1994 Cadillac de Ville Concours Looks to the Northstar

From the September 1993 issue of Car and Driver.

Cadillac’s de Ville Concours (not to be confused with Chrysler’s Con­corde, which it won’t be) was pre­sented to us a high-performance luxury sedan, with the accent on performance.

The company’s pitch men were disin­clined to modesty: “Outstanding perfor­mance capability . . . fun-to-drive attrib­utes previously unknown in this kind of car . . . the only refined, six-passenger, high-performance luxury car in the world . . . it challenges you to change the way you think.” Could there be something to it?

Cadillac’s Northstar V-8 is thoroughly impressive in the Allanté and Seville, and GM’s engineering capability (if not always its execution or market savvy) is a match for any in the world. So Cadillac really might have cooked up a full-size luxury cruiser with wings at its ankles.

After one drive, however, we found those wings overtaxed by two full tons of traditional American luxury, so don’t change the way you think just yet.

Still, even if the claim were a little too breathless, the new Concours delivers on much of the promise. It drives well, feels secure and responsive, and steps off smartly. And anyone needing greater space or more lavish luxury than is offered in this 1994 Cadillac should be talking to a yacht broker. Or a realtor.

The Concours (say KAHN-coor) is a trim-and-performance package based on the 1994 de Ville platform. That founda­tion puts a big, weighty-looking four-door body on the same 113.8-inch wheelbase the previous de Ville rode on. Cleaner decor with minimalist chrome identifies the Concours, but its real distinction lies under the sheetmetal, in Cadillac’s much-­touted “Northstar System.” Named for the four-cam, 32-valve, all-aluminum V-8 engine that is its centerpiece, this bundle of componentry includes traction control, variable-damping suspension, and speed-sensitive power-steering assist. Integrated microprocessors control all this, as well as the engine and the 4T80-E four-speed automatic transmission.

These are capable, sophisticated sys­tems, but a self-imposed constraint has cost Cadillac more—at least in our eyes­—than it intended. By insisting this huge car avoid any gas-guzzler penalty, Cadillac crumpled the performance envelope into a little ball. Instead of the “real” 295-hp Northstar engine, the Concours has the 270-horse unit introduced in last year’s Eldo Sport Coupe. Tuned and geared for low-speed lunge, this 4.6-liter powerplant may impress prospects in a round-the­-block test drive, but little magic remains once it’s up to highway speed. And an electronic governor kicks in at 125 mph, because the tires trade away speed capa­bility (and probably grip) for low rolling resistance.

A factory-claimed 0-to-60 time of eight seconds flat is none too bad for a 4000-pound luxury car. Nor is the projected EPA city/highway fuel economy of 16/25 mpg. But with Infiniti and Lexus putting cars over the 150-mph barrier and Cadil­lac’s own STS doing 145, a 125-mph top speed just won’t support talk of excep­tional performance.

Otherwise, the 1994 Concours has no apologies to make. Though giant luxo­barges don’t rate among personal favorites here at C/D, this one is clearly more capa­ble and contemporary than most. It sug­gests a puffed-out STS, from the sweep of the instrument hood and the clean look and feel of the soft leather inside, to its stable road manner and accurate steering response. The Concours rides quietly and very smoothly, as required of a luxury car, yet the floaty, bobbing, small-craft behav­ior that so often comes as the flip side of road isolation is quite well controlled. Obviously, it doesn’t have the nimbleness of a Miata—nor even of a Camry or a Q45—but among cars that would let you chauffeur a basketball team in full-leather luxury, there’s nothing that handles as sharply.

That capacious, six-passenger cabin, all 33 cubic feet of it, takes a lot of glass and sheet steel to enclose. A careful touch in styling those expanses has blended some modern freshness (flush glass, a pointy nose, and a chin spoiler) with an old­-school celebration of sheer excess (that Fleetwoodesque trunk extension and a heavy-hipped look over the rear wheels). Whether the shape is pretty or not is prob­ably unimportant, because it looks exactly like what it is: a big, imposing, contem­porary Cadillac sedan.

An asking price in the low forties undercuts the big sedans from Lexus, Infiniti, and Mercedes—the cars Cadillac benchmarked in developing the Concours. But a much more realistic comparison is the smaller, revised-for-1994 Lincoln Continental. At least for now, the Cad still has V-8 power in its favor. And should the Lincoln’s hot breath create the need for bigger headline later, the full-strength Northstar powertrain from the STS can be called up for Concours duty. Then the Cadillac guys can talk about performance, and we’ll listen.