the poconos

I have an uncle that has always driven the gold chain wearing, boss mobile. First there was the automatic Supra, followed up by a Cadillac Allante. Somewhere along the way, he picked up a new T-bird. Amazingly, he never found his way into an automatic Vette. While in The Poconos, a few months back we had a chance to spend some time with the 2009 Cadillac XLR. This thing may just be my uncle`s ultimate ride.

The sharp edged hardtop convertible looks great and has all sorts of electronic trickery. Doors with no handles, electrically powered everything and luxurious leather clad interior ensures that the aging super dude will have more toys than the other guys at the club. Hopefully the club offers storage for his clubs though, as the XLR doesn’t offer storage for much more than that box of domes he keeps around for his mistress. We managed to squeeze a camera bag (sans domers) in the trunk and that was about it.

The 320 horsepower Northstar V8 sounds great and propels the XLR along quite nicely. The automatic tranny is a nice unit, but why oh why is there no 6 speed? Yeah, yeah, we know; the segment demographic is more interested in elevating their status rather than the actual driving experience.

Enough from me, check out our newest video after the break.
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Last year, The Garage visited the annual International Motor Press Association Test Days held in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. We took a bunch of photos and wrote almost as many track and off road reviews. This year, we decided to take a slightly different approach. Video. Why let the NNN folks have all the fun!?

And so, yours truly and Scott Simmons took to the hills armed with full HD capability and got to work. Ok, so it may not look like work, but we did actually have some loose plans in place. We have off road tests, on road test, track tests and even had some autocross and drift action.

Of course, putting all this together takes more than a bit of production talent and that’s where Scott’s specialty lies. He doesn’t give himself enough credit though, as he’s a much better camera guy than he lets on. This first segment is a hard hitting, action packed piece that will give you a taste of what we have coming down the pipes.

Enough of my babbling now, grab a cold beverage, crank up the speakers and check out The Garage Blog’s first IMPA test days video.

The Garage Blog at IMPA Test Days 2008 from Scott Simmons on Vimeo.

2009 Cadillac XLR: Cruising The Poconos

Video: Gettin’ it on in The Poconos

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