Test drive Cadillac CTS 2002 - 2007 Sedan

The skin of Marilyn

Among our filmmakers, probably, there is no person who would better understand cars than Ivan Dykhovichny. And among people with gasoline in the blood - a man who made a film with a car in the title role. That is why it was him who chose him for the white dance of the overseas film.
In principle, I do not like American cars. Therefore, having agreed to sit for a week behind the wheel of Cadillac CTS, I decided to observe the purity of the experiment. About this particular car did not know anything. I decided: let it be the sensations of a person with blindfolded eyes. Here is a woman in front of you, you touch her and say: she is a beauty. Or you frown: something is not very ...
 
THE FIRST DAY. When I approached the car that was supposed to become my companion for a whole week, a seditious but very beautiful thought flashed through my head: this should have been a Volga, which was dreamed of more than one generation of our citizens - from the nomenclature of the 60s to Boris Nemtsov who wanted to transfer state officials to domestic cars. There is nothing wrong with this allegory. We always really wanted to be like Americans. That is why we do not love them like that. All our seagulls are American cars. Even Stalin’s car is Packard, not Maybach or ferret. Stalin endlessly watched American cinema, and from domestic actresses he liked Lyubov Orlov most of all, Russian Marilyn Monroe. The leader watched overseas cinema alone, and now we watch him all together and plus our love for fairy tales. Only here they are not implemented, but they are implemented. For example, Las Vegas is children's fantasies embodied in the form of a completely adult delirium. And today, such cottages are being built - in the form of lying gulliver.
 
Opening the door, I impressively sat on the driver's seat and looked around. The first feeling is really an American car, because only they have such large rudders. The remaining objects in the cabin are also just huge. The pen, to throw back the back of the seat, is a big one, like a shovel. The internal hook of opening the door is as if for the palm of a snowy man. Then this feeling disappears. A magnificent American disappears, and someone unfamiliar is looking at you. As if the head of the Cadillakovo designers ordered: everything should be modest, but with taste. It really turned out modestly. And it is customary to argue about tastes. There is a lot of plastic. A little wood-still, traces of the fact that this is a Cadillac remained.
 
I did not know what engine under our hood, but when we went, the first thing I said, turning to my wife: this is about three hundred twentieth motor. By power, by optimality, by sound. True, the engine is a little noisy for such a machine. In Cadillac, it should be quiet so that you can hear the pages of the magazine that your companion leafing through.
 
SECOND DAY. The first two days I traveled exclusively around the city and experienced a feeling of perfect comfort, because besides the Audi S8 I have all the cars with a pen. The box in Cadillac works exclusively. She is not sports, but very correct. If you press a kick-downs, it reacts quickly, but smoothly. The car has exactly as much as the rich inhabitant is needed. Everything is accurately calculated - no more or less. The move is smooth, the suspension is very comfortable. She herself tells you what can be done with her and how to own her. And what pleasantly struck me - the lack of swing. Usually an American car is a hammock that lulls you.
Boulevards, ascents - I always go around the traffic jams, because how can every normal Muscovite know what alleys this can be done. In this car, I felt the dimensions very well, I even went to the curbs, although the apron at Cadillac CTS is low.
 
In the evening of the same day, I swept along the road called Krasnogorskoye Shosse and consists of almost rally turns. I expected that in the first of them the car would begin to make sounds similar to a cry of a donkey. You know how it happens when it doesn’t enter in front, the back does not stick to where it is necessary ... Cadillac perfectly prescribed the trajectory, without even leaning, as if there was a German car with a professional semi -wire suspension. This surprised me very much, and I admired this quality all week with Cadillac. Really - a fantastic suspension! It pierced it only once, when I traveled a large cork along the layout of the suburban highway. Maybe this happened because the car passed one and a half thousand kilometers, and since this is a test car, it can be assumed that it was not particularly spared.
 
By the way, I would give such a car fearlessly to my wife. I am sure that a woman will easily find a common language with her. Plus, there is a certain marmalade in Cadillac CTS, just necessary for a woman. Indeed, for them, the car should be, on the one hand, practical and everyday, and on the other, a little elegant, a little fluffy, but not much, not vulgar. Please note: we have all women in jeans, but in heels. CTS is just that.
The third day. On Thursday, I basically hosted guests in Cadillac who did not cease to be surprised at the presence of all kinds of jokes in a car, according to the number of which this Cadillac is a typical American. For example, when opening the door, the driver's seat drives back, facilitating landing. The passenger who was sitting behind me tried to jump out of the car, because his knees crushed him. When I turned on the Drive position on the checkpoint, all the doors immediately locked themselves, and the passengers who did not have time to sit down ran around the car and knocked on the windows.
There, of course, something opens up, it closes here, something is striking nearby ... It seems that you are not driving a machine, but it serves you on your own. Like in the famous cinema, Chaplin. Remember, the hero Charlie worked in a factory where absolutely everything was automated, including feeding: the car herself put dishes in his mouth, watered, wiped it with a napkin ...
 
On the steering wheel - a wheel that controls the volume of music broadcast. Its axis is not parallel to the steering wheel, but turned to the driver, and as if you were twisting a coin on the steering wheel. Actually, I never listen to music in the car, but listening to the motor is not too interesting in this car, so I turned on the audio system. The sound of the speakers squeezed out purely American. A fatty sound that I pressed the Loudness button, when everything is aggravated - low tones, talls - and there is a sharp one like ketchup, sensation.
 
DAY FOUR. On Saturday, I specifically drove to my friend who traded in American cars at the dawn of his business life. Seeing that I had rolled on a white Cadillac, he shook his head: I expected anything from you, but not that. He did not know that I took this car to ride. He thought I was crazy.
The steering column in CTS is not adjusted by departure, but with my height I felt quite comfortable behind the wheel. A friend, in which about about a meter ninety, climbed inside, sat, looked around ... This is not an American car, ”he said and went out.
 
Here is an American car, ”he pointed towards a chest of drawers named Lincoln Navigator. - Not a single European company has anything like this in the model range. Where else can I plunge with six friends and go to Nizhny Novgorod for hunting or fishing in yahroma? And here is a big car, there are big people inside. With one hand I hold her, and she goes.
 
This point of view is understandable to me. Everyone must do their job. In this sense, Cadillac CTS, in my opinion, did not hit the target too much, whose name is the Russian consumer.
My friend Seryozha Mazaev, the leader of the Moral Code, has a Cadillac. Old Cadillac, two -door, large, with sofas! With velvet upholstery, as I call it. Ahead you can sit down. He is all swaying on the go. I don’t want to go quickly on it: after all, we don’t drive for anyone, we just slip in a state of absolute peace. When he turns around, the impression is that in front of you floats on the screen of the panorama of the area. A large, wide thing for large asses. Absolutely nothing of the kind in my Cadillac cannot feel.
Cadillac was also in Moscow at Kobzon. If I'm not mistaken, de Vill. In some inhuman year, maybe in 1975. Kobzon and Cadillac are the perfect combination: the first voice of the country and the imposing machine.
After all, the name Cadillac is obliged. Listen to how pompous this word sounds, how much it causes associations with a well -fed bourgeois life. If the new Cadillac were all varnished, and even with gilded bumers, then I think he would have looked much more to our public. After all, America for most of us is primarily a kitsch. And therefore, an American car is a big thing: black outside, scarlet inside. Like fecal. I will buy it and will wallow in the back seat. And this Cadillac is neither here nor there.
 
The fifth day. On Sunday, I went to the cottage to my friends, almost to the border of the Moscow region, and therefore could try CTS in a more living, in terms of speed, mode. Although, with all my love for the sports style of driving, I do not go quickly. Accelerate - yes, but drive - no. Perhaps the fact that I have a fairly clear idea at what speed what responsibility steps on.
Up to one hundred kilometers per hour, with a forced start, acceleration of my Cadillac is quite active. But the second hundred is very sluggish. And therefore, when overtaking on the straight lines of the Minsk highway, it was felt that with all its horsepower it was still not a sports projectile.
 
At speed, the car behaves steadily, but I did not ride it more than 180 km/h. I do not trust such machines at high speeds. Plus considerations of practicality. 160-170 km/h is enough. For at a speed of 200 km/h you will constantly slow down, and as a result, your average speed will be lower. There are, for example, people who are soaring in a bath at a temperature of 140 degrees. There is nothing more harmful in the world: in the bath, the temperature should be maximum ninety. In addition, we are not the West. I have just been to Germany, where a friend was driving me on an autobahn on a six hundred pulman. He rode 220 km/h and at the same time the distance from the walking car was seven to eight meters. In Russia, even at 180 km/h, I would not come closer than fifty. There everyone understands that the probability of emergency braking or someone’s sharp jump on your strip is negligible and therefore the context of the movement is completely different.
Up to a speed of 140-150 km/h the brake of Cadillac is simply wonderful. Then progress begins, like Valery Brumel, who took two ten, before that raising the bar each time five centimeters, and then the score was already by almost millimeters. After all, only very few brake machines after 180 km/h react adequately to the situation. For example, at my porsche, they work at 200 km/h like a normal machine - at eighty.
However, I probably are unfair. Like those acquaintances that once looking at my Ferrari Dino, they wrinkled his forehead: well, you won’t go hunting on it. By the way, they, at the sight of some jeep, smile condescendingly: twenty two hundred will definitely not go.
 
There are cars that, like powerful animals, require you to let them into a gallop all the time. CADILLAC CTS cannot be sprinkled, it is not for this.
The sixth day. Returning the car to the legal owners, I thought about this. Once, one Frenchman and I spoke about rags, and he told me a wonderful phrase: you and the Americans are fashionably dressed. And we dress in what we like.
 
Our car is still the subject of demonstration, who I am and who you are. Although why only with us?
In Germany, let's say, there are people who travel to the Mercedes, and there are people who travel to BMW. These are, in fact, two different nations. This is Montecca and Capulet, white and red roses. In addition to them, there are citizens who drive Opel and wear Salamander's boots. They sometimes have no less money. They just buy a conditionally reliable and inexpensive car. But life alone! You can eat stale bread all the time, buying fresh, but put it off for tomorrow. And you can eat fresh, not caring for tomorrow and enjoying life.
For example, I would never buy a Volvo in my life. For me, this is the most boring car in the world - both as a set of nodes and assemblies, and as an image. In all American paintings, an intellectual, doctor, writer travel to Volvo. It’s immediately obvious, this is a decent, who read a fat man. And I say that this is a person who enjoys demonstrating that he is not some kind of bourgeois or brioline mafiosi who buy Ferrari. He demonstrates that he respects a person not in a person’s harmony, but a mind. And who forbade to be harmonious in every sense? Therefore, for me, Volvo is a demonstration of my own hypocrisy. And the question is not in money. After all, you can buy an inexpensive car, but always with character, with charisma.
 
I can buy myself a glass of port and get a great pleasure by drinking it. And I can cut off a piece of fat and drink moonshine. These are different pleasures. Twice in my life I liked blondes with large breasts, a small waist and a big ass. But so I love thin brunettes. To enjoy your own car, you must sometimes try another, including overseas, with large breasts.
The current Marilyn Monroe learned German, got herself with a diet, washed off cosmetics and went to conquer the old light. Only her ship did not swim to Europe, but tried to drop anchor somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Text Ivan Dykhovichny, photo Maxim Gudkov.
Ivan Dykhovichny. 56 years. Actor, director, screenwriter. A graduate of the Schukin school, played in the theater on Taganka. He shot full -length films black monk, breakthrough, music for December, a penny. Personal cars - Audi S8, BMW M3, Porsche 911.
Cadillac CTS. The premiere of the car took place at the Los Angeles Motor Show in August 2001. Cinema - in The Matrix Reloaded. Engine - V6 with a volume of 3.2 liters, 218 hp The maximum speed is 230 km/h. Acceleration to hundreds - 7.7 seconds. Price in Moscow from $ 49 thousand
 

Source: "Autopilot"