So when a Cadillac was on its way to test, I was expecting a pink behemoth with white wall tyres, big fins on the back, front bench seat, and column shift - oversexed, overpaid and over here.
But it doesn't work that way any more, apparently, and, in the case of the Cadillac BLS, for Uncle Sam you have to read "Uncle Sven".
The old Caddy - "not a car to scorn", if you remember the 1950s comic song involving a bubble car which kept going beep beep in impatience to pass - wants to conquer Europe by becoming European!
You will have seen the posters at motorway service stations, "More than a car, it's a Cadillac" over a picture of the BLS looking extremely butch. But, in fact, it lives up to its cliché only in the enormous cliff face of a front grill - and if that is aerodynamic, I'm from New York.
Family resemblance
In fact, the BLS is made at General Motors' Saab plant in Trollhattan, Sweden. And once you understand that, you can see the family resemblance from the side. It looks remarkably like the new Saab 9-3 - but with a fat lip and a big bottom.
Just what the ancestors of old Antoine de Mothe Cadillac, the man who founded Detroit, would think of sticking a 1.9 turbo diesel engine under the bonnet, I shudder to think.
There are three petrol engines in the range, two two-litre units and a 2.8V6 but it is the turbo diesel which is expected to sell best. And, in fact, although its 150 bhp is adequate rather than exciting, it works quite well with its six-speed manual box, hums along quietly and has plenty of torque, particularly in third.
And for an executive saloon, it is thrifty. I managed 38mpg in the morning rush hour - up to nearly 48mpg on a particularly quiet Friday. On a 400-mile run south and back mainly on motorway, it managed an easy 40mpg.
The seats, though, are very firm - ok in the front but horrid and too small in the back and its stiffish suspension is more suited to our twisty roads than a freeway through the desert. Indeed, both its chassis and its engine coped well following a Citroen Saxo VTR in the hands of someone who knew all the short cuts through central London and into Essex.
It is one of the smallest Cadillacs ever and will go head to head to with Audi's A4, BMW's 3, and even its Saab stablemate.
Those back seats really are too small to be of much use - as are the wing mirrors that made it difficult to judge the position of overtaken traffic.
Enormous
It does have, though, an enormous boot... and the biggest ashtray I have ever seen in a car.
It feels bigger and heavier than it is on its big, fat low profiles - and you get the dangerous impression that it would drive straight through anything that got in its way.
Cadillac sold just 2,100 cars in the whole of Western Europe last year and as a result, it draws quite a few curious glances at its front.
But despite its strange nose, it is really rather an unspectacular being, affection for its unfussy road manners growing on you almost unnoticed.
It may be a little too like the Saab but this is more than just a re-badging job. (Will Chevrolet, I wonder, ever recover its street cred after adding the Matiz and Lacetti to its line-up.) This is, at least, its own man.
Worthy addition to a crowded sector though it is, I'm not sure, however, who on earth is going to buy one.
It is up against some serious players and the neighbours would perhaps be more easily impressed with something a little more mainstream.
What do you make of the new Cadilac? Have your say.
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