SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.

*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the stories.

2009 Cadillac CTS

Not Grammy’s wallowing barge

Some months back, I told Xavier Piquet, Senior Product Manager of Renault SA, that South Africans are a stubborn nation and it will be some time before they forgive Renault’s brief lapse of quality and service a couple of years ago.

In similar vein, the majority of South Africans firmly believe that all American cars are rubbish. The conventional wisdom is that they are all poorly made, thirsty, unnecessarily flashy and handle like pigs on Brooklax. While some are indeed less than totally desirable, I suggest that blinkers be set aside long enough to give Cadillac’s mid-range offering, the CTS, an unbiased evaluation.

I concede that its styling is not directly out of Europe or the Far East, but it has a certain something and is a valid alternative. The chromed wheels are also not my personal cup of latté, but different strokes, right?

The fact is that the CTS was designed to win back market share from European and Japanese imports. Size-wise, it’s about as big as a 5-series Beemer, the 3,6 litre engine coupled to a smooth six-speed automatic moves the package to 100 km/h in a whisker under seven seconds and it was built to handle at least as well as its natural competitors.

It underwent much honing at the Nürburgring and the very tall, very outspoken, British TV car person acknowledged that it actually works. He raced a bigger-engined, hairy-chested version of the CTS around said ‘Ring, staying ahead of The Stig driving an equally hairy-chested Audi Quattro. Even he was impressed.

As for fuel economy, its makers claim a combined consumption figure of 11,1 l/100 km, while my experience over 300 km of mixed driving worked out to 11,7.

Equipment features all the stuff you expect in a car costing in the lower 400-thousands. This includes ABS, EBD, ESP, six airbags with dual depth technology for the passenger airbag, pedestrian protection system, dual zone air conditioning, an excellent Bose sound system with music player connectability and a built-in hard drive, isofix child seat attachments, side impact protection beams, tyre pressure monitors and a host of others.

Fit and finish, including that of the all-leather interior, is of a reasonably high standard. On the subject of interior fittings, the electrically adjustable front seats are far too nicely sculpted for “a stodgy old granny car,” doing a good job of holding one in place when enjoying the car’s handling capabilities.

On the road, the car feels solid and capable, without any rattles, thumps or odd noises. And so it should be at this price level, but the CTS just seems to over-deliver, compared with some of its higher priced competitors.

A more recent concern has been The General’s much publicised financial woes, with its Chapter 11 filing being splashed in the SA press as “total bankruptcy”. This is not quite true: Chapter 11 is basically what we might call short-term judicial management. The applicant is given a couple of months’ immunity from creditors to get its house in order and restructure. This has been done, with the company now owned by the US Treasury, an autoworkers pensioners' medical fund and the governments of Canada and Toronto, with only 10 percent held by the “old GM.”

The company’s future is obviously beyond the reach of my humble crystal ball, but the new shareholders appear to be sufficiently conservative to exercise the kind of due diligence required to turn things around. This, and the right mix of good products like the CTS should see this happen.

The numbers

Price: R 425 000

Engine: 3 564 cc DOHC VVT V6

Power: 229 kW at 6 400 rpm

Torque: 374 Nm at 5 200 rpm

Zero to 100 km/h: 6,3 seconds (claimed)

Maximum speed: 240 km/h

Fuel consumption: 11,1 l/100 km (claimed); about 11,7 l/100 km in real world testing

Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km

Maintenance plan: 5 years/100 000 km

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.

Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax. 

So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

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