Minneapolis Street Sightings: Opel Omega

I usually don't snap modern cars--for one, 99% of them are boring, and for two, I could care less about the mundane vehicles that clutter the streets of America. You know which mundane vehicles I'm talking about, too. Vehicles such as Toyota Corollas, Honda Civics, Pontiac Grand Ams and Vibes, Nissan Sentras, Ford Tauruses, Chevy Impalas, etc., that we see by the hundreds on any given Sunday. In Europe, vehicles fitting that criteria would fall under the names of Ford Fiesta, Renault Clio and Megane, Opel Omega--wait--stop the presses. Opel Omega? Why that's what we have here! If you're thinking "hmm this looks familiar to me", you'd be right. We got the Opel Omega here the Catera, Cadillac's first real entry level luxury vehicle. Introduced in 1996 as a 1997 model, it was put up to the task of competing with cars such as Toyota's Lexus ES300 line and BMW's E36 3 series line. In its years on the US market, it and its near twin, the Opel Omega recieved cosmetic upates in order to keep the vehicle fresh in showrooms. In 2000, a Sport model was introduced with body colored grille, larger and more stylish wheels and received a new taillamp treatment. Judging by the wheels and the post-199 taillights, I would say this particular example is a 2000 or 2001 model. Due to slow sales (only 95,000 sold in its 5 year production run) and a quick dissolving marketing campaign, the Catera left the US market in 2001, oniy to be replaced by the CTS a year later.Ironically, the only other car sold in the US that shared the Cateramegas's platform was also a sales flop: The Pontiac GTO, which was a Holden Monaro. Part of the reason for the sales flop was marketing and MSRP. Both cars started at $35,000 or thereabouts; for more expensive than competitors.