Every auto writer owes a debt to a few important guys. Chris Economaki invented motorsports journalism in the United States, Peter Egan has the right stuff every time he puts fingers to keyboard, and Jeremy Clarkson lives the dream for all of us. But there’s another man - a dark knight - whose completely excessive and wholly original style hooked many more of us than will readily admit it in polite company. Hunter S. Thompson knew how to write, and more importantly, he saw very clearly what to write about – stuff that other writers never touched, or if they did, they crumpled the paper up and said “no one would ever believe this.”
So when I found out I’d be going to SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Manufacturer Assocation trade show, the wheels started turning in my head. SEMA is the biggest trade show in country – everything automotive, from seat-back DVD players to grade 8 bolts. If it goes on or in a car, it’s at SEMA. And SEMA is in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.
If you get the chance, don't miss it
So I called up my buddy at GM, the guy who had hooked me up with the Cadillac DTS in Topeka, and I asked what he had in L.A. I could have flown into Las Vegas and rode the free hotel shuttle like every other auto-scribbler on earth, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, I’ve been itching to drive that last western bit of Route 66 since I read Thompson’s epic “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” back in college. “How about I get you into the STS-V?” asks my buddy. He didn’t have to repeat himself.
The STS-V is basically a hot-rod Corvette dressed up in evening wear. One look tells you this is absolutely not the kind of Cadillac your dad bought to celebrate his retirement from the phone company. It’s low and aggressive - endowed with 18-inch wheels in front and 19 in the back, bright mesh grillework, and deep gloss black paint. They gave this car the Northstar motor and added a supercharger for 469 screaming horsepower and 439 ft-lbs of torque. This is all mated to GM’s best 6 speed automatic transmission.
A commanding presence
Getting into the STS-V, you can tell that the suspension is all business. I’d put the tight ride and quick handling well above the Dodge Charger R/T and up there with the BMW M6. Jam your foot to the floor and you can listen to the engine scream as the Caddie lights off and does 0-60 in under 5 seconds. The bottom line is this: the STS-V rocks. Screw the BMWs and the Audis - if you can scrape together the $77,000 ticket price, this ride is worth every penny.
At first glance, you can tell that the driver of this car is El Jefe. Little kids on the streetcorners in L.A. stopped their conversations and turned to check it out when I pulled up to a light. Meet their eyes and they nod respectfully – acknowledging the car and by extension, the man inside. Yes, this is definitely the right ride for a civilized journey to the least civilized city in North America. An apocalyptic statement of self on a scale usually reserved for South American dictators and the Sultan of Brunei.
The Mother Road - Route 66
On the highway, you have time to appreciate everything Cadillac has put into the STS-V. It comes with a complete trip computer, dual-adjustable climate controls, heated seats, DVD player (but it won’t play movies when you’re on the road) 6-disc music DVD/CD changer, GPS touch-screen navigation, sunroof. XM satellite radio, and of course, the key that stays in your pocket all the time. The lock/unlock function is automatic as you approach the car, and start/stop is controlled by a button on the dash. The interface to all this stuff could be confusing, but it’s not. The Nav takes a little getting used to, but that’s true of all navigation systems. The BMW engineers who developed the verdammt I-Drive system in the M6 should be frog-marched into Cadillac’s studios for a lesson in how to do this stuff right.
This car means business
Day turns to night quickly this time of year, and the sun dropped into the sea through the brassy haze of smog that blankets L.A. as I headed out through Pomona towards the mountains. By the time I passed Death Valley and the Mojave Desert, traffic was up to 85 MPH and moving with the cool efficiency of an early-morning commute. It’s tight-packed, but these are the people who make this run all the time, and everyone knows how to work it. The Cadillac isn’t even sweating to keep up with the pace, and the average MPG readout is creeping north of 21 now, up from the 15 it was showing in L.A. traffic. Not bad for any V8 and excellent for the amount of power this thing can lay down to pass a semi.
Crossing into Nevada, the road gets a little rougher, but the Cadillac soaks up the bumps with ease. As you pull into Vegas, there’s no doubt you’ve got the right ride for the town. The casino lights shower you with a rainbow of party colors, reflected like fireworks in the liquid black pool of the hood, welcoming the big car to its spiritual home.
The proper destination for the STS-V
OK honestly, driving in Vegas sucks. Half the roads are crap and the other half are under construction, the cabbies are no better than serial killers on wheels, the pedestrians are drunk, and no matter how bad any car looks, you can bet the damn horn works. On the rare occasions you can get going faster than about 10 MPH, the cops are so thick that you wouldn’t dare give a Hyundai Accent full throttle, much less the STS-V.
After a week at SEMA, during which the Cadillac waited patiently in the parking garage of the Hilton, it was finally time to put the Black Moriah back on the asphalt, point it south, and shake the dust of Sin City off our shoes. For the drive home, I had time to get off the Interstate and see the world as it was meant to be seen – from the network of lonely ribbon highways that connected town to town before the freeways pierced the heart of the nation.
Driving alone in the desert, you can really put the STS-V through its paces. The air conditioning in a modern Caddie can still turn the gates of hell into a winter wonderland, and with some good tunes you could cross the continent and feel fresh as a daisy. Power seats with adjustable lumbar support and a 6-way power-adjustable steering wheel (complete with cruise and stereo controls) customize your world.
The lap of luxury
The winding roads curve through the desert up into the hills to places like the ghost town of Calico, then down to Barstow where you pick up old Route 66. You can see the first ruins along the original American highway before you get outside the city limits. As you head down the high-desert road towards Victorville, you pass the silent sentinels of abandoned and tumbledown service stations and motels – ghosts from a time when your car might actually need to stop every ten or twenty miles. The Cadillac cuts a rakish figure along the road – commanding the same pavement covered by thousands of Eldorados and Model 80s in decades past.
There are places where the original road is still visible, set off beside the current pavement. Grass grows through the cracks and in the distance, the freeway roars with the endless passage of cars and trucks. Those drivers don’t even know the old highway is down here. You hit the end of the scenic route in Rialto, California, and you know it’s over when you pass the Wigwam Motel, where each room is an individual stucco cone painted like a teepee. From there on into Santa Monica, it’s all strip malls and stoplights. That’s no place for a mighty machine to be reduced to a crawl, so it’s back onto the freeway for the last few miles to LAX and the flight back to normal life – where there are no green soda-bottle groves, no desert taverns, and no big nasty black Cadillac to make you feel like the King of the Road.
