(They’re calling it the “Raindrop” Cadillac CTS-V TV Commercial.)
In this silly ad for Cadillac, they claim that a standard windshield-wiper at 190 miles-per-hour lifts off the glass, so they engineered one that works fine when you’re driving 190 miles-per-hour. So they fixed that problem: yay! I was wondering when they’d get around to fixing that. But what does that windshield-wiper do at normal speeds, like, say, 30 miles-per-hour? I’ll bet it sucks! After all, shock-absorbers that work great at racing speeds make you feel every bump, crack, etc., in the road like you’re riding a bucking bronco! And that’s because things designed for racing use usually are not any good at regular road speeds; they’re just not any good at doing both, because these conditions are so ridiculously different in what they require that it’s practically impossible for anything to be good at both low and super-high speeds. Never mind the fact that nobody is ever going to drive a Cadillac 190 miles-per-hour, because no-one is ever allowed to do that anyway, even if they really, really wanted to! (Especially in the rain!!)
Okay, so we can clearly see that they have their priorities way upside-down at Cadillac. So why not just make a great car for normal driving speeds that we’re actually allowed to drive on the road? Or perhaps they could offer an insurance policy which will pay for your speeding tickets and court costs when you get caught trying to drive your Cadillac 190 miles-per-hour? It’s just funny, because they’re trying to sell us on their expensive luxury car based upon a useless design feature of a windshield-wiper we’ll never even get to test to see if they’re telling the truth about it or not. (After all, the ad uses CGI to demonstrate their point about the wipers, so we don’t even get to see it shown without manipulation.) And if we can’t even test it, they could be lying about it and we’d never know the difference. But what’s the difference, since we’ll never have any occasion to need it to work under those conditions anyway?
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Why would we ever be attracted to a car company when they try to use bullshit like this to appeal to us? I guess what they’re trying to say is that, wow, they did all this brilliant design for something banal and useless, so think of how much extra-amazing brilliance went into the design of the important parts! But what it really leaves me wondering is, did they spend all their time on useless crap like this 190 mph windshield-wiper design, and then just wing it on all the stuff we’ll actually use? If not, then why not show us some of that other stuff? (You know, like the stuff we might actually care about!) It just makes them look like their priorities are all out of whack, and they’re focusing on all the wrong stuff. And if they’re focused on all the wrong things, will the stuff we need to work actually work when we need it? Or maybe they spent so much time on the radio antenna retractor that the engine isn’t worth a damn. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s the message I’m getting here.
Here’s the ad. See if you don’t feel the same way:
