Cadillac Seville Touring Sedan

Sheetmetal sentries and engine examiners will underestimate radically the changes made to the '96 Cadillac Seville Touring Sedan. Those who judge a car's newness by fresh fender creases and horsepower additions will miss a bushel of delightful new features crammed inside the unchanged, but still elegantly lovely, bodywork of the new STS.

Only dedicated Cadillac enthusiasts will notice the STS' single exterior change-seven-spoke cast-aluminum wheels-and even Cadillac service technicians will have difficulty spotting the refinements made to the Northstar V-8, which still pumps out a thrilling 300 horsepower. Yet a quick drive and a peek at the interior will reveal the significant enhancements made this year.

Cadillac said the philosophy of "hands on the wheel, eyes on the road" was the motivating force behind many of the interior changes. The most obvious example: Controls for the computerized Driver Information Center display (fuel economy, engine data, and so on) and ventilation system no longer flank the gauges, making room for a new, more legible instrument cluster. New Lexus-esque sound-system controls are mounted high on the center console and feature large, easy-to-use buttons. Volume, station tuning, and seek controls are relocated closer to the driver. Also new are steering-wheel-mounted redundant controls for stereo and climate control or, optionally, a cellular phone-simple changes that yield big ergonomic gains

Probably the most user-friendly new feature is the voice-activated cell-phone. The system acts like a ride-along personal secretary, recalling 20 phone numbers by spoken name and dialing others by vocalized digits. It recognizes a wide variety of accents including, as proved in this author's actual testing, a Tennessee drawl. The phone rests in a console-mounted cradle or can be removed and employed as a portable phone, its voice-activated feature intact.

An improvement that's highly effective at enhancing both interior appearance and function is the new styling of the passenger-side airbag. Previously, the airbag's door was prone to bad fit with the surrounding dash and was a source of distracting reflections on the windshield. The new passenger airbag is housed undetectably between the top of the dash and the underlying wood trim.

STS drivers now don't need to take their hands off the wheel even to turn on the windshield wipers. Cadillac's new Rainsense Wiper System employs an infrared beam that detects moisture on the windshield and then activates the wipers, selecting appropriate wiper speeds for changing conditions.

Many interior areas of the '95 STS that were a harsh black-around the door handle and window controls-now match the interior color, while others are a warmer charcoal tone.

The seat cushions were shortened one inch and the wing height was lowered 0.75 inch to accommodate a wider range of STS owners more comfortably. French seams on the redesigned leather-covered front seats give a hand-stitched look.