The Cadillac LYRIQ: Malcolm Gladwell meets an Electric Icon - Part Two

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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: This episode is sponsored by Cadillac.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what we got is we got one of these massive wheelies, the kind that is like three exercise of the one you put in overhead.

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Speaker 3: Definitely can't.

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Speaker 4: You can't carry this on.

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Speaker 1: You can't carry that. We've got two standard sized wheelies. We got a car seat, car seat bottom. We got a stroller, We've got two backpacks.

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Speaker 4: Whole bunch of audio recording, a.

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Speaker 1: Bunch of audio equipment. This is just warming up. Now, we're not putting down the rear seats. I'm in New York's Hudson Valley with my producers, Jacob and Joey, who are helping me load the trunk of an suv with all the luggage, car seats, and kid gear i can find. We're calling this the helicopter parent test in the standard helicopter twenty first century year. This is what an over involved set of parents would take on a weekend daccation and maybe a day trip, although you know, realistically you could last for several weeks with abound stuff. We got here not long before this day. Upstate, we got a call a Pushkin HQ an offer to preview the brand new all electric SUV that comes on the market next year, the lead model in GM's pivot to electrification. I'm Malcolm Glabelle, and you're listening to the second of two very special episodes for Revision as History. Listeners join me and a few friends as we embark on an all electric road trip. The helicopter parent test was the start of our day. In the Cadillac lyric, We've been favored by one of those epically beautiful fall days, leaves turning sun glinting, a cool, hushed breeze, sliding over the mountains, putting the lyric through its paces. Ended overwhelmingly past the first test. This STUV is cavernous enough to comfortably hold kids, parents, maybe even grandparents, plus all the gear necessary for an obsessive twenty first century parent like me to keep their kid happy for at least a day. Even Cadillac's Chief marketing Officer, Melissa Grady can relate to driving a jam packed vehicle, which is where the rear camera mirror really comes in handy.

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Speaker 3: I'm a balloon person, so if I'm going to a party, I'll have a lot of balloons in the back of my car. Or if you are transporting I've done a lot of remodeling lately, so when you're transporting a lot of goods in the back of your vehicle or tile, that camera.

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Speaker 2: Just really works to help see what's behind you. And you mentioned the map as well.

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Speaker 3: That map is just it's great. Not only does it have all the full navigation functionality, but it's very easy to plot out your route and put the charging stations in.

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Speaker 1: Next up, a delicate bit of driving involving my daughter at a high stakes moment in every toddler's day, nap time. Speedy. We strapped her into a car seat to find out if the Lyrics was quite enough to put her to sleep. Speedy, Okay, Okay, clearly, this is a hugely demanding test speed. It's okay, it's okay. I think we should drive. She's gonna be fine. I think she just once she's she's getting a little used to speeding this new experience you're in a car. Tears is not the appropriate response to being in a luxury automobile. So, hush, baby, don't get cars. Sick, Daddy's gonna buy you a Cadillac Lyric. Okay, one, two, three, Hush.

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Speaker 4: Little baby, don't get car. Sick, Daddy's gonna buy you Cadillac lyric speeding, Do you have anything to say?

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Speaker 1: I think she's fall asleep. I sense the I sense the quietude that pretends a deep and dreamless sleep. We tuck Speedy back to her crip and set out once more over to my friend Dan's place. He owns the storage and maintenance garage where every serious gearhead in the area keeps their pride and joy the car too nice and too precious to keep it home, such as Dan's immaculate vintage Cadillac.

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Speaker 5: This is a nineteen sixty three coup de Ville. This has forty one thousand original miles. Yeah, original interior. It's suited with a three to ninety cubic eng engine so they all had in sixty three. This is Basildian green paint, and of course the correct one inch white wall, or else you get in big trouble with the Cadillac community if you don't have the right white wall. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Time for what we call the heritage test. Can the lyric win over a diehard Caddy enthusiast who thinks the last fifty years have all been downhill for the automobile business. We lined up Dan's old school Caddy in a parking lot next to our lyric. Modernist meet postmodernist. It's funny how much this kind of linear dash of the lyric still kind of quotes the classic short Cadillac dash.

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Speaker 5: Yeah jewelry like in a way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it's really surprisingly similar. Our idea was to run a classic experiment control versus treatment condition cars run in succession over exactly the same route we started in Dan's classic Kupe Deville.

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Speaker 5: I've got the caddy bug right.

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Speaker 1: Now, as they say, and what is it you love about?

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Speaker 5: It's like putting on a like a tailored suit. The smoothness of this car for nineteen sixty three or any of the Cadillacs of that error are just you know, above the rest, I believe. Yeah, it really takes you back in time driving this car.

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Speaker 1: This thing like it feels like we're gliding down the road in some giant.

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Speaker 5: Ocean liner exactly. And this is you know, this is how people traveled back then. You know, they got four or five people in the car with the big trunk and the suitcases in the back, and you know, taking a two hour trip to say, you know, from the city to the Adirondacks, and that was that was the big trip of the summer.

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Speaker 1: Then we get back and we turned it down and say, all right, now we drive the same route, only this time in the lyric. He's a bit skeptical at first. Dan needs gasoling around to feel happy.

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Speaker 5: So always bizarre to get into a car and not hear an engine. But there is a nice sing if you will to this car.

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Speaker 1: Could you see what I'm saying? Like how conceptually it's it's a modern version of the exact experience we just.

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Speaker 5: It has that feel of, you know, putting that tailored suit on. It's got that you know, It's just Cadillacs always have this I don't know, this extra excellence feel when you're driving it, just you know, it has this unrough, floating feel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm unhurry, We're all going to be fine, right, That's okay.

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Speaker 5: It doesn't, it doesn't. I'm in, I'm in the car. That's great.

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Speaker 1: With Dan gushing over the look of our lyric, I'm reminded of something Melissa Grady mentioned in our chat earlier.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the design is so much better at articulating this than I am. But there are definitely cues taken from the past. Really, you know a lot of the interior detailing that this book nature using all the best materials. So I think when we look at returning Cadillac to honestly like the standard of the world, you'll see that as you as you look at the older catalacts.

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Speaker 1: What's next? What Cadillac can we what can we expect from Cadillac.

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Speaker 2: So I can't give you details, but I can tell you next year is going to be very exciting for Cadillac, and exciting on more than one front.

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Speaker 1: So come on, you can't even give a say, come on, listen, just a hint, come on, just a hint. Well, that's enough fun for the day. Time to head home to the family. And in case you're wondering, my daughter back home, fast asleep, h.

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Speaker 4: Little baby, don't guitar sick dad, He's gonna buy you Cadillac lyric Is.

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Speaker 1: Lyric Is twenty twenty three lyric orders are full. Go to Cadillac dot com and complete a pre order from model year twenty four to be among the first to order a model year twenty four. When available. Safety or driver assistant features are no substitute for the driver's responsibility to operate the vehicle in a safe manner. Read the vehicle's owner's manual for important feature limitations and information. Map coverage available in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. This episode was produced by Jacob Smith and Joey fishground Our editor is Julia Barton, Engineering by Nina Lawrence and mastering by Sarah Bugair. Special thanks to Melissa Grady at Cadillac and Carl Megliore. I'm Malcolm Glappo.