Cadillac has been trying to knock German automakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz from the top of the sports sedan totem pole for years now. Cars like the second and third-generation CTS-V and the smaller ATS-V have successfully managed to take on Deutschland’s best, but Cadillac’s assault on the performance sedan segment is far older than those relatively recent models.
This advertisement for the 1993 Cadillac Seville STS is evidence of just how long Cadillac’s been sparring with Germany over sports sedan supremacy. The first Cadillac V-Series model was still more than ten years away when this ad aired, but even still, it touted the performance the Seville STS, which featured a 300 horsepower 4.6L Northstar V8 engine and was the most powerful front-wheel drive vehicle available at the time. The ad claims that thanks to this engine, the Seville STS could out-accelerate both a Mercedes-Benz 300E and Lexus LS400, while also reaching a higher top speed than the BMW 535i.
According to ZeroTo60Times.com, the 1993 Seville STS could accelerate from 0-60 mph in about 7.1 seconds and completed the quarter-mile in 15.2 seconds. It also had a top claimed top speed of 149 mph. The sedan is faster than the vehicles listed in the ad, then – though GM refrained from mentioning the existence of vehicles like the V8-powered Mercedes-Benz 500E and BMW 540i. BMW also offered the E34 M5 at the time, which could accelerate from 0-60 mph in around 5.5s and would top out at 155 mph. The Seville STS was still an impressive performer for 1993, though, and was really the only fast, V8 luxury sedan coming out of Detroit at the time.
Check out the ad embedded below to hear how Cadillac stacked up to the competition back in 1993.
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Comments
A poor head stud design resulting in blown head gaskets, and a heavy oil consumption problem is what you got in this vehicle.
I don’t know Cadillac Matt, the early ones up to around 1998-1999-2000 seemed to last for us here, but almost every 1999-2000 needs the block studs etc.
And I had 2 2005 s one SRX RWD/AWD and a STS RWD/AWD, both made it over 140,000+ miles OK
lifelongGMowner i agree with you on the 2005 SRX and STS as that was when GM had fixed the issue. It was the early ones that were the worst because of dissimilar metals between the stud and head. The stud would pull causing the head to lift resulting in compression loss. The vehicle would go in to limp mode and you could see them on the side of the highway.
Yeah, the Northstar was unfortunately plagued by the head gasket issue. This was partially due to dissimilar metals, yes, but more so because the head bolts used were too short, and had too fine a thread pitch. The worst years were 1997-1999. In 2000, GM lengthened the head bolt, which did help a bit, but didn’t fix the issue. It wasn’t until partway through the 2004 model year that GM FINALLY went to a longer head bolt with, critically, a coarser thread pitch. I believe they were actually LS6 bolts. For that year, most FWD Cadillacs had the new bolts. All RWD Cadillacs had the better bolts, so RWD Northstars are really solid motors all-around.
I have a 2005 Deville as my daily, with the better head bolts, and it’s been a dream. Most reliable engine I’ve ever owned. Hasn’t burned a drop of oil. Other than a starter, it’s had nothing major replaced. It’s sad that the earlier variants were plagued with the head bolt issue and oil loss, because the later variants (2005-2011) were great. Typical GM, right around the end of their product’s lifespan, they FINALLY get it right. And by then, it’s too late. See: CT6.
How about my STS? Bought brand new in 94, code 77 black cherry exterior (I remember that paint code to this day as it was very hard to find). Drove it to 203,000 miles before a deer hit wrote it off. Never had any headgasket issues, it did start leaking oil at around 160k, about 1.5 quarts between services. It was my first American car in a while. I now own a 16 CTS V-Sport, I plan to replace it with a CT5 V6 Turbo. Been happy with my Cadillacs!
@Larry Severson:
I was selling Caddies then and I recall that color too. In fact, I had a customer who special ordered an ETC in that color with the tan leather because it was so hard to get.
