll be honest, I don't remember the transmission

particularly being bad when it launched.

But I will say that the transmission feels

like it has nice, smooth shifts to me.

I don't remember transmission issues either.

What I do remember is that there's a hybrid version of this.

Well, we should talk about the engines.

So there's the 3.3 inline six.

It's a turbocharged engine.

It either puts out 280 horsepower in base trim or 340.

Yeah.

A big 340 in your S versions of the vehicle.

And it's very quick and a lot of power.

That engine is silky smooth.

And I didn't have any problems with that transmission at all.

Now, if you're looking for transmissions problems.

The PHEV.

There's a plug-in hybrid version of this.

And it's not worth it.

It's a little bit glitchy.

It also, it doesn't use the six-cylinder engine.

It uses a four-cylinder engine.

Are you sure about that?

Yeah, 2.54.

And it's a plug-in hybrid and it gets to the range,

but it is unpleasant to drive around town.

Just weird shifts, weird power delivery,

the handoffs between gasoline and electric.

They're not good.

So I would recommend avoiding the PHEV

unless you really, really want to test drive it.

But if you test drive it, drive it in slow traffic.

I don't think you're going to like it.

My vehicle was polymetal gray,

which sounds like a tragically boring color,

but it was actually had these wonderful blue tones

that sort of shifted in light.

Yeah, mine's just a boring white.

I feel like every other car on the road is white.

So this is a little bit more expensive.

There is no base model of this.

So it gets a little bit more expensive than the CX-90.

You have to start a trim level higher.

But I think most people are going for those middle trim levels anyway,

so it doesn't matter.

We drove a top trim level.

Mine was starting at 56, 670 plus 1530 destination.

Came to 59, 825.

All of these very, very nice top-line mid-sized crossovers

are coming to 60 now.

Yeah, I feel like everything is expensive.

Well, what I was in the TX350 last week,

it was like $74,000, and it's just like, what?

It's a nice car.

Funny thing, when Zach Prattle was on the show a couple of weeks ago,

Zach had noted that he was not a big fan of the TX

simply because he thought the Grand Highlander

got the job done for much less money.

He's not wrong, and the Grand Highlander's interior is nice,

but the Lexus interior is nicer.

But I thought I'd throw that out there, just an opposing view.

Just an opposing view.

Well, and so, I was in the Turbo Premium Plus,

Rodeum White, and then it had the red Napa leather interior.

Slapping the word Rodeum in front of the word White.

Rodeum White.

Is a waste of a perfectly good adjective.

Rodeum sounds like fun.

Yeah, Rodeum.

But your hands would be made numb by touching that color.

So don't do that.

So the SS to price for my vehicle is $51,945.

All right.

Yeah, but I liked it.

I would say the only thing that I'm a little bit ish on

is the seat comfort.

They feel like I'm sitting on cardboard.

Yeah, I don't know if that's just because I've got a bony butt

or what is going on there, but they are just a little bit.

As a rule, I do not comment on your butt on the show.

I appreciate that.

No, I do online.

Yeah, well, you know.

All right, we should take a break here.

After the break, we talked to Gary Witsenberg.

Yes.

Our friend who has just written a new book.

Yes.

So stick around.

Questions or comments?

Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

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Welcome back to the CarStuff Podcast.

And we're back.

This is the Consumer Guide CarStuff Podcast.

I'm Tom.

She is Jill.

Hi.

And we're chatting here

on a very, very, very nice day in Chicago.

I know.

I'd much rather be outside.

Real quick, throw me a bone.

Hey, Tom.

Are you on social media?

Hey, Jill.

Thanks for asking.

I'm on TwitterX.

I'm on Blue Sky.

I am CarGuyTom on both.

Good conversation right now on Blue Sky

about an ad Dustin Hoffman did, I think in 1966,

for the Volkswagen Fastback Sedan.

Really interesting ad because it's making the point

that if you thought Volkswagen's were too small,

check out the Fastback Sedan.

And there's some funny stuff there

about there being a trunk at both ends of the vehicle.

So but that chat is pretty lively.

You know what guests of ours have done?

Written books.

Steven Johnny wrote a book about Les Paul.

Nick DeGilio wrote a book about movies.

