Monthly Archives: December 2022

Lyriq electric draws crowd to Elway Cadillac

Auto Reviews, Automotive Industry
The gleaming Lyriq all-electric SUV in showroom of John Elway Cadillac. (Jan Wells photos)

As snow fell outside the showroom windows, John Elway Cadillac staged a somewhat picturesque unveiling on a November Thursday evening with a huge crowd of customers and curious onlookers. With the new car covered from sight as the men and women streamed in, it was a look-back to when dealers took the wraps off the newest models on a special fall night.

This new product breaks tradition, though. It is Cadillac’s entry into the burgeoning world of all-electric automobiles – the 2023 Lyriq SUV. The sharply styled luxury sport ute was well-received by those in the Elway showroom. It will be offered in all-wheel and rear-wheel-drive configuration.

Partners Todd Maul, left, and John Elway following unveiling of the Cadillac Lyriq.

The occasion for showing the newest electric was the grand reopening of the remodeled dealership on East Parkway Drive near Park Meadows in Lone Tree.

“We are the No. 1 Cadillac dealer in the state of Colorado,” said Todd Maul, managing partner for the John Elway Dealership Group. Yes, Elway, the aging “quarterback,” was there with Maul, greeting all and very patiently posing for photos with any who asked.

Thanks to the weight of the liquid-cooled lithium-ion, 102kWh battery pack, the Cadillac Lyriq scales in at 5,600 pounds or more. It is 196.7 inches in overall length on a wheelbase of 121.8 inches. A single motor, 340 horsepower, drives the rear wheels. In AWD form, a second motor powers the front wheels, with combined 500 horsepower.

Cadillac claims the Lyriq, in rear-wheel form, will deliver a range of 312 miles between charges. Impressive inside the model is a 33-inch display screen spanning most of the dashboard.

Tim Jackson, president/CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, was among those welcomed to the gathering by Maul.

It was good to run into Ron Goodman, sales manager at Elway Cadillac, and his wife, Rosie. My acquaintance with Goodman goes back a number of years when he was operating Goodman Buick GMC on South Broadway. Goodman drives a Cadillac CT4 sedan and Rosie an XT4 SUV.

I enjoyed visiting with Nancy McDonald, an account executive with Fox31, who told me her late father, Ernie, never missed reading a car column of mine. We also talked of the top quality of U.S. full-size pickups; her favorite is the GMC Sierra.

Michele Apodaca, publisher of Quality Connections South Metro magazines, reminded me that she, too, was involved in Denver newspapering some years back and her desk was very close to mine.

With Jan as my passenger, I drove to the event in a turbocharged 2023 Mazda CX-5 compact SUV crossover. The return drive was on I-25 through the heart of Denver in falling snow, wet roads and all lanes filled with heavy traffic. The CX-5 handled well. It is popular and accounts for more than half the number of new Mazdas sold in the U.S.

‘23 Tacoma’s new look is “solar octane”

Auto Reviews
The 2023 Toyota Tacoma with solar octane finish stands out in dry field and light sky. (Bud Wells photos)

Sporting Toyota’s newest color of solar octane, a vivid and bright orange, the 2023 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro pickup carried us out north on a late November afternoon, then off to the east through some dryland ranch country before returning home.

The next morning was snow time (5 inches deep), lending better test of the Tacoma’s TRD Pro setup of 4-wheel drive/traction control/electronic locking differential and 9.4-inch ground clearance. We had no trouble handling the winter blast; Tacoma is one of the best 4X4 systems among compact pickups.

Among major competitors for the Tacoma are the Jeep Gladiator, Nissan Frontier, GMC Canyon, Chevrolet Colorado and Ford Ranger. The Tacoma is the best-seller.

In line inside the A&W at Eaton for a bit of lunch at the start of our drive up northeast, I struck up a conversation with a gentleman wearing a Colorado School of Mines sweatshirt. Dave Scriven, president of Western States Mining Consultants of Casper, Wyo., was on his way home from Golden, where on Saturday he watched the Mines’ Orediggers outlast Minnesota State, 48-45, in the NCAA Division II football second round.

Scriven, who played football for Mines in the late 1960s and received his degree in 1970, was driving a Ford F250 turbodiesel. He seemed very knowledgeable of the automotive field and we were in agreement that the F250 among full-size pickup trucks and the Tacoma among compacts were standouts.

A resounding point of dissent, though, came from him when I ventured an opinion that, with the rush of electric cars and trucks to the U.S. market, those traditional internal-combustion-engine-powered autos will share a 50/50 split in sales with the new electrics for some time.

