Some say American luxury is dead. In the minds of many premium-car buyers, Cadillac and Lincoln wear a musty mantle of oddball hipness. Some also say the hardware on these aging flagships is a cut or three below that of the first-class Asian and European fare. And it's easy to notice that both are frequently sold into rental-car fleets and livery services at discounted prices. Devoted import-intenders believe the Lincoln Town Car and the Cadillac DeVille are stodgy-looking, sloppy-handling, underperforming tugboats: fitted with interior bits and features barely better than those in their platform-sharing siblings at Ford and Mercury, or Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Buick.
Some of these views are justified. And some are not.
2003 Buick Park Avenue Ultra
It's a bit ironic that, just as we were reviewing this brontoluxsaurus duo, the Lincoln division dropped "American luxury" as its marketing tag line. Ford Motor Company was using that amorphous blurb to separate Lincoln from its internationally branded and marketed cousins, Jaguar and Volvo. General Motors, however, hasn't bought import labels and then positioned them above its top, home-market brand. GM has reengineered, modernized, and trimmed Cadillac's portfolio to compete more directly against platinum Euro and Asian brands. Amid much promise, and with a lot of new product in its pipeline, the results to date are inconclusive.
2003 Buick Park Avenue Ultra
First, I must admit to a soft spot for big, stately Buicks. In my mind, they do a great job of cruising that large gray area between an expensive luxury sedan, like a Jaguar XJ, and more pedestrian models like the Chevrolet Impala and the Toyota Camry. As such, they're a nice alternative to cars shouting "pretension!"At the top of Buick's conservative portfolio for '03 is this newly gussied-up version of the roomy Park Avenue. It helps celebrate Buick's centennial year and shares the same front-drive G-platform as the DeVille. Its smooth-ride suspension tuning tames weather-punished roads and is well damped for an American car, though it doesn't feel nearly as polished or substantive as something like an LS 430. Underhood, you'll find Buick's quiet, fuel-efficient (18 city/27 highway) 240-hp supercharged 3800 V-6. This may not sound like much punch for a 3900-lb sedan, yet it still managed an 8.2-sec run to 60 mph—quicker than the V-8-powered Town Car. Another thing we appreciate is its generally tasteful—even quiet—exterior design. We understand, and like, the heritage-style chrome "ventiports" in the fenders and the aggressive vertical-bar grille. But the look of these chrome-plated wheels falls way short. They resemble cheap aftermarket wheelcovers. Guess we should be thankful GM's designers didn't decide to revive the giant "Sweepspear" chrome bodyside molding that used to kick over the rear-wheel arches of ancient Buick models. Sometimes retro/heritage can go too far.Inside, things fall down a bit. Buick designers tried too hard with the Park's decidedly fake-wood-grained instrument panel and door trim. The overall effect smacks of the early '80s. The instrumentation also looks downmarket; the gauge characters would look more appropriate on a large kitchen appliance than a car. But like the DTS, you can't beat its voluminous stretch-out room.Pricing wasn't available as we went to press, but we're expecting this celebratory variant to slide in just under $40,000. Not a bad piece at not a bad price—but clearly out of touch with today's luxury market leaders. If Buick could give us something with the elegance and suppleness of the above noted Jaguar, then we'd really have reason to celebrate, as another classic American nameplate reaches an important milestone.—J.K. |
Adding conceptual torque steer to this showdown are the separate engineering paths Lincoln and Cadillac have chosen. The Town Car, powered by a 239-hp SOHC V-8, is a rear driver, as are most luxury sedans. For '03, the car rides on a freshly stiffened perimeter frame sporting a new cast-aluminum front crossmember and a redesigned front suspension. The previous and decidedly vague recirculating-ball steering has finally been replaced with a modern rack-and-pinion unit.
The DeVille DTS, on the other hand, rolls on a front-drive unit-body powered by a transversely mounted 300-hp DOHC V-8. Most of the next-generation Cadillac line, including the '04 SRX sport crossover and the '05 STS (Seville) will be built on the rear-drive Sigma platform that first came to market as the basis of the agile CTS sedan. Like the old pre-wedding saying, the current DeVille is something old and something new.
So, what is the state of American luxury, as defined by two somewhat different approaches? Are the Town Car and the DeVille still viable as premium transport over American roads or merely destined to become little more than the roomiest option at the rental-car counter?
Heads, It's Cadillac
When it comes to the duel among American V-8s, we have an SOHC-versus-DOHC matchup here. In effect, our Cartier Edition Lincoln Town Car brought a knife to a gunfight. Although both engines have 4.6L displacement, the Cadillac DeVille DTS powerplant has higher-tech cylinder heads. The Cadillac's Northstar pumps out 300 hp at 6000 rpm; the Lincoln's V-8 manages only 239 at 4900. The performance discrepancy is in the different airflow capabilities: The DTS inhales and exhales with two camshafts operating two intake and two exhaust valves per cylinder. The TC's V-8 is left to do the job with but one intake and one exhaust valve per cylinder on one cam per head. Speaking technically, it has lower volumetric efficiency. Speaking plainly, the Lincoln gets its doors blown off.
It's fun to speculate about how much closer the test numbers would be were the Town Car packing the Mercury Marauder's 32-valve DOHC 4.6L/302-hp V-8 (July '02). Unfortunately, underhood clearance limits the big Lincoln to the tamer SOHC 4.6. So at low, midrange, and high speeds, the DeVille dominated our acceleration tests. That's obvious in the Cadillac's 7.3-sec pull to 60 mph versus the 9.1 required by the stately Lincoln. Further track testing revealed an almost 7-sec difference to 100 mph. European and Asian luxury sedans with heftier prices run even quicker than the DTS: A glance at our numbers for import competitors reveals an average of about 6.7 sec to 60, though the Caddy gets the job done on less-expensive regular-grade fuel. Impressive. Still, luxury-car buyers want power. They get plenty from the high-priced Euro/Asians, just enough from the DeVille, and not nearly enough from the Town Car.