The Wrong Kind of All Wheel Drive.

Just look at that car. Take a second, clear your busy schedule for 10 seconds and look at the above imaged vehicle. It's beautiful.

Remember, that is an American luxury car. The kind of car that 30 years ago would have been stuffed with horrible couch-like seats, crushed velour upholstery, and anemic 150 horse 500 cubic inch V8 engines. This new breed of American luxury cars are rippling with muscle, all taut and quivering. They snub their noses at the Japanese, the Italians and even 'Ze Germanz.' That Cadillac you've been looking at is a perfect example of this new found exuberant rebellion.

If you remember, I drove a previous generation CTS and loved it. You can only imagine how excited I was to pilot the 2010 Cadillac CTS4 pictured above. I almost drooled when the keys met my palm.

The car was a disappointment.

Yes, this CTS was a V6, and yes it was the more powerful version than the 2004 CTS I had previously driven was equipped with. Yes, the interior of the 2010 CTS was much nicer than in the 2004 CTS. But, as I later came to suspect, the culprit here may have been the pesky digit attached to the end of the 2010 CTS' title.

Cadillac's CTS series is rear wheel drive (RWD) across the board, unless that number 4 pops into the title. Then it becomes an all wheel drive (AWD), though everything else about the car remains largely unaltered. Think of the CTS4 as the McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese to the CTS' dairy-free Quarter Pounder. That one ingredient radically changed the experience for me.

I'm a huge fan of AWD, or at least I had previously thought myself to be, given my penchant for cars with four driven wheels. But this Cadillac became a heavy, numb, and groaning tug of a boat where the regular CTS was agile and nimble. The CTS4 was not entirely unlike the Cadillac of the '80s that I've come to loathe.

Perhaps Cadillac should consider a dingle-ball headliner option for the CTS4. Oh, you know what? They should offer a vinyl roof! Yes, that's more befitting the grossness I discovered.

In the mean time, I'll take a plain CTS. Hold the 4, and no thanks on the hyphen V.