Scriven doubts that will develop; “We (the U.S.) don’t have enough electricity to support such a transition of electrics,” he said. I enjoyed the exchange and wished Scriven and his Mines gridders “best of luck down the road.”

As for the ’23 Tacoma review model I was driving, it is equipped with TRD-tuned Fox internal bypass shocks, front skid plates and front and rear suspension lift. It is extremely capable offroad, though it lacks instant low-gear rpm performance from either its base 159-horsepower, 4-cylinder engine or its optional 278-hp, V-6. Its 6-speed automatic transmission seems dated, also. A 6-speed manual tranny is available with the high-end TRD Pro trim. The review model, with the V-6, averaged 18.6 miles per gallon overall (EPA estimate is 18-22).

The Toyota Tacoma of 20 years ago.

Toyota’s sticker price on the Tacoma TRD Pro climbed to $51,229 with the offroad enhancements, dynamic radar cruise and lane-departure alert, leather-trimmed heated front seats and premium audio touchscreen with subwoofer and amplifier. Lesser-equipped Tacoma 4X4’s begin in the low $30,000s. The Tacoma was built in Guanajuato, Mexico.

While townspeople will “ooh” and “ahh” over the bright orange color, it might be best to park it far from the duck blind on those cold winter mornings for hunting.

A look back. . .‘Dad was test-driver for Hudson Hornet’

'BACK-THEN' Articles, Automotive Industry
The 1951 Hudson Hornet was fast, handled very well

It all transpired from a mention in August (2022) that Dodge expects to resurrect the Hornet model name for its first plug-in hybrid, having acquired rights to the name from the Chrysler Corp. purchase of American Motors Corp. in 1987.

I wrote that I well-remember the original Hornet as a Hudson. An e-mail from a reader offered to share with me an even closer look back to the days of the Hudson Hornet in the early 1950s.

Caroline and Ted Seith during discussion of Hudson Hornet. (Jan Wells photo)

So on a September afternoon, the newest of the new all-electric autos, the 2023 Genesis GV60 Performance luxury compact crossover, carried Jan and me 50 miles south from our home to that of Ted and Carolyn Seith.

There the four of us, over tea and cakes, shared recollections of what some might say is an almost-forgotten part of U.S. automotive history – the Hudson Motor Car Co. of Detroit.

There’s no forgetting for Seith, whose father, Richard Seith, was a test-car driver for Hudson in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He often rode along with his dad in drives of the new models. In testing all sorts of quality/performance/durability for new Hudsons, Richard Seith worked alongside another test veteran, Marshall Teague, who became an outstanding NASCAR racer and died in a crash in 1959.

The Hudson company built cars in Detroit from 1909 to 1954, when it merged with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors. “Rather than a merger, it was a takeover by Nash,” said Seith. His point is well-taken, considering that, though the Hornet name was continued through 1957 after the formation of American Motors Corp., it was as a restyled Nash.

Hudson introduced its “step-down-into” structure in 1948; the low center of gravity improved its handling, an advantage in racing, and its lightweight unibody construction and very fast flathead inline-6-cylinder turned the Hornet into a stock-car champion.

Seith said his dad told him drivers from other manufacturers often tested their new products near the same roads as did he. “The Hornet in the early ‘50s was faster than the Chrysler V-8 and also beat an Oldsmobile 88 V-8,” the elder Seith told his son.

Hudson, until the AMC merger, was a strong sales competitor against Chrysler, DeSoto, Lincoln, Mercury and Oldsmobile, and was well-represented with local dealerships.

When automobile assembly lines began rolling again in 1946, following the end of World War II, there were 28 Hudson dealerships in operation in Colorado. Seven in Denver were Fred A. Ward Inc., Frank E. Brenner, Jack Brown Motors, Chambers Motor Co., Elwood Edwards Auto Sales, Harrison Motors and Vic Hebert; Owen Motors was in Englewood and Lookout Mountain Service in Golden.

Others around the state were Lesher Motor Co. in Akron, Holly Hudson Motors in Boulder, DeFries and McCaun in Colorado Springs, Ray’s Garage in Craig, Rice Service Station in Eagle, Allison Motors in Estes Park, Mountain Motor Co. in Fort Collins, Yates Motors in Fort Morgan, Fedderson Motors in Greeley, Petre Motor Co. in Haxtun, Fiedler Motor Co. in Holyoke, Davis Motor Co. in Idaho Springs, Huston Motor Co. in Julesburg, Bert Maich Garage in Leadville, Harris Motor Co. in Limon, Longmont Motor Co., Grace Motors in Sterling, Starr Motor Co. in Wray and Hansen Garage in Yuma.