Payne: Can Caddy’s comely coupe cope in winter?

Posted by hpayne on February 7, 2015

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he last time the 2015 Cadillac ATS Coupe and I met it was August in northern Connecticut. We had a ball. The BMW-fighter romped through the countryside, its balanced chassis a trained athlete. We were Rogers and Astaire in “Swing Time.” Julianne Hough and (name your celebrity du jour here) in Dancing with the Stars. Partners in synch on an asphalt dance floor.

What a difference six months and 70 degrees make.

With snow falling and the mercury plunging to single-digits in early January, dancing was the farthest thing from my mind. The ATS parked in my downtown parking garage was A) my refuge from the arctic weather, and B) my snowmobile home. Where I compared the comely coupe last summer to a sure-footed Labrador locked on a fox’s scent, this time I needed it to be a St. Bernard in an Alpine blizzard: Could it keep me alive?

When I reached the parking garage, my extremities were numb. It was so cold outside that Gary Peters was burning his Sierra Club membership card for warmth. Polar bears were sleeping on heat grates. Asphalt had turned to ice-phalt.

At the car door I dared not remove my thick gloves. No problem, ATS sensed the fob in my pocket and opened with a squeeze of the handle button. Nice. No need to remove the key to start the engine either thanks to push button start. But the cabin was an icebox (Dummy. With time, I’d learn to use remote start to heat ‘er up). Fortunately the Cadillac passes my wife’s first auto rule: “If it doesn’t have heated seats and a heated steering wheel, I’m not interested.”

She’s interested in the ATS. Thanks to heating coils, steering wheels and seats come to boil much quicker than air circulation systems. Ain’t the 21st century grand? I immediately pressed the steering heater button, then reached for the seat heater button on the console.

Ahem. Let me say here that I have been a fan of Cadillac’s CUE system. Its flush surfaces and dial-free, haptic feedback controls are elegant and modern – a welcome departure from Caddy’s stodgy, conservative past. But haptic controls read the heat from your fingers – which is a problem when your digits are colder than a penguin’s arse.

I pressed hard on the console’s haptic-thingy and brought the seat to simmer – but the process of firing up the radio and hapt-o-selecting AM 950 for traffic updates looked like a more daunting task. Not to worry, the hi-tech Caddy has more redundant communication systems than a nuclear-class submarine has redundant missile launch protocols.

In fact, my hands needed never leave the toasty steering wheel. Which is nice since at this point I was gripping it hard in order to prevent gangrene from setting in. Not only can the wheel buttons operate the Bluetooth phone connection (“Honey, can I get you anything on the way home? A parka? Ticket to Jamaica?”), they command every radio function. What’s more, the station list appears in the instrument panel, meaning I can keep my eyes straight ahead on a snowy night when Detroiters’ driving skills are no better than, say, your average shellfish.

I mean, seriously people?

On my way home I encountered 1) a car parked in the left lane shoulder (a problem since there is no shoulder on the Lodge’s left lane), 2) a chronic tailgater, and 3) countless macho pickup trucks driving as if they were on the last lap of the Indy 500.

Thankfully, my ATS came equipped with all-wheel drive and all-season tires so that I could navigate this wintry “Mad Max” landscape with confidence. By the time I reached Oakland County’s surface streets, traffic had thinned, my body temperature had warmed, and I could push the car’s abilities. The ATS’s AWD system is superb, allowing controlled four-wheel drifts. My wife owns an AWD Subaru Impreza (Second auto rule: “Cars must come equipped with all-wheel drive”) which is quite good, but the Caddy – befitting its higher price – is better, with tighter stability control.

I stopped in an empty school lot to do some donuts with the traction control off (don’t tell Mrs. Payne) before arriving home – the AWD system gripping like polar bear claws through my neighborhood’s unplowed streets.

So went the weekend. With its “Black Raven” paint coat covered in salt and snow, I never noticed the ATS’s chiseled beauty. With my eyes fixed on the road, I ignored the sumptuous, stitched leather dash. To me the measure of a luxury car is more than sport and comfort. All of those details will be there come summer when ATS and I can dance once again.

In the meantime, this St. Bernard got me home warm and in one piece.

2015 Cadillac ATS Coupe

Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear or all-wheel drive, four-passenger coupe

Price: $38,990 base ($51,345 AWD, turbo-4 as tested)

Power plant: 2.0-liter, turbocharged 4-cylinder

Power: 272 horsepower, 295 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: six-speed automatic

Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.6 seconds (manufacturer)

Weight: 3,418 pounds (RWD)

Fuel economy: EPA 20 mpg city/28 mpg highway/23 combined

Report card

Highs: State-of-the-art instrumentation; Bear claw, AWD grip

Lows: Clumsy CUE; Snow boots a tight fit in rear seat

Overall:★★★

 

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