2010 Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon

Building and structuring a full line of vehicles is tough enough, but then you’ve got to make sure they don’t step on each other in terms of price. This month Cadillac fixed a conflict between its SRX crossover and the new 2010 Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon by chopping the wagon’s price by about $1,300.

The move is intended to make room for more differentiation between the models, which offer similar capacity and features, though the SRX’s taller seating position and soft-road capability draws a different buyer than the CTS Sport Wagon’s more handling-focused package. There’s still some overlap, however, and according to a report from USA Today, buyers were seeing the parity of price and quickly looking past the wagon to the SRX.

The 2010 CTS Sport Wagon starts at $39,150 now, reduced from $40,485, while the SRX starts at $34,155 in front-wheel drive trim. Both models can reach up into the lower-$50,000 range when the options boxes are ticked.

Read our first drive review for a close-up look at the details of the 2010 Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon. If you’d rather have the 2010 Cadillac SRX, we’ve driven that too.

Bob Lutz with the Cadillac CTS-V

Two months ago we brought you an early report that GM had approved the Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon for production, and today a new report has Bob Lutz stating outright that it will be built.

No official press announcement has yet emerged from GM on the matter, but it’s a logical extension of the V treatment to the nearly-identical CTS Sport Wagon. Lutz has also been the semi-official conduit of information for all things V since the CTS-V Coupe was confirmed and the Sport Wagon variant was first hinted at. So it’s all but sewed up.

The CTS-V Sport Wagon won’t get dumbed down to accommodate its more utilitarian layout, either, with a full 556 stomping horses under the hood and 3.9-second 0-60 mph time. In short, as Lutz put it, you’ll be able to purchase the CTS-V “any way you want.”

There’s a lot of potential for the CTS-V Sport Wagon to steal away buyers from Mercedes, Audi or BMW that wouldn’t go for the sedan. Audi’s fantastic RS6, Mercedes-Benz’s E63 AMG Estate and BMW’s M5 Touring are forbidden fruit Stateside, so those with a hunger for speed in a wagon package will be left with essentially no alternative.

For more on the CTS Sport Wagon the CTS-V will be based on, check out our first drive review.

Source:motorauthority.com

While the other vehicles are certainly interesting, it’s this first-ever video footage of the production form of the CTS Coupe that’s most engaging, and though it’s trailed by a plume of salt and dust and filmed at night, there’s a lingering profile shot toward the end that reveals little has changed since the first shots of the production car surfaced as part of GM’s “viability presentation” back in February.

With the theme of the stages of a rocket in a “mission control” type setting, the three vehicles are presented as extensions of the same underlying theme of performance and styling. While our recent first drive of the 2010 Cadillac SRX Turbo might refute the performance angle on that particular vehicle, the “new Cadillac” styling born on the CTS and working its way throughout the rest of the range is readily apparent in all three vehicles.

The CTS Coupe has been confirmed for a May 2010 launch, and will be sold as a 2011 model-year car, sharing powertrains with the CTS Sport Wagon and Sedan, including a range of direct-inject V-6 engines. The higher-performance supercharged CTS-V Coupe will arrive along side the standard vehicle, and though output figures and powertrains haven’t been confirmed, it’s expected to get the same 556-horsepower supercharged 6.2-liter LSA engine found in the CTS-V Sedan.

Source:motorauthority.com

Cadillac CTS Coupe Concept Grile

Rear-wheel drive is a defining element of a luxury car for many buyers, endowing a car with superior handling and dynamics despite somewhat more expensive and marginally less efficient packaging. So it’s with relief that Cadillac fans heard the news last week that the upcoming ‘baby’ sedan, dubbed the ATS, is officially confirmed to get rear-wheel drive standard, with optional all-wheel drive available. Today, even more details about the upcoming BMW 3-series fighter has come out.

The latest information on the ATS reveals that the car will possibly reflect some influence from GM’s down-under subsidiary, Holden. About five years ago, Holden unveiled a rear-drive, mid-sized concept called the TT36 Torana, which actually previewed the styling of the upcoming VE Commodore (known here in the U.S. as the Pontiac G8).

But according to a GoAuto report, GM’s new marketing chief and long-time product guru Bob Lutz has said the Torana is actually the basis for the Alpha platform spoken of so often in the U.S. media.

“Torana is a rear-wheel drive vehicle smaller than the Zeta architecture and smaller than the current CTS Cadillac architecture. It is, or would be, about the size of a BMW 1 Series – maybe just a tiny bit bigger to enable larger wheels,” said Lutz.

“Now that is the architecture that has been bandied about the US press under the name of ‘Alpha Architecture’, and Alpha is still under consideration, but we haven’t kicked off any design work or any engineering work because we have to sort our way through this 35 mpg task.”

Holden, therefore, could be involved in any future Alpha platform development. Given the existing production and import/export relationships between Holden and GM’s U.S. operations, it’s an easy move.

The ATS will be part of General Motors’ new small car platform family, so the drivetrain layout is likely to find its way into other small GM-branded vehicles, including Buick’s upcoming small crossover. With its small size and likely affordable pricing, the ATS is intended to be Cadillac’s highest-volume seller.

The new car’s styling will be somewhat reminiscent of the current CTS, though it will also be its own vehicle. Going heads-up against BMW’s 3-series and Mercedes C-Class in size and performance while undercutting them in price doesn’t mean it will have any room to look less than put-together, however, so expect a package at least as tight as the CTS if Cadillac is going to reach its desired sales figures.

Cadillac is also working on a larger, more 7-series/S-Class-sized XTS flagship sedan, which will get some styling influence from the dramatic, long and sleek Sixteen Concept, though with a somewhat softer, more chrome-laden final result.

Source:motorauthority.com

The range-topping Cadillac had been derailed by the financial crisis and then the bankruptcy General Motors has so famously dealt with over the last year, but now that the New GM is running the show, the DTS/STS replacement is go.

The report indicates that the Zeta-based solution won’t be used, however, and that instead the new flagship will ride on a modified version of the Epsilon II platform found in the 2010 Buick LaCrosse. According to GM insiders, the usually FWD Epsilon II platform will be made wider and longer and converted to AWD.

The car is part of a new strategy for Cadillac that is similar to BMW’s three-car lineup of small, medium and large. The CTS would be the medium-sized car, and a new small Cadillac also is expected in 2011.

Whatever is to come of the top-end Cadillac model, however, don’t expect to see it on the road until very late in 2011, though it will likely make an auto show debut sometime before that. The plant where the car is expected to be built–GM’s Oshawa, Ontario plant–isn’t going to start on the XTS until December 2011.

Stay tuned as GM is expected to make several major product announcements later today. We’ll keep you on top of the details as they break, but in the mean time, you can read up on our experience with the 2010 LaCrosse if you haven’t already.

Source:motorauthority.com