And he's writing another one right away about horror movies.

Okay.

And our good friend Gary Whitsenberg

has just written a book.

It's out now called Legends in Motion.

Inside stories and drive-in adventures

from the wonderful world of cars.

Gary, how are you today?

I'm doing fine, Tom and Jill.

Glad to be here.

Well, we have your book right here in front of us.

Thank you for getting us a copy of this.

It looks great.

It is huge.

This is a big book of good car stories.

Why did you put this together

and tell us what the point was?

Well, if you think about it, I heard Jill just

while I was still trying to get on the audio

talking about how long I'd been doing this.

It's been over four decades.

I've driven obviously thousands of cars.

I've written about lots of vehicles.

But also I've had lots of great stories

and lots of great adventures beginning

even before I was had a license.

Soon after, I was very fortunate to have a father

who kind of liked cars.

And he didn't have a lot of money,

but he had a good job.

So if you look at some of the earlier chapters,

I had some kind of cool cars in high school

and some adventures with him

that a couple of them could have killed me,

but they didn't.

And then as time went along,

I got my first new car,

which is a Triumph TR-4A drove it around Europe

on some Formula One tracks.

There's a good series of stories on that car

and my adventures with that.

It became my first race car.

The point is throughout my career,

I've been able to have a lot of,

I've been fortunate,

blessed to have a lot of great adventures with cars.

And much of this book is those stories,

personal behind the wheel,

driving Nurburgring 24-hour in 1979

with Lynn St. James and Jim Downing.

And we won our class.

And there's a lot of other racing stuff.

But also stories behind the creations

of some of the really more interesting cars,

some of many of which I've owned through the years.

So if you look at the middle chapters,

it's how this car was created

and why this car was created.

And they may not have been successful,

but they were all interesting.

And the point is,

I think if you write a story

and it's published somewhere,

be it in a print magazine or online somewhere,

some people read it, some people enjoy it.

And it's here today and it's gone tomorrow.

You can still find it maybe,

but it's something that's very temporary.

And I thought,

why not take some of these great stories

and put them all together

in a tone that would be kind of a legacy thing

that would cover some of the great,

fun stuff I've done in my whole career.

And the more I thought about it,

a couple of authors whom I know and respect

recommended that I do this

after reading some of my stuff on Haggerty, for example.

And why don't you make a book out of this stuff?

There's a lot of good stories.

So I finally decided, yes, let's do that.

And unlike a lot of books,

it's not something that motor books or somebody,

I think would have been interested in.

I didn't even try to sell it.

It's a self-published effort.

So I shelled out the money myself to a publisher

and they did a beautiful job on the cover.

They did.

They helped me put together the whole thing.

It turned out as big as it did

because there's that many stories.

And that's some of the good ones

that I had to leave out, frankly.

If you've read any of it, you'll agree.

I think it's pretty fun stuff.

No, it is fun stuff.

And for people who don't know,

if they haven't come across your stuff,

you're a great writer.

Thank you.

And you put this stuff together so well.

And there's a bunch of great stories here.

And Jill and I just put together

a short list of stuff here

that I don't think people know about,

that you have great insight about.

And one of my favorite cars in history,

not because I want to drive it,

but because it was just so weird

and it landed so oddly when it landed.

And there was so much effort put into it

was the Cadillac Allante.

And for people who don't know about the air bridge,

they need to know this

and they need to read your story about that.

But just, if you would, please indulge me

and tell us a little bit about the Allante

and what the air bridge was.

Yeah, that happened because back in the mid-80s, really,

Cadillac, well, GM was basically suffering in terms.

Their cars weren't very good, frankly, all the brands.

And they were suffering.

They were losing sales to overseas makers

and even other domestics.

And the people running Cadillac at the time,

I think Bob Berger was the general manager,

he decided we need a real halo car.

We need something really cool, really special.

Let's go up against the Mercedes sports car.

And they ended up going to Pininfarina,

the famous design house in Italy.

And said, well, you guys,

not only design the car for us,

but also build the bodies,

which they did.

They built a factory just to build the bodies for these cars

and hired a bunch of young people to do it.

But the rest of the car, the chassis, the engine,

everything else except the body exterior and interior

was still done in the US.

