Best looking GM product in a while. Unfortunately it belongs to a tax bracket that I don’t.

Maybe I’ll see it on the used market in a few years.

Wait – how bad is the fuel mileage? I don’t buy is the mileage is worse than my ten year old CR-V. Won’t go backwards – no way.

But I think that there’s a question of appropriate utility that the CTS wagon addresses. First, every once in a while I need to carry something that just won’t fit in a trunk. Even though our current CTS has fold-down rear seats, we just don’t have enough utility. However, there’s no way I want to sacrifice the sedan virtues to get too much utility as offered by SUVs, minivans or crossovers.

I think the CTS wagon hits this sweet spot just right. Add in the the fact that it will be available with a manual (!) and there’s a lot to like here.

I thought so.

I agree that minivans have better utility, but their body style (height) and mass also make them less fuel-efficient (potentially).

I think people have a lot of different images in their head when they think “wagon” and to say that, carte blanche a minivan has more mass or lower mileage isn’t fair.

To wit:
* Tercel wagon/Civic Wagovan
* Chevy Cavalier (snort) Eurosport/Plymouth Reliant K
* Honda Accord/Toyota Camry/Cressida
* Mercedes 300D/Volvo 240
* Buick Roadmaster Estate/Chevy Caprice
* BMW M5 Touring/Audi S6 Avant

There’s a big, big range in there. Personally, I have trouble with the idea that a Reliant or Honda Civic Wagovan could have anything in common with a Roadmaster or M5, but that’s what we have to reconcile here: all of these are wagons.

A minivan is a (more or less) a replacement for the likes of the Roadmaster, not for the European sports wagons or light family haulers like the Accord. If you think about it that way, a Sienna doesn’t seem so bad: it handles, accelerates and rides better, uses less fuel and has more interior space while being physically less massive.

Minivans really are the big wagon done right (SUVs and seven-seat crossovers are the same, but done wrong); they never went away, they just sort of got squashed upwards a little. Which is okay, really.

What we have lost is the intermediate family wagon: other than Subaru or Volkswagen (both expensive) and recently Ford and Mazda, the five-passenger family wagon is pretty much gone, replaced by the heavier, less agile and much mor expensive trucklets. These are the real victims of the light truck boondoggle: it was hard to convince someone to pay thousands more for a Reliant Wagon or Wagovan over a base K-Car or Civic, but it’s much easier to upsell them on the Journey/Nitro or CRV/Element because the ride height difference makes the premium more palatable.

I don’t think we’ll get them back for that same reason: the margins are too thin and the sales pitch too hard. It wasn’t just that people wanted SUVs, it’s that manufacturers got a way to sell us more expensive vehicles that served the same need.

Growing up my family had traditional wagons – A Vista Cruiser, an LTD (yes of course it was yellow with fake wood grain) and Caprices. Their only advantage over a sedan was the 3rd seat in the “way back” – A seat fit only for grade school aged children. Once filled with children, a traditional wagon really has little room for gear.

In the 80s, when Chysler came out with the minivan, families quickly realized that minivans were several times more useful than sedan based wagons. Wagons have not sold well since then. My guess is they will not sell well in the future because they lack utility compared to other types of vehicles which didn’t exist in the heyday of the traditional wagon. People will go for CUVs, which are taller, boxier, and therefore have more real carrying utilty. If one really needs space, one might still opt for a mini van.

I disagree. Many of the “status” SUV buyers(1) can least afford the gas it takes to feed them. As long as gas is expensive (and even if it drops, it will still be expensive), SUV and their brethren sales will be dead. The current owners won’t be able to jump into the next vehicle until their loans are paid off.

“Utility” SUV buyers won’t be affected so much by the above considerations and will go with whatever fulfills their needs. Wagons are a natural fit if Detroit catches up to it.

(1) From my unscientific observation, there is an inverse relationship between the size of the SUV and owner’s income.

CAFE may have motivated Detroit to figure out how to sell more trucks, but it didn’t force anyone to change their tastes.

The Accord and Camry wagons are both dead. The Civic and Corolla — ditto. Wagons don’t sell well in the United States, no matter who makes them or what they cost. People just don’t like them.

While SUV’s replaced the old wagon market, that does not mean that new buyers will now replace their SUV’s with wagons.

Much of the SUV boom was fueled by buyers who wanted perceived safety and a feeling of dominance while avoiding the stigma associated with a family car. Wagons do not provide the height, machismo or rugged individualist image that feed those buyer sentiments.