Confession #48: Buick and Cadillac need each other right now

Buick Regal GS, Cadillac CTS (Photos: GM)

I absolutely feel for Cadillac right now. In my lifetime, there have been at least five big pushes to tell people "This is not your grandfather's Cadillac." And it's really only now the product has pretty much backed up that claim. That's why it sucks sales are spiraling.

It can't help that there's been a jumble of leaders over the past couple years at GM's most prestigious brand. And even after a sales bump in 2013, the momentum has been lost.

Confession #43: Acura and Buick's new small cars are Millennial-chasers, but Baby Boomers will be doing the driving

2013 Acura ILX (Photo: Wikimedia/IFCAR)

A day doesn't go by when I don't come across some story about automakers dying to appeal to so-called Millennials, or the twentysomething crowd infatuated with Facebook and iPhones.

That's fine and whatever, but designers and product planners think it's a good idea to incorporate elements of these things into new cars, especially those they want to sell to people of my demographic (well, those of us who are gainfully employed). I like the ability to connect my iPhone through Bluetooth and Internet radio steaming through the speakers is cool. But I do not want to update my Facebook status while driving, or post something witty to Twitter. Product planners of the auto industry, listen up: that's not going to get more Millennials to buy your cars.

What might work is if these entry-level "premium" cars they're pitching didn't look like they're made for our parents. The latest case comes from Acura, in the form of the totally shrug-inducing ILX sedan.

Confession #39: Grandpa would want more cylinders

Cadillac V8 (Flickr/Hugo 90)

About five years ago, I was standing next to my grandfather watching a commercial for the then-new Cadillac CTS and the announcer was touting its direct injected V6 with 300-something horsepower. My grandfather, long past his driving years but still filled with memories of his '76 Coupe de Ville, turned to me and asked, "Does having a V6 cheapen a Cadillac?"

Grandpa raised a good point. I, raised on turbo fours and preferring condensed European power to the brute force that's long been an American philosophy, thought it was a non-issue at the time. To him, a Cadillac wasn't a Cadillac without eight cylinders. (I wasn't born yet to ask him what he thought of the Cimarron). He never really forgave GM for their downsizing in the '70s and '80s, either. If Grandpa were around today, I wonder what he'd say about the new Cadillac ATS, the 3-series opponent that features two four-cylinders in its engine roster. He'd probably hate it. And, after much thought, I kind of have to agree with him.