So once Pininfarina got these bodies pushed out

of the factory, they were loaded into trucks,

truck to the airport in Milan, I think it was Italy,

loaded on 747s and then flown across the Atlantic to Detroit,

basically, where they then were loaded on trucks again,

sent to the plant and made it with the chassis

and the powertrains.

And that's how the vehicle went together.

And that was a pretty crazy and god-awful,

expensive way to do a vehicle.

But they thought at the time it gave it enough

of a cachet, if you will,

that people interested in luxury cars

who would otherwise not be interested

in a Cadillac brand because they would want a Mercedes

or a BMW or something, this might make them interested

and it might give them the quality,

not only the look of the car, but the quality

that the Italian touch, the reputation.

I will say as a side note that this didn't make

the design studios at Cadillac in Detroit very happy

when they farmed off the design to Cadillac.

I knew the guy at the time,

Wayne Katie was a design studio chief and he said,

basically, he said, you know,

we've done your bread and butter stuff through the years

and now we get something really sexy and cool

and you give it to somebody else

and we don't get to do it.

And he was really upset.

But that's the way it worked.

The way it played out over seven years,

and I think, correct me if I'm wrong,

but I think it was 87 to 94 were the model years.

Okay.

The car, the quality of the body assembly

was not that great at first.

And it was criticized for not only that,

but also that I remember driving the first one

from a press event.

The seats were very hard, like, you know, sitting on rocks.

The top was a terrible design.

It was very hard to put up and take down.

And it had one of the first applications

of digital instruments, video game instruments,

we call them that.

People didn't like that.

And then over the next six years or so,

it got better every year.

As GM tended to do,

they would launch something and then they would

improve it year after year after year,

right up until the point where it was really good.

And then they would cancel it.

And that's what happened.

And for people who don't know that,

how is basically a Cadillac Eldorado,

front wheel drive Cadillac Eldorado under the skin?

It was more or less.

It was derived from that Eldorado.

It was front drive indeed.

And in fact, I remember one of the features

it had that was unique in the industry

at the time was traction control.

Oh, okay.

Front wheel drive cars did not have

traction control in those days.

But it handled well.

Most people thought it looked great.

The quality got much better.

The top got better, one year or another.

It was a very good car.

John Grettenberger, I started to say,

who I knew well.

He was a neighbor of mine up until he passed away

a few years ago.

He took over management of Cadillac.

And he still had one of those.

When I did a story on it,

I just walked down the street to his house

and photographed him with it.

And he said it was really sad when they had to cancel it,

but they needed the money for other cars.

The thing was supposed to maybe not make money,

but at least break even.

It was supposed to pay its own way and it didn't.

It was always a loser.

So they found he very reluctantly had to cancel it.

So looking back, I sort of think

that time has been very kind to that design.

And I think it's a great looking car.

I almost wonder, and I'd love to get your opinion on this,

if at the time the design was almost too subtle.

I think so, but how else would you do it?

I mean, if you look at what else is out there

in 1987 through early 90s,

I don't know if it would have been more rounded,

it would have been better.

Pininfarina does really great work in those days.

And it was distinctive.

It was different.

Yes, it was subtle.

It wasn't flamboyant,

but that's not what they were going for, obviously.

They wanted something very upscale looking, distinctive.

Something that, well, distinctive sums it up,

but they didn't want it to look

like anything else out there.

They wanted it to be just definitely Cadillac,

but also have its own character.

And I think that one of the things

that was not wrong with it was the way it looked.

I think it looked fine and it handled great.

It drove pretty well.

Interesting.

The other thing, I think that was a ding against it

at the time is that it was very expensive.

It was.

It was a couple, off the top of my head,

it was something like $20,000

over the top of the otherwise most expensive Cadillac.

You know, Cedandoville or whatever was

their top-of-the-line car at the time in Toronto.

It was way up there,

but it competed directly price-wise with that Mercedes SL.

It didn't compete with the Mercedes in most other ways,

but they went right for that price,

which I think was around $50,000 at the time, right?

Yeah, that's the number that's sticking in my head, too.

I was trained to look through the book.

Yeah, it looks like $54,700.

Okay.

