Tested: 1994 Cadillac Sedan de Ville Has Room to Spare

From the October 1993 issue of Car and Driver.

There is one outstanding requirement that Cadillac’s Sedan de Ville has to meet: when the owner, his wife, and their two kids pick up the grandfolks on Sunday on their way to the pancake house, they want to take just one car. That’s the message that owners give to Cadillac’s market researchers. There are 22 sedans around that fill that bill, and the fourth most popular is the de Ville.

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The front-­wheel-drive de Ville outsells the cheaper Buick Park Avenue and Oldsmobile Ninety Eight and the similarly priced Lincoln Continental combined. The de Ville is by far the best-selling Cadillac, accounting for more than half of all Cadillac sales. And it’s the least expensive, starting at about $34,000. The de Ville’s popularity is especially strong in Texas and Florida, according to Cadillac.

In our book, this popularity has made the de Ville the undisputed King of Huge-ness. Even with this notoriety for largesse, Cadillac has made the car bigger for 1994. The new de Ville is only available as a four-door (the Coupe de Ville, which was introduced in 1949, has been canceled). The new sedan is 3.9 inches longer and 4.4 inches wider than the car it replaces. The shadow cast by the new de Ville covers the area of two Suzuki Samurais. No matter. Cadillac’s dealers have informed the company that a substantial body of de Ville owners are ready to trade in for new cars this year. And they’re hungry as ever for pancakes with the grandfolks.

The resulting redesign is a big Caddy endowed with a stouter body and a more capable suspension. The platform of the new de Ville is based on the upscale Seville, though the de Ville’s wheelbase has been stretched 2.8 inches. To improve manufacturing efficiency, the de Ville now shares some mechanicals with the Seville. Its suspension design is the same as the Seville’s, with struts in front and double control arms in the rear. One slight difference is that the rear lower control arms on the Seville are made of alloy and the de Ville piece are cast iron.

The new platform brings vast improvements in ride and steering feel. Driving the new de Ville, you begin to think you’re behind the wheel of an outsized, well-handling Seville. Bumps are absorbed in this 3780-pound sedan at the corners, not spread throughout the body. It’s a classy act indeed…until you arrive at an on­ramp. Suddenly, you’re whisked back into de Villes of the past as the Michelin XW4 whitewalls scream bloody murder. These tires want to go as straight as railroad tracks in Wichita. The new de Ville plows around corners as if it were missing twenty pounds of air in the front tires. Oops. Well, when you think about it, there aren’t that many turns in Texas and Florida anyway.

Console yourself that this cornering behavior is no worse than in the previous de Ville. Certainly the loyalists will continue to feel at home. You may feel like you’re at one of their homes, too, because the cavernous front and rear seats resemble living-room couches. The seats are a new design for the de Ville. You can really let yourself go, quit exercising, build up dangerous levels of blood cholesterol and still fit in these padded spaces. Rearward, a nicely angled seatback and long seat cushion make a comfy place to spend more than a few hours. Rear legroom is vast. Also, the rear doors open wider than before, and the rear windows now retract all the way into the doors. There’s four cubic feet more interior space than in last year’s de Ville; the trunk, at 20 cubic feet, is 11 percent larger.

The instrument panel borrows some cues from the handsome panel in the Seville, although the de Ville’s “East Indian rosewood” trim around the stereo and across the dashboard turns out to be imitation stuff. De Ville owners have told Cadillac they “overwhelmingly prefer” a digital­ speedometer display, and its large numerals are flanked by smaller numbers accounting for fuel, mileage, temperature, and alphabetic engine warnings. The dashboard in the new King of Hugeness is not gaudy.

Looking out over the enormous hood of the de Ville, you see a Cadillac wreath-and­-crest ornament to your right, and your eyes follow a distinct fin down the top of the fender on the left. The exterior styling of the de Ville we shall describe as traditional. The response we’ve received so far includes comments from current de Ville owners (two of them from Texas, no less) who confused the new car with the truly gargantuan rear-drive Fleetwood. And valet parkers at our favorite trendy burgerteria thought it worthy of display, slotting the de Ville center stage between two BMW 3-series sedans. That suggests the car’s styling maintains a tradition of looking expensive.

