This $30k Cadillac XLR-V Is An Angular Drop-Top With 437bhp
If you wanted a 10-or-so-year-old luxury drop-top with a dash of sportiness, you’d just get an R320 Mercedes SL55, wouldn’t you? It’s the obvious choice, but if it’s just a little too obvious, allow us to present a quirky, left-field alternative: the Cadillac XLR-V.
Built from an ingredients list that includes the C6 Corvette Y-platform, a folding hardtop roof - weirdly - jointly developed by Porsche and Mercedes - a GM Northstar V8, the XLR was very much Cadillac’s answer to the SL. The base model used a 4.6-litre lump, but the one you want is the XLR-V, with its supercharged 4.4-litre V8 putting out a useful 437bhp.
This dropped the 0-60mph time below five seconds, and although it’s really more of a cruiser, road tests from around the time of the XLR’s release suggest the roadster is a pretty decent steer.
Predictably, the interior isn’t anything like as nice as the Merc’s, nor is it screwed together quite so well, but the angular exterior more than makes up for it. It’s a handsome thing roof up or down, but that wasn’t enough to woo many buyers into stumping up the considerable $110,000 asking price.
Thankfully, you won’t pay anything like that for a used one. Terrifying depreciation means there are XLR-Vs out there like this 2006 example, which is up for a curiously specific $29,981.
Tempted?
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
This is a modern classic
Junk car. It’s basically a junk Corvette with a junk Northstar V8, junk luxury suspension tuning and a junk auto transmission. The Corvette is better in every way except interior but even then looking at the XLR interior, there isn’t much to gain at all for costing a good $5k over the usual C6
But it looks good I’ll give it that (even then, the C6 looks better IMO)
I chose the SL over yhr XLR and i really am glad I did.
Except Northstar V8. Noooo thanks 😂
Buy one If you want to be different? Walking around with a bucket on your head is different! It’s not necessarily better. There is a reason why the mercedes SL is a more popular car.
Yeah…image and status. Doesn’t make it cooler. (Even though it is German. )
That interior doesn’t look up to par with the rest of the car…Almost like a GTA car interior. Very plain.
Prince had one..
Ah the Cadillac XLR, when you want a Corvette but want to spend more money and go slower.
Imagine someone actually buy that and swap the drivetrain with the one from the C7 ZO6, happy days