Although the Northstar engine may not be the “shining star” Cadillac had hoped for, I also don’t feel it was as bad as so many feel. I’ve seen tons of them with very high miles still running great, even with a little oil leakage. But what people don’t say is just how much more costly the import brands were to service and keep up. And yes, a BMW or MB or Lexus all had/have their own issues as well. Many that are way more costly to fix and keep running than any Cadillac or Northstar engine.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the worst of the head bolt issues were just those few years 1998-2000 ish, but the % was very high and all at right around 100,000 miles.
My first Cadillac I bought was a 1994 DeVille, drove that thing over 200,000 miles also !
My uncle had a 94 or 96 DeVille I think he had over 300,000 miles on that thing, it ran forever and he kept it forever he had it when he died in 2010.
Those are just two of the reasons I buy Cadillacs, yet our 2014 ATS junk might be our last, after 5 !
You’re lucky, Had a 97 SLS with 75k mi and sure enough milky way oil = head gasket but the 2000 SLS (better head gasket) with 101k mi I was kicking myself for selling it.
Ah, I recall that ad from my days at the Buick, GMC, Cadillac and Honda store. I really enjoy watching old ads, no matter what brand they are from. Some of the most funny are from the Japanese brands back in the day!
Funny story: I sold my brother and his wife a brand new 1993 STS and took it to them in Chicago for their anniversary. She really loved it! Polo green with the tan leather and special ordered. My parents and I took the car to them for the party and I recall my brother and his son saying let’s take it for a ride. The three of us got in and my brother couldn’t believe the power it had! He was dropping it into low and putting it to the floor, squealing the tires and then shifting into second and third manually (this was before manual shifting was available with automatics) and chirping the tires each time. He scared the devil out of me that day. Come to find out, about 8 months later the transmission was bad and my sister-in-law was not happy. She told me the service department guy was scratching his head saying that they have never seen that transmission fried like that, but Cadillac paid for a new one and away she went. It was about 10 years later that my nephew accidentally let it slip how he and his dad would take that STS out and beat the daylights out of it while shifting manually. Needless to say, his wife was not amused! haha.
Yep my moms 1999 Deville, made it 101,000 before head bolt deal !
My brother did that one, she still has it, great vehicle never one trouble other than that !
That is a conservative 0-60 time with the 300 HP version of this engine which also garnered 3.71 gears versus the std 3.11. I think C&D got around 6.2-6.4 seconds out of these cars which was quick by 1993 standards. Too bad as with so many other GM bright ideas they didn’t follow through on the engineering as with the HT 4100 before it until years later when the damage was done and consumer confidence was eroding fast. Then there was the fact that these cars usually always finished last when ranked up against the other cars here in various comparisons with it’s nose heavy FWD platform when the others from Germany used better balanced RWD and Lexus had laser precise over engineered reliability and near dead silent driving qualities and greater refinement.
I wonder what would have happened to Cadillac if they’d continued to build traditional Cadillacs instead of European wannabe cars. I know conventional wisdom is that the market for a “luxury oriented” luxury car dried up in favor of luxury cars with sporty pretensions and Cadillac had to adapt. However, it seems to me that they have not done well at all since they began their chase of the Europeans. Further, I’m not even sure the market for smooth silent-type luxury cars really went away. Rolls Royce still builds them quite successfully and GM’s big-selling large SUVs like the Cadillac Escalade follow the traditional American formula of large, roomy, quiet, and comfortable. It could be argued it never went away at all with the Escalade being a large body-on-frame V-8 luxury wagon like the old Cadillacs of their heyday.
Whatever Cadillac does, all the “experts” want the opposite, when Cadillac built road boats, they wanted it to be more like BMW, when Cadillac started making cars that handle then all of sudden every writer got nostaligic about grandpas Eldorado…….
I think im going to address some of these thoughts, like MrR.
Your whatever Cadillac does stuff is simply not true !
Look at the things that have worked at Cadillac, then the failures.
And the people just on this site alone, including myself.
There are so many customers, today !
I would love to break down the failures of Cadillac with every person I meet.
To start with, the Escalade is a Cadillac that is not suffering – why ?