The de Ville is the only remaining Cadillac powered by the 200-hp pushrod 4.9-liter V-8, once the marque’s staple engine. The V-8’s power flows smoothly from a quiet idle to a relatively low 5250-rpm upper limit. It will move the nearly two-ton car to 60 mph in 8.3 seconds. Cadillac says the 270-hp Northstar V-8 Concours version of the de Ville (which outweighs our test car by about 200 pounds) is about a second faster. A V-6 Lincoln Continental, by comparison, requires 9.5 seconds.

The de Ville’s V-8 is low-revving and well-isolated. What you hear is a blend of intake rush and exhaust rumble, and very little else. Cruising at 70 mph, the noise level is, surprisingly, less than in a Lexus LS400 or a Mercedes 600SEL, both benchmarks for quietness. On gusty days, you’II hear some wind noise at the A-pillars. The new de Ville body is more aerodynamic than before (0.35 Cd versus 0.38).

This sedan rides softly, but there is less float and wallow than its size suggests. You feel the same muted tar-strip jiggle in the steering wheel as you do in a Seville; not much chassis stiffness is lost with the de Ville’s extra length. The steering is as direct as the Seville’s and adequately quick. It feels more sensitive than the steering in previous de Villes. The dampers have three settings: they stay soft at slow speeds, then switch automatically to firmer settings at 35 mph and 65 mph. The shocks also switch to the stiffest setting during hard acceleration, braking, or cornering.

Our test de Ville had the optional traction-control system, revised this year to operate at any speed. The previous system was intended for starting on slick surfaces, and then it would shut off above 35 mph. We were able to engage the new system at 50 mph on a wet exit ramp, a boon for a car with 200 horsepower and tires biased more for soft ride than stick. On slower corners you can feel torque-steer while accelerating, more than you do in the de Ville Concours. Cadillac explains that’s because the Northstar-equipped Concours has equal­-length driveshafts and the de Ville does not.

Overall, the de Ville is certainly boat­-sized, but it is not a wandering boat. It feels more confident than Buick’s Park Avenue or Oldsmobile’s Ninety Eight. The trade­off for the de Ville’s nice ride is pronounced understeer. But there’s room enough for the Waltons.

Counterpoints

My theory is that the de Ville is a Cadillac STS inflated to 70 psi. The evidence? Mechanically, the two are similar, but just about everything inside the de Ville is twenty percent larger. I’m six feet tall, and with the power seat adjusted as far upward as it will go, the roof clears the top of my head by half a foot The back seat could hold a U.N. peacekeeping force. The steering wheel is the size of a child’s bicycle tire. I honestly don’t know who would want a car this big, except maybe Shaquille O’Neal or drivers who don’t feel safe without six feet of hood guiding their way. —Martin Padgett Jr.

The Cadillac Motor Car Company was on the right track. For 1994, all Cadillacs except the livery-leviathan Fleetwood were designed and built by engineers and assemblers assigned to Cadillac exclusively, and—surprise—they all feel like Cadillacs. The Sedan de Ville is a superb example of the traditional isolation-tank Caddy, and the Concours, the Seville, and the Eldorado offer Cadillac style trimmed and tailored for a baby-boomer fit. Now the engineers have been rolled back in with Buick and Olds. We can only hope they keep their focus. —Frank Markus

Mostly I prefer agile, compact cars to big ones, but I do make exceptions. Going on vacation with several people is one good reason to drive a car like a Cadillac. Being six-foot-five is another. And I’m not entirely immune to the sense of power one feels while aiming a truly large machine down the highway, either. Now that the de Ville has steering somewhat in contact with the pavement, body motion control that is pleasingly secure, and a structure that is reassuringly solid, drivers with large families have better reason than ever to buy one. —Barry Winfield

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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com