1998 Cadillac Seville...Continued

The Seville Touring Sedan has gone a long way toward bringing Cadillac out of their aimless doldrums of the last decade. Many persons will overlook the external changes at first, because stylists found it important to retain the traditional features. Only when it is placed side-by-side with the previous Seville are the changes evident. Larger lights, cleaner transitions, and a lower, more solid stance highlight the variations. It is a completely new chassis, and few body or chassis parts carry over. The stiffer platform is quieter, safer and more stable.

The exterior is cleaner and more aerodynamic than any previous offering but the interior is perhaps the most radical departure. The overly conservative look still affects the rest of the line, but there are signs of change there also. There is no chance that anyone will mistake a Cadillac for the BMWs and Mercedes with which it competes.

As an indication of their seriousness, it will be built in both left and right hand drive versions. Sevilles sold overseas will be about 6 inches shorter to better fit on smaller roads.

The late-Allante sports car introduced Cadillac's Northstar 4-valve V8 with 295 horses in 1992, and it powered the Indianapolis 500 pace car that year. When the Seville got this powerplant , the resulting image and performance boost moved it into legitimate contention in the luxury sports sedan market.

The 32-valve Northstar V8 is one of the best engines on the market, with power, smoothness and reliability. Not only will the Northstar run without water, using a get-home mode, but it is not required to have any maintenance for 100,000 miles.

Cadillac refers to the package as the 'Northstar System' -- This describes the integrated and tuned aspects of the engine, transmission suspension and traction control elements of the car. Cadillac matches the engine to the most appropriate transmission and the engineers have designed electronic controls to fit each model. These controls insure smooth shifts and the traction control system is standard on all Northstar equipped models.

The chassis and drive components are essentially unchanged. Why change one of the world's best automatic transmissions? The electronic four-speed automatic transmission is one of the smoothest shifting models ever created. Traction control is a welcome standard feature.