Yeah.

$50,000, a lot of money at the time.

Yeah.

We're not against it in price,

but what they failed to take into account is that Mercedes

earned that price through a lot of years of excellence

and reputation, and Cadillac couldn't just jump up to that price level

immediately without earning it first through a period of time

to get there for people to see it, perceive it as a good value.

Yeah, it does feel like they shortcut it a little bit.

I'm switching gears,

because I want to make sure we get to another one of your stories,

and we are going to be running out of time pretty quickly,

but I want to talk about the Cannonball Express.

Oh, yeah.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about that,

and just from how it came together to,

and if anybody's seen the movie Cannonball Run,

this is not that, but I couldn't help thinking of that

while I was reading your story.

And so I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit

about what the Cannonball Express was and your experience,

and is it still going today?

I think it is.

I just saw something online that they're doing it,

but in a much tone down,

kind of around the middle of the country in a few days.

I haven't really kept up with or studied up with what's going on now,

but there is still something called that I think happening.

That happened, as you know, Jill, it was put on by Brock Yates.

It was the same mad genius who did the original

illegal Cannonball Runs, was behind those,

and he decided that this would be a kind of a cool thing to do,

to do all the way circumnavigate the U.S.,

and it was 9,000 miles in nine days or something like that.

And there were transit zones where you just were on your own

to get there on time, and your route and your speeds and so on

were up to you, and then there were specific stops at race tracks

where they would give you a lap time

or something that was part of the competition.

But if you read the story, Jill, you know,

parts of it were fun, but for our team, it was a total nightmare.

We were in, there were four factory outies,

Turbo, Quattro, Audi, Sedans,

and that was a really cool car at the time, 86.

I think I remember that correctly,

and all-wheel drive and anti-lock brakes and turbo power,

and there were four of those in the thing,

entered by the factory, one of them won,

but ours was a late entry.

We were supposed to, I was supposed to co-drive with the actor,

James Brolin, and the B.F. Goodridge PR guy,

James Brolin's one of our co-drivers at Nürburgring,

by the way, in that story, and then they both canceled out,

and I ended up with a rally team,

Bruno Kreiberg and Clark Bond, a really good rally team,

but they entered, the Volkswagen Porsche Audi of America had

withdrawn the car, then they re-entered it.

It was a late entry, and we ended up, I think,

something like 76th in a rally out of 78 cars or something like that.

If you ever driven a rally or, you know, I think about it,

the cars started one minute intervals.

That means we started an hour and six minutes behind the first car,

and that always meant that we would get into someplace late.

If we were delayed, we would get into a checkpoint.

We were supposed to maybe get a meal and a little rest,

but it was already closed.

We had terrible weather.

We had a storm in the north going across the northern route,

and a lot of people were, you know, put off the road

or told not to do that link.

We did it, but we had a failure in the air conditioning system

that turned on the, it didn't just fail,

it failed full blast air conditioning.

So we're driving through a snowstorm in the mountains,

and it's below zero out, and it's below zero in the car

because we got full air conditioning in our face.

I almost froze to death.

There were many other stories that, of things going wrong,

and it seemed like the rules kept flexing

to make sure that the right guy won,

which was Sean Buffen in one of the factory cars,

and people would, they would just ignore some checkpoints,

but not be penalized for them,

but we would miss others for no fault of our own,

like the storm and get penalized,

and it was just the whole thing.

It's a fun story to read.

I ended up, I did it for the Robb Report,

it's a very long story, but it's a fun read,

as you just saw, and maybe a little rebel rally in there.

Yeah, yeah, no, as I was reading it,

because we do time-speed endurance portions,

and so I kept thinking,

oh, I know exactly what you're talking about here,

and last year we ended up being like 65 out of 67 teams a lot,

and just the whole idea of being an hour behind everybody else,

it's so hard.

Real quickly, the other thing that made it a nightmare

was that Ralph Nader at the time,

he got into his head it was an illegal race,

not a legal rally, and would be done mostly at legal speeds,

he thought it was an illegal race,

and he notified all the states it would go through,

and so we had cops there in just about every state,

just harassing us to death and ticketing people for no good reason,

because he told them it was a race,

and we should arrest all these people,

and that went on state after state after state after state,

right to the last one, Ohio was the last state

before we got back to Michigan,

and it looked like a scene out of the original

Clark Gates movie with a thousand cops,

and nobody speeding, you know,

they were going the speed limit and still getting pulled over.

