Cadillac Dreams & Moderation Screams

Cadillac Dreams & Moderation Screams



Picture this--335 bhp at 4,800 rpm, gleaming poetry in motion, choice of interior trims, 18.58 feet long, a new four headlamp combination, and lashes of sexy chrome.

I write in hyper appreciation of one of man’s manifest fantasies, epitome of the American Dream--of the 1958 two-door Cadillac Eldorado Coupe hard-top, and the Eldorado Biarritz Convertible. This Marilyn Monroe of automobiles, with its wrap-around windshield and high, slender, pointed tailfins; was enhanced in 1958. That was when the Eldorado upped its engine power for muscular acceleration, added killer tailfins and twice as much wattage with those bright-eyed lights.

The 4 door hard-top version, the memorable Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was introduced in 1957, and kept the exact same styling till 1958. This one cost more than the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud , at $ 13,074. And this great car had the world’s first memory power seats. It also had a stainless steel roof, air suspension and every other luxury known to GM at the time. And it had great hand-built quality from Detroit, that quintessential Motown. In 1959, when the Eldorado was toned down, deviating from its early design sensibilities for the first time, and was outsourced to Pininfarina in Italy; they were actually hand-built a lot worse by the Italians.

This beautiful car, in all its versions, from the birth of the El Dorado Concept Car of 1952 till its zenith in 1958, epitomised the “anything is possible” optimism of the baby-boomer years after WWII. The Eldorado brand ran on and on, from 1953 to 2002. But later versions were truncated, suppressed, compressed; its looks, design, and larger than life performance hopelessly betrayed.

But the story of the Eldorado, struggling to reinvent itself, symbolises the decline and loss of self-confidence of all American Automotive design, engineering and manufacturing, much affected by Japanese competition from the sixties onwards.

The Land of The Rising Sun gradually took over the US mass market with its sexless, compact, but reliable runabouts. Except, that is, for brief rallies, from the likes of the much loved GM Pontiac Firebird, the Trans Am and from the “friendly fire” of the Ford Mustang.

But, for the most part, the great open road of endless possibility symbolised by the extravagantly styled American automobile, turned punishingly sensible as the time went on, with a crowd of Datsuns, Nissans, Mitsubishis, Toyotas and the like replacing an exuberant style sense with rank plodding utility.

And the wealthy, luxurious places vacated by top-end American cars, rejected increasingly for inferior quality, were filled by the great European marques and in the latter-day also by the Japanese, with the introduction of the Lexus. The fact is, GM, Ford and Chrysler lost their way in the forest a very long time ago in their attempt to emulate foreign ways when their heart just wasn’t in it.

Today, the talk is all about hybrids and electric cars, global warming and renewable energy. So firmly does this press upon the popular imagination that dissent in these areas is seen as a modern day heresy. But still, there are distinguished heretics, who persist in questioning the wisdom of the majority.

85 year old distinguished dissenter Freeman Dyson, a physicist and futurist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University in New Jersey says, “All the fuss about global warming is greatly exaggerated.” Dyson thinks “The climate studies people” championed by the likes of “opportunist” Al Gore, “who work with models, always tend to overestimate their models”.

Dyson is echoed by fellow physicist Richard Muller, from the University of California, Berkeley, who points out that 2008 was, in fact, globally speaking, the coolest year of the last ten. Muller says the present so-called global warming may be working to prevent a new Ice Age and does not have a lot to do with human intervention.

Dyson, who invented a rocket system called “Orion” that uses small and periodic nuclear explosions against a spaceship’s massive pusher-plate to propel it to the moon and beyond; still holds a candle for coal, properly scrubbed of its pollutants, as the bulk energy source to rely upon. This is because there is a lot of it, and because it can meet the energy needs of the poor in populous countries like India and China.

Dyson says it is silly to ask for green solutions that will put the prices of everything up. He thinks those who are flocking to the use of electric cars are not taking into account the cost of replacing their expensive batteries every three years. Dyson agrees however that there is too much Carbon Dioxide being emitted, but advocates the planting of genetically engineered carbon emission eating trees to tackle the problem. About a trillion of them, he calculates, will take care of all the extra CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere and a plantation programme like this is feasible.

Dyson does not agree with policies that seek to prevent the access of teeming millions of the world’s poor to betterment, in countries like India and China and the African Continent, in the name of saving the environment.

Richard Muller, on his part, holds a brief for more nuclear energy usage. He says there is more natural radioactivity from the rock formations around Denver, for example, than there is in the areas where nuclear waste is being buried in America and that a certain, fairly large amount of radiation, is actually harmless.

President Obama is well down the road to some form of Eco-Warriorship, judging from the “or else” tone of his recent advice to GM, Ford and Chrysler; even though, the contours of it, to public knowledge, are still vague. We don’t know if he will ask for changes beyond asking the American auto-industry to make electric and hybrid cars, presumably on a more affordable basis, in exchange for more government help.

From the point of view of the emerging nations like India and China, we are, as yet, responsible for under 15% of global carbon emissions jointly. This will, of course, rise as we grow our economies. But, increasingly, it seems better to try and ensure global cooperation on this universal issue by turning to solutions such as the ones offered by Dyson and Muller. These are solutions which are long on practicality and short on hysteria.

(1,051 words)

8th April 2009
Gautam Mukherjee