Let's start with the hood. This sleek stretch of metal is so expansive that you could get out the high-backed chairs and serve Thanksgiving dinner to an entire family - the Corleone family. Indeed, with its tinted windows, weighty quarter panels and gleaming black paint job, this Concours is imposingly stately: It looks like a car from which you might get an offer you can't refuse. We know that stolidity is a Cadillac hallmark, but to us, the Concours' low-skirted rear-quarter panels looked too blocky and hefty for a model that's trying to woo a more style-conscious market segment. In fact, more than anything, these sturdy hind quarters recalled the back fenders of the '72 Plymouth Fury our test driver commandeered during his college days. We felt ourselves yearning for some kind of styling flourish in the back - or maybe just something a bit more svelte in the quarter-panel department.
However, the judicious use of chrome side molding provides a minimalistic antidote to the gaudy Caddies of yore. The no-nonsense body-colored door handles, window trim and mirror housings lend the Concours the kind of earnestness that could make it the car of choice for a CEO - or, for that matter, a head of state. Next Page