That is why no one invited Nader to parties.

Yeah, not a fun guy.

Gary, we're flat out of time,

but do tell us how we can get the book.

What's available right now is an e-book for Kindle

or read down your computer or phone from Amazon

and Barnes & Noble, also in print editions,

both hardcover and softcover or paperback editions

from those two outlets.

I'm hoping it will be in stores around the country

or maybe in some places soon.

Awesome.

That deal is still going together,

but anybody can go online to Amazon, Barnes & Noble,

and find it in those e-book, paper, or hardcover editions,

and I would encourage them to do so

because I get a few bucks out of it if they do.

That's awesome.

Yeah, if you love cars,

or if you know someone who loves cars,

this is the book to buy.

It is a good read.

I can attest to that.

Gary, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Oh, go ahead.

I will say,

I will just add that you don't even have to love cars

to enjoy the stories.

It's not just for car people.

Good point.

It's a light-hearted tone

that you don't have to be a car enough to enjoy.

Excellent.

Gary, thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you for having me on.

I really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

All right, that was Gary Witsenberg.

We're going to take a break.

And when we come back...

Quiz time.

Questions or comments?

Drop us a line at carstuff at consumerguide.com.

That's carstuff at consumerguide.com.

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Welcome back to the CarStuff Podcast.

And we are back.

This is the Consumer Guide CarStuff Podcast.

I'm Tom.

She is Jill.

Hi.

A little bummed.

I'm never going to write like a nice book.

Maybe I am.

I don't think so.

Well, you know, I mean,

I have, I think, at least two books in me,

and I've already started one of them.

I would like to write a book about 80s car culture.

Okay.

It was a weird time, and the car sucked,

and yet there were still people out there bravely doing fun things with cars.

Okay.

What two books would you write?

Well, my first book, I know you will be the first person to buy it,

is about running.

And I know that it's a subject.

Yes, I can add that to all my other running books.

Near and dear to your heart, but just about...

They're next to my cross-stitch books.

The things I learned anecdotally

while training runners for marathons for 15 years.

Oh.

So that, which I've started, but I need to really put my nose to the grindstone.

I'd like to get it done this year.

And then my second book, a little more serious, is about my journey with my dad

and his fight with Louis Baudi Dementia.

I kept a diary while we were going through it.

These aren't car books.

I know, not car books, but I have things other than cars in my life.

So I figure...

I don't.

Those are the two books that I have.

And then I actually have an idea for a third that would be an anthology

with a couple of different writers in it.

I think Gary's dad was a little bit like mine in that I did a lot of driving

long before I should have been driving.

And my dad encouraged it, frankly.

Not the stealing the car at night part.

Right.

But we used to drive around like from my grandmother's house to our house or something

like that in his old crappy yellow valiant.

And he'd just let me drive.

And Palatine was rural then.

There were no cops.

There were no stop lights.

No one cared.

And even if you saw somebody just wave and they're like, yeah, it looks normal.

That's totally fine.

Yeah.

My dad would take me out before I had a permit in his company car.

So, yeah.

That's cool.

Real quick, we're actually running a little on low on time on social media stuff.

So I will be very quick.

Jill Siminello, hashtag Car De Jure.

And you can find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, threads,

Blue Sky, all the things.

And if I'm not on something that you think I should be on, reach out to me

and tell me where I should be.

All right.

Are you ready?

Yes.

This is one of your favorite quiz formats.

Are you going to?

Oh, is it the 60 second thing?

It is.

Okay.

So, DC, there you go.

It fits into the fact that we're running low on time.

Today's topic is just a gosh darn minute.

Okay.

Just a gosh darn minute.

All right.

I'm going to give you 60 seconds and you're going to have to fulfill

your charter, your charge during the fit.

Yeah, are you ready?

Yep.

That's that easy.

You have one minute.

The hand on the clock in the studio is white.

It's silver.

And it's on a white face.

Okay.

