Most of you know I work at a Cadillac dealership so sometimes when we get a new product in I do a short review of it. Here is my ramblings on the CTS and a few other things Cadillac and General Motors related.

It isn’t much of a secret that when designing a new car Cadillac basically identifies whoever makes the bestselling car in its segment and then benchmarks its performance and dimensions. The current body style SRX was designed to go toe to toe with the Lexus RX 330. More currently Cadillac took a direct shot at BMW by designing the ATS to go head to head with the BMW 3 series. With the ATS Cadillac did 2 things they should have done years ago:

1) Make the car as light as possible. They succeeded in making the ATS the lightest car in its segment. Traditionally Cadillacs were easily the heaviest luxury in the respective segments.
2) Get rid of segment-straddling CTS. The old body style CTS was bigger than the BMW 3 series and smaller than the 5 series. It didn’t really line up directly with any other luxury car in the market.

So with the smaller Cadillac ATS in the market Cadillac was free to grow the CTS to make it a true competitor of the BMW 5 series. It is 5 inches longer than the outgoing CTS and 250 lbs lighter.

Here is the Cadillac CTS (left) pictured with the new ATS (right).


The new CTS is lower to the ground and 5 inches longer than the outgoing CTS but still manages to be lighter by 250 lbs. Both the interior and exterior are significantly changed. Here is the 2nd generation CTS next to the 3rd generation CTS:


Along with the new styling and technology you can now get the CTS with a twin turbo V6 producing 420 HP. Its called the Vsport but shouldn't be confused with the real CTS-V, which in the past has come with the supercharged Corvette engine. The actual CTS-V will be getting the new Corvette engine and I expect it to produce around 600 HP when we finally see the car in a year or so.

This new CTS has softer crease lines on it and seems more like what you would expect to see in a Mercedes with the BIG logo upfront on the grill. The softer more Euorpean look is meant to give Cadillac a more global appeal. IMHO it is the best looking car Cadillac has built to date.



The adaptive cruise control is a nice feature. You can use it around town or on the freeway. Once you have set the speed you want to go, the car will manage all the accelerating and breaking, even bringing you to a complete stop at a light. I have been told that the car can parallel park itself although I have not tested that feature yet.
Time will tell if Cadillac can put a dent in the sales of BMW with the CTS and ATS. It seems like they are finally producing cars that you can be put next to a BMW or Benz and have them compare favorably, if not show that the Cadillac is the better car.

The interior of the car is updated as well with a haptic feedback touchscreen interface that works well for the most part. My only complaint with this system is that I would like a volume nob instead of a swipe bar. This wouldn't keep me from buying one however because the volume adjustment is also on the steering wheel. Here is the interior:


As a side note Cadillac will also produce an ATS coupe, ATS-V Coupe, a CTS Coupe and a CTS-V Coupe. No word on convertible versions. This is important because the reason BMW does so much volume with these two cars is because they have coupe, sedan and convertible variations. I heard a rumor today that the ATS-V could get a twin turbo V6 producing 500 HP, which would best the BMW M3 and M4.

Cadillac also plans on building the El Mirage concept but turning it into a 4 door flagship. It will most likely be called the Cadillac LTS. It will be available in 2015-2016 and be in the 90 – 120K range price wise. Here is an artist’s rendition of what it could look like:


Lastly it seems when I post about cars there are always a few guys commenting that they would never buy a car from Government Motors. Here is a nice piece that was an eye opener even to me about what really went down with the restructuring of GM.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danbigman/2013/10/30/how-general-motors-was-really-saved-the-untold-true-story-of-the-most-important-bankruptcy-in-u-s-history/

Whatever your feelings are about Cadillac and GM its nice to see them being competitive. I heard from a GM financial rep today that GM is close to paying back all the money they were given. He said "7% of GM is still government owned."