BLOG: Jims 1997 ETC Blog - Provenance of my 1997 ETC

[Bruce Nunnally]

I'm a car enthusiast, and my 1990 Grand Am GT Quad 4 HO was aging, with 80,000+ miles and seven years, interior and exterior plastic body parts were cracking, and I wanted to trade it in. I went to a Chevrolet-Cadillac dealer to buy a 1998 Corvette but was unable to penetrate the Chevrolet people's way of doing things with Corvettes. While I was trying, I cooled down browsing the STS and ETC examples on the Cadillac side. The Cadillac people were very aggressive, with several 1997's on the lot and the 1998's out for a week, and they kept shoving money across the table until they found my threshold. I picked the ETC, a color -- gray or blue -- and options -- all of them -- all they had available with all the right factory options within delivery distance was this Dark Cherry with 18 miles on it (out of gas; they put 1 gallon in them at the factory). They put in the dealer-installed sunroof and OnStar and I took the car in October 1997.

The color grew on me quickly. It's deep red from a distance, but up close in the sunlight it has a deep cherry red glow that you won't see anywhere else. It has every available option except heated windshield, seats, and engine block; these are hard to get in L.A. in a dealer stocked car, and I had only mild regrets about one, the heated seats, and I got over that pretty quickly. This fine car became my daily driver. Read Full Article and/or Comment/Reply