Do you want like my-

No, because I have a watch with a blue face and orange.

Is that orange or is it red?

Whatever it is, it pops.

Okay.

All right.

I'm wasting precious time.

You are.

You have one minute to give me five answers for each of these questions.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Number one.

Name five car models that begin with F. Go.

You have one minute.

Models?

Models.

Okay.

F-150.

Okay.

F-250.

No, just giving you F-series.

F-series.

F-Sport.

F-Pace.

Wait, F-Sport's not a model.

Well, F-Pace.

F-Pace is.

That's a Jaguar.

Oh my gosh.

Wow, you're having a-

F-500.

Okay, good one.

You need two more.

And they also had the Ford 500.

So there's the Fiat and then the Ford.

I'll give you that.

You need one more.

In 10 seconds.

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

I'm blanking.

Four seconds.

Three, two, one.

Oh, oh, you didn't get it.

I didn't get it.

Nope.

Fairmont Fusion F-series Fiesta Falcon Flex 500.

I didn't do the other 500, but there you go.

You have no points.

Yeah, I love that.

Number two, you have one minute to give me five three-cylinder car models.

And go.

I hate you right now.

There's like the Mini Cooper.

All right.

Oh, the Rogue Nissan Rogue.

Okay.

I didn't even have that on here.

Good.

I feel like-

Do the Chevrolet Cruze have a three-cylinder?

The Cruze?

Yeah.

No.

No, 1.4 four-cylinder turbo.

I'm like, I feel like-

But I would walk around that Chevy lot near-

I know.

I'm like, I feel like one of the Chevy's did.

So like the Cruze, the Cobalt, the-

No, no, no.

Aveo, the-

No.

Spark, the-

No.

Yeah.

Ooh, ooh.

Yeah, I got nothing.

Out of time.

You got two of them.

Some examples are the Escape, the Bronco Sport,

the Trax, the Trebelizer, the Invista, the Encore GX,

the Geometro going back in time,

and the Mini Cooper.

Okay.

You're in trouble now.

I know.

I need you in one minute to give me five turbocharged models.

Go.

Okay.

The CX-30.

Okay.

CX-70 that I'm driving right now.

Okay.

I mean, I could keep going down the Mazda lineup.

You need a point, so why not?

I believe the CX-50 is turbocharged.

Yes.

Available with a turbocharger.

Yeah.

I think all the 50s are.

Yeah.

And CX-90.

That's four.

And then, oh god, now I'm going to blink on the last one.

Oh, you got 10 seconds.

Just a turbocharged car.

Yeah.

What's the last car you drove?

The, I can't even remember,

because you're putting me on the spot in 60 seconds.

The TX, I don't like this TX.

Yes.

All right.

You got it.

There you go.

From my answer, I just put kind of everything.

Kind of everything.

All right.

Okay.

I need, you have one point, three questions left.

Five questions total, plus the bonus question.

Bonus question always related to the topic of the day.

Always.

Number four, name five non-luxury sedans currently on sale in the U.S. go.

Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla.

And, I mean, I wouldn't, the Hyundai Sonata.

That is the order I wrote these down in.

Oh gosh.

That's funny.

You have two points.

All right.

And last of the regular questions, I need you to give me five current models

available with engines of a displacement of five liters or over.

Oh, I hate you.

Okay.

I used to write for a truck site, so you should be able to get this.

Oh yeah.

You should go now.

Okay.

You have one minute.

That's 60 seconds.

Well, Mustang.

All right.

I feel like there's a version of the F-150, the F-series that should have more.

But Coyote.

Same engine as the Mustang.

The, no.

35 seconds.

And it's, is it current cars?

No, it doesn't have to be.

I mean, did the Camaro ever have five?

I'm going to need some certainty.

Oh, Camaro.

Yes.

That's three.

You need two more in 20 seconds.

The Silverado.

That's four.

You need one more.

The Sierra.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

I just wrote down Chevy 5362, 4.5 liter, RAM 5.7, Jeep 392.

That's the 6.4.

All right.

You won.

Okay.

You pulled that one out.

All right.

Are you ready?

In honor of International Women's Day.

Which was yesterday.

Yes.

But we didn't record yesterday.

We did not.

