Very Satisfied with XT6

Why We Loved All Our Cadillacs

by Dan Perley and Diana Cinamon

We live in the unincorporated county area just northeast of the City of San Bernardino in California’s vast Inland Empire. We recently took delivery of a new 2023 Cadillac XT6 which is for Diana her third Cadillac (she earlier had a 2010 SRX and a 2013 SRX) and for Dan his fifth (he earlier had a 1999 deVille, 2002 SLS, 2004 STS and 2010 DTS Platinum). At one time or another, Dan drove each of his four vehicles all the way across the continent from Southern California to eastern Canada and vice-versa.

Dan has 45+ years experience as an information technology (IT) executive and consultant while Diana runs a personal property appraisal business spanning the entire of SoCal from San Luis Obispo to San Diego. We acquired the XT6 – with SuperCruise – primarily for Diana’s business. Over the past 25+ years her company (which is called Specialty Appraisals) has professionally valued many thousands of objects ranging from fine art to furniture and from huge model railroads (with 10,000+ locomotives and railcars) to antiquities, historic legal documents, firearms, jewelry, automobiles and various precious metals. Naturally, this involves a large amount of field work since in virtually all cases she needs to physically examine, photograph and catalog the artifacts to be appraised. Her wide range of field equipment includes digital cameras, tripods, microscopes, gold and silver assay kits plus magnifying glasses, various lighting and other items essential to the personal property appraisal process.

Her clients include various celebrities from the worlds of entertainment and sport, all of whom rely on her discretion, good judgement and substantial experience in this fascinating field. She also leads the gemology department – and teaches – at a popular local community college and is active in the affairs and governance of her profession. She has published two trade books worldwide, with one of them now in its second edition.

Thus, her automotive needs include a vehicle able to conveniently load and store a substantial number of small and large equipment cases, but which at the same time has great curb appeal, a luxurious interior and is eminently suitable for taking elite clients to lunch. This calls for a well-crafted SUV which offers both an impressive image and a high degree of practicality, since her work often calls for very long days and in many cases multi-day site visits so it must not only carry the tools of her trade, but also whatever overnight cases and additional hang-up bags may be required.

Quite apart from her day-to-day appraisal work, we are both avid shoppers and antiquers so the voluminous interior of our new XT6 will be put to good use on weekend rambles around SoCal as well as occasional out-of-town jaunts up-state and to places like Las Vegas and Phoenix.

A couple of years back, Dan had the opportunity to drive a SuperCruise-equipped CT6 from the LA Auto Show at the downtown Los Angeles Convention Center to the Santa Monica pier (a distance of about 10 miles) with virtually no intervention being required until the point where the I-10 freeway ends. More recently, Diana had the opportunity to try out Cadillac’s excellent driver-assist system for herself and literally about 30 seconds after the system was activated she declared herself to be “sold”. Based on Dan’s earlier test drive, it was already clear to both of us that after a full day in the field cataloging hundreds of objects at a client site it would be hugely helpful. Facing a 1-2 hour drive home from Orange County or the San Fernando Valley in virtually constant stop-and-go rush hour traffic SuperCruise would provide Diana with a safer and a more comfortable ride home with a much lower stress level. Indeed, it makes her drive home a welcoming and relaxing experience.

Dan hastens to add that having driven each of his four previous Cadillacs across the continent in week-long trips at least once – and one of them three times – even the smallest town will almost always have a GM dealership where the car can rapidly receive any required attention. Conversely many such communities have no Lexus, Mercedes-Benz or Volvo stores at all so in the event of any serious issue, those cars will be riding home on a trailer or tow-hook…. Indeed, over the past few decades neither of us has ever owned anything other than a North American designed and built car. True too, some of our friends have stopped bragging about their imported cars’ driver-assist systems as the technical superiority of the GM system has become progressively more evident over the past several years.

Case in point: last year on a trip to mount a booth at the Tucson Gem Show Diana’s check-engine light came on late in the afternoon on a Thursday in a desert area. With the assistance of OnStar, she located Coulter Cadillac in Phoenix. She called the service department who were closing in about a half hour, but she was 45 minutes away from the dealership. After explaining that she was from out of town and needed to be in Tucson by Saturday, the service department manager agreed to stay open until she arrived. They arranged an Uber ride to her business partner’s residence in Scottsdale, and when repairs were completed, brought her back to the dealership in time to make her set-up deadline in Tucson.

Oh, and our other car is a 2014 Chevrolet Camaro 2SS convertible, with only 35K miles on the odometer since the Cadillac SUV’s have borne the brunt of both Diana’s daily business use, endless errands and our pleasure driving together.

Overall, we have each been delighted with every single one of the Cadillacs we have (respectively) driven and so we have high expectations of our new 2023 XT6. We were also more than happy with Nick (the Greek) Polytharhos at Mark Christopher Cadillac in Ontario, California who made the buying experience enjoyable and competently handled our order and was very knowledgeable. He also kept us apprised, graphically, on the progress of our new vehicle through the build cycle.

One final note – Dan says please bring back the CT6 with a big V8…