Cadillac CTS-V Wagons Made Up 0.5 Percent Of CTS Sales

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Juan Barnett of DC Auto Geek tweeted some interesting information last weekend regarding the last generation of CTS-V; just 1,200 examples of the CTS-V wagon were sold during the car’s lifecycle; by comparison, Cadillac sold a total of 254,000 examples of the CTS.

Of those, 215,000 were sedans (with 8,000 being V-Series), 32,000 were coupes (6,000 were V-Series) and a mere 7,000 were wagons. Given Cadillac’s assertion that 5 V wagons needed to be sold to break even on the project, it seems that Cadillac managed to make their money back many times over on a variant that accounted for barely 0.5 percent of CTS sales. If nothing else, it was a profitable PR exercise for Cadillac. Even male fashion bloggers and the guy from American Pie ended up driving them.

(N.B: Many of you have expressed disbelief at the “5 wagons = profit” figure, so I’ll explain the rationale behind it. The tooling was already there, the drivetrain was certified, the car was crash tested and all the associated FMVSS regulatory crap was homologated. For Cadillac, it was simply a matter of bolting it all together. The above points are the exact reason why European manufacturers are reluctant to bring their high-power wagons over here. The costs of doing all of these seemingly minor things add up very quickly. We are talking low to mid 8-figures.)

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Icemilkcoffee Icemilkcoffee on May 28, 2013

    I am not surprised that a wagon version of a luxo car doesn't sell. Wagons are for families with little kids. Luxo cars are for professionals with no kids, or empty nesters with grown kids. You don't buy an expensive luxo car and risk having junior plop his ice cream cone on thee flooor. If GM sold the Cruze station wagon here and it only got a take rate of 3%, I'd be very shocked.

  • APaGttH APaGttH on May 28, 2013

    It's not an apples to apples comparison, due to the wide gap in price point, but Pontiac was able to sell 1,829 G8 GXPs in about six months (as they weren't available until almost the point where Pontiac was officially executed). Many of those were sold for far above sticker. I can't believe that more G8 GXPs were sold than CTS-V wagons. I personally love the CTS-V wagon, everything about it, but too rich for my pocket. I could "afford" it but I'd rather actually be able to, oh I don't know, retire at some point.

  • Ryoku75 Ryoku75 on May 29, 2013

    Call me old-fashioned, but to me a wagon has a boxy back-end with a bit of rear over-hang so it can swallow up extra cargo, the back end should not needlessly slope down like the sedan counter-part. With no obvious advantage to the wagon CTS-V buyers won't want to bother with it, unless if they're insecure about their individuality, then the CTS-V Wagon is perfect for them. Now lets go get one in black on black, thats totally unique!

  • HiFlite999 HiFlite999 on May 31, 2013

    I don't know if the CTS-V program ever made much money, but it did wonders for Caddy's street cred. German ego-mobiles are sliding rapidly in the other direction.

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