Because the Escalade is the only Cadillac built on the main GM platform !
If you know anything about GM the focus on their main product is second to none. Even though like the truck interior failure is a total failure ( for the top end truck ) GM is quick to change and fix it, no questions asked, spare no expense !! Therefor the Escalade has not suffered from the COMPLETE FAILURE OF THE GM CUSTOMER SUPPORT SYSTEM !! So you still have a Cadillac doing good.
But now look at the rest of the line. GM just should have never quit making the ” land Yacht ” of Cadillac, sure it needed to modernize with the times, but that customer, between the Escalade and the Deville will and would have died with that vehicle in the garage. So that ” Land Yacht ” of Cadillac was ruined by reliability and again the lack of GM customer support ! You GM lovers here will complain every time I write that yet look, the 1994 to 1997 Deville was still OK, And the Deville all the way to the DTS was still OK, yet the NorthStar alone ruined the vehicle. The old Cadillac owners spending that money with ZERO GM customer support, DONE !! Just DONE, !!! and most went straight to Lexus ( Toyota ) some to Mercedes, but hardly any went to the Audis or BMWS !
Now the next step, the birth of the Cimarron to the CTS. Some at GM knew they needed the foreign fighter, yet GM themselves could not see the forest through the trees yet again, and the Cimarron was born in cost cutting ( once again ) times and the height of badge engineering, and was as bad at that time as the XT SUVs of today are, just a Chevy with a different sticker ! So bring in Lutz, he knew what he was doing, the birth of the RWD CTS (best GM vehicle overall I have ever owned ) along with the RWD/AWD STS and RWD/AWD SRX ( I owned all three, 2004 CTS, 2005 STS AWD/RWD, 2005 SRX RWD/AWD ) and my mom drives a 1999 DeVille to this day, and we still have our 04 CTS !
However my moms Deville had the bad NorthStar, we fixed, the 2005 NorthStars and beyond were great engines, but again, without ANY GM customer support, on the ” cost cut ” NorthStars, customers were left in the cold with the highest priced GM sedan, And just like the CT6, just when they were GREAT CARS !!!
The Cadillac line between 2004 and 2010 are ——- BY FAR ——- the best Cadillac made since EVER !!
Now bring a mix of confusion to Cadillac,
In 2010 we get a Saturn VUE for an SRX ( junk ), yet the CTS and DTS were fairly solid vehicles yet, and the CTS sales proved good, yet the DTS sales did not ( again do to the junk known faulty part that was the NorthStar of only a few years yet GM just left the customer in the cold ) And the Escalade just cruised along do to the fact it was still just a GM truck !
And that leads us into today. The 2013-14 ATS and CTS were GREAT driving Cadillacs, and GREAT looking vehicles, but with Lutz gone, some idiot thought they should again change a slow upward trend and once again at GM failed. Sure like I said, they were Great driving vehicles, the best I have ever driven for the time, yet we did not replace out CTS with the ( to big ) CTS, and bought the worst Cadillac I have ever owned out of 5 this crap ATS we own now. It drives GREAT, it looks GREAT, It is a piece of $hit !!! And that leads me to the next line of $hit from Cadillac.
As we have gotten ZERO help from the NON EXISISTANT GM customer support system, we will simply NEVER buy another 2.0T Cadillac ( just exactly like the NorthStar, owners did not repeat buy that GM known faulty engine !) And we would NEVER buy a Chevrolet Cadillac SUV, even though the Escalade is just that ( or was ), GM would never let that cash cow die as they did with the rest of Cadillac. So as we get $hit mid-sized Cadillacs, we get an even better GM truck Escalade !!
GM has had plenty of chances to fix this, and the very man responsible for Audi steeling market share like mad, yet we get $hit ! Talk about a waste of money !! WOW !!!
And now we are on the fence of an ICE Audi, or a Tesla, The entire GM mid-sized lineup is just ” Good Enough ” for a Chevrolet, and the Cadillac offerings now are just that again JUST LIKE THE CIMARRON, we are right back to the EXACT SAME status quo FAILED rebadged GM Cadillac !
