Sad Creatures

A friend related a sad story to me last night.

This is not unique to the specific Cadillac forum he's talking about, but it's typical.

The Cadillac CTS is a traditional front engine car that spins the rear wheels.  Some do have all wheel drive, but the default state is rear wheel drive.

The engine architecture is remarkably similar to that in Camaros of the same vintage.

This leads people of a certain bent to upgrade the performance.

Which brings us to our sad little creatures.

They stalk this Cadillac forum looking for any thread where mention is made of doing any manner of performance upgrade and cry their litany of, "why didn't you buy a CTS-V if you wanted performance?"  Sometimes coupled with, "when you get done paying for that, you could have bought a V!"

Ugh.

Well, for starters, that direct injection V6 gets a lot better mileage and even with the hit of adding a turbo or supercharger, is still doing better on gas.

And the cost of adding a supercharger doesn't dent the price differential between a normal CTS (about $30k) and a CTS-V (about $80k) [filtered for low miles and excellent condition on ebay].  Even letting the miles add up and condition slip only lowers the price difference to $30k.

Heck, I could plunk in a V8 from just about any platform with the LS architecture for less than $30k into just about ANY car, regardless of if the original maker even made a V8 car in their entire history.

And before we delve too far into this nut, the first generation CTS-V will arguably be worse than converting a V6 car to a V8 and drivetrain stolen from a 5th gen Camaro.  The first iteration of the V was notoriously fragile, especially in the differential gears.

But getting back to our miserably sad creatures...

They've missed that for many hot-rodders the process is the goal.  They cannot stand that someone would enjoy something differently from them.

The Corvette equivalent is the guy who can't fathom you changed anything on your car because, someday, those will cost you coveted NCRS points.  Guys who are baffled that you're actually out there driving your car and "destroying the resale value".

Both Corvette and Cadillac fora have a contingent where the solution to any problem is, "take it to the dealer."  You might recall my adventure here, taking it to the dealer would have been at least a $700 repair.  For a $15 part, a couple hours labor and running a calibration routine.  Clearly someone is made of more money than I am.

The "take it to the dealer" people would also end up spending almost $3k on brakes, which will be no better than stock because they will be OEM parts.  $400 and some DIY gets better brakes.

These guys even eschew performance shops who could do that brake job for about $1,500 and have better than stock stopping power.

Someone will certainly demand to know why I didn't get a Z06 or ZR1 if I wanted better brakes...