I'm doing a tribute to Nancy Drew.

Okay.

600 different book titles, 80 million copies sold in 45 languages since 1930.

Okay.

And really a role model of young women back when there were no role models for young women.

Yes.

Anyway, not for me to not take this entirely seriously.

Yeah.

I have four Nancy Drew titles here.

Okay.

One of them is real.

Only one is real.

Yes.

Okay.

I really felt like writing titles today.

Clearly.

I need you to tell me which of the following is the real title.

Okay.

Of a Nancy Drew mystery.

Okay.

Which by the way I never read any of your books.

You didn't?

I did not.

I didn't read Hardy Boys.

I did not read those either.

I got to them too late and by the time I read it I was like, yeah.

I was like a Mrs. Piglewiggle reader and then moved right into Madeleine Lengel.

No, you know, I didn't read books.

I read magazines.

My dad was an avid magazine subscriber.

Okay.

So National Geographic, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics.

He didn't get car books because whatever.

Yeah.

But we got the Tribune too.

All right, are you ready?

Yep.

One of these titles is real.

Okay.

The Mystery of the Snippy Lunch Lady.

No.

The Clue of the Dancing Puppet.

The Mystery of the Missing Potato Salad.

The Clue of the Mischaping Parrot.

I'm going to say no to the first one and the last one.

Can I read them again?

Yes, you can totally do that.

Yeah.

The Mystery of the Snippy Lunch Lady.

The Clue of the Dancing Puppet.

The Mystery of the Missing Potato Salad.

Or the Clue of...

I don't know why I'm laughing now.

The Clue of the Mischaping Parrot.

I think it has to be either the second or the third one.

Can you read both of those again?

I can.

The Clue of the Dancing Puppet or The Mystery of the Missing Potato Salad.

I think it's going to be the puppet.

You do?

Yeah.

Not the potato salad.

Oh, you got that right.

All righty.

I'm going to sign this.

I'm going to hand it over to you.

Nice job.

So I got four out of six.

Off to a bad start.

It was a terrible start.

Terrible start.

It was a tragic start.

Hey, Tragique.

We have a relationship now on believe.

Yes.

Believe.

It's spelled believe.

Believe.

But it's believe.

Believe.

And I've chatted with this gentleman.

Gentleman named Bodie hosts his own podcast called Kilowatt.

Yes.

And it's very much electric oriented.

Well, it is electric oriented.

But he's really into the current stuff and new stuff

and coming stuff and technology.

I've listened to the show.

It's very good.

Okay.

So one of the things that we're doing now

that we have this relationship on believe

is cross promoting.

So a couple of things happen.

One of us is going to end up on his show at some point.

Yes.

He's going to join us for a show.

Yep.

And we're running ads on each other's podcast.

But do check out Kilowatt.

Yes.

I've actually literally just downloaded it

to the podcast list today.

You can find it any place.

Yep.

Especially Apple Podcast.

That's where I got it.

Yeah.

And if you like it,

leave a review on Apple Podcast.

That would help a lot.

All right.

Guess what we did?

We had another great show.

This was a fun show.

Yeah.

It's always good to talk to Gary.

Gary's history is fascinating.

We didn't even talk about this,

but he's a mechanical engineer.

He was a Navy officer.

Like he's got a fantastic history.

Yeah.

And he just happens to be a really good writer.

Yeah.

Journalist worked for General Motors

for a period of time

and then went back to being a journalist.

Yeah.

It's kind of, you know,

Renaissance guys like this

don't come along all that often.

No.

He's done all the stuff.

He knows all the things.

Yeah.

So cool.

But do check out this book.

Father's Day is coming up.

Yes.

Good present for Father's Day.

I think that would be a great present.

All right.

Big thanks to Gary Wittenberg,

author of Legends in Motion.

Thank you, Jill.

Thanks to producer Randy

and the good folks here at Talk Zone.

Let's talk more about cars again.

Next week.

Remember to check us out at ConsumerGuide.com.

The Car Stuff podcast is produced by J-Turn Media.

To advertise on the show,

please drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe.

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Thank you for listening.

Two Dead Models, Chrysler's Uncertain Future, Cadillac's "Air Bridge"

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