Sure they are better vehicles, THE WHOLE WORLD offers better vehicles, but unless Cadillac is a better version of GM, a longer lasting version of GM, more reliable, longer lasting, better seating, better safety, just better, Cadillac will be done, and the Exact same thing will happen to the Denali line !
The next largest generation is a smart a value generation, they don’t own a vehicle without value, mast don’t own one at all. Take those who own a Tesla, that vehicle is to last 300,000 miles average. My ATS is a $hit vehicle at 60,000 miles.
The new thinking now at Cadillac with the EV, is just old car guys trying to figure out how to be new car guys, GM you need new car guys to be new car guys ! A EV of today is tech, its not a vehicle with tech, its tech with wheels, and there is value !
Any way sorry for the story
Don’t forget power. It’s long past the 55 mph national speed limit. These are more so entry level numbers now.
Thinking of childhood nostalgia… An ad campaign with scenes of a dad carrying a tired legs kindergartener and mom with a toddler, and no actors speaking to camera, – that would contrast well against Lincoln ads were McConaughey is alone. Subaru overtly brands Love. Imply it, like the Lear Connexus commercial does with concern.
Cadillac’s sporting intentions were and are not the issue. People still want Cadillacs.. the ones available.. they just don’t the variety the foreign makers offer to boost sales to their levels. No Coupes. No Convertibles. No Sports Car. No RWD performance CUV. soon to be no Large Car again. No EVs. Ironically.. the vast majority of what they need.. they can grab from Chevy, luxify it and keep it moving. To those that argue that they need a unique this or unique that.. I point directly to their most revered current model the Escalade and say that it is built on the Silverado’s platform. Are we really against a platform engineered new XLR with C8 bones.. or a CT6 being saved by the platform being added to the Chevy or Buick line as a new Impala or LaX?
Not to mention they constantly bring out a car.. then change the name or formula. This a GM tradition actually.. since the 80s. No other car maker has as many one hit wonders. In truth.. had GM continued on with the Catera name.. just on what became the G1 CTS.. Seville name on the ’05 STS.. Deville name on the DTS/XTS.. Allante name on the XLR.. Fleetwood on the CT6 and re-introduced the Cimmaron on the bones of the ATS.. they would have done better. Sometimes building a name even from the muck is better than starting all over and over and over again. Audi is a prime example of this as their ENTIRE MAKE NAME had the absolute worst reputation in the Sport Lux segment next to Peugeot coming out of the 80s and into the 90s. I can again reach back and look at GM as a whole.. and say really.. would the Cavalier name really been that bad as continuation of the small car Chevy as long as GM continued to improve it to what the Cruze would eventually be? The Corolla is the most basic crap I’ve even been in.. and Toyota masks its basic quality with supposed reliability simply because it very rarely changed its tech. The name has been in use for 50 years. No.. The CTx strategy is an unnecessary move.. but we have to remember that my beloved GM luvs to use the phrase.. “First Ever…”
FWD—-Yuk!
That ad was like a bad joke. Reminds me when Iacocca also compared his K Car to the E Class and then saying; “If you can find a better car, buy it!” 🤣 And Americans bought them by the 100’s of thousands…
I’ve got a 2010 DTS premium bought used with 34 K awsome car . Had a 98 Deville. Traded a 2013 piece of shit XTS leaking shocks failed CUE system rusty brakes all at undet 40K and no GM support , I’m the guy who can afford and would like to stay with Cadillac smarten up GM
Euro fans ignore/don’t know that the 1993 Northstar powered Cads (Allante, STS & ETC) simply walked away from all competitors (except the 5.0 DOHC Mercs.: 500SL & 500E, & which cost way more). Fwd sucks. Well FWD was seen as the future in the 80’s & 90’s (Saab, Fiat, Lancia (one even V8 powered), Volvo, Audi, Renault, Citroen, all had premium FWD cars).