Daring to be different

MY favorite piece of recent movie dialogue comes from the animated tour de force "Ratatouille." The ruthless food critic Anton Ego has just had his heart melted by the little rodent chef at Gusteau's, causing him to reevaluate his work, his purpose: "In many ways the work of a critic is easy," he writes in his column. "We risk very little and enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. . . . But there are times when a critic risks something and that is in the discovery and the defense of the new."

So here's a new thought, worthy of defending: Cadillac makes a better car than BMW or Mercedes or Lexus or Infiniti, and that car is the 2008 CTS. No other car in the mass market, with so much at stake for its makers, dares so much as this expressive and audacious bit of automotive avant-gardism. In a segment that lives and dies by European benchmarks, the CTS sets fire to the bench and throws it through the shopkeepers' window.

Of course, each of the German and Japanese majors makes fine cars. Historically, this has always been so, and historically not so with cars named Cadillac. Skepticism is warranted. On a point-by-point, feature-per-dollar comparison, the Cadillac excels in some areas -- the interior is splendid -- and is merely competitive in others. But just park the CTS next to the competition. The Mercedes-Benz C350 looks hidebound by its own heritage; the BMW, staid and predictable, a law clerk's car. In this big-numbers segment -- entry luxury sport-sedans -- there is a distinct proclivity to play it safe. The CTS hits the street like a ruby fired out of a shotgun.

Indeed, because there is so much technical parity in this segment, it's personality and character, not trivial tenths of acceleration or cornering, that make one car worth buying and the other not. The Caddy has a story to tell -- it's about resurgence; it's about counter-programming; it's about a knee unbent in defiance of the Europeans' presumed superiority.

Meanwhile, this car is going to be sold all over the world, and I love the idea of the Cadillac as feisty, flag-waving cultural export. What will the lords and lads of British car rags say when the Cadillac is the coolest thing in their car park? All that tedious Yank-bashing will fall silent.