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While the Cadillac XT5 is the brand’s best selling model globally, it has struggled a bit to find its place in the overall midsize luxury crossover segment. To help the XT5 gain more traction in the segment, Cadillac has given the XT5 a substantial refresh for the 2020 model year, both inside and out.
Wide open vistas. Limitless blue skies. Stunning canyons carved over millennia into multi-hued layers. The southwest provides all of it, and I can’t think of a better way to traverse it than in a fast, open-topped tourer with lots of horsepower. Which is precisely why I headed straight to Alamo’s midsize SUV lane for a “Toyota RAV4 or similar”.
Normally, when I’m queued up in front of a bunch of cones, I’m running on adrenaline and a less-than-optimal amount of sleep. I’m reviewing the version of the course I’ve tried to burn into my subconscious from the course walk, and my hands are flexing almost imperceptibly on the wheel as I rehearse my line. I’ve been told my lips move, as if I’m mumbling. I believe it. It’s how I program; how I run the course before I run the course.
Not this time. I’m a passenger for this run, sitting shotgun in a high-performance SUV, watching a Fiat 500 Abarth burble through a long sweeper a few hundred yards to my right.
I’ve never personally been a fan of hardtop convertibles, as I believe the lines from the overly complicated mechanical tops ruin the looks of an otherwise stylish car. Sure, they look great with top down but what about with the top up? More often than not, these convertibles also feel sloppy and heavy with the top down, ruining what should otherwise be a fun and engaging driving experience. Fortunately the designers at Infiniti felt the same way I do, and designed the 2014 Infiniti Q60S Convertible to look just as beautiful with the top up as it looks with the top down. Better still, Infiniti engineers managed to make the Q60S Convertible equally fun to drive regardless of what orientation the top is in.
Photos courtesy of Nissan
It’s hard to get worked up over a midsized sedan. Yes, I believe they make up the defining segment in the American automotive market, and from time to time I find one of them to be particularly satisfying to drive, but on the whole, they are just plain vanilla.
As a young car enthusiast, I bought into the notion that there were certain vehicles that I was obligated to hate, lest my “car guy card” be stripped forcefully from my still-timid grasp. The list changed depending on what branch of car culture I found myself exploring at the time, but there was always an established pecking order. And since most of my early exposure was to fans of European and Asian import brands, I believed from the very start that there was no self-inflicted punishment more severe than the purchase and possession of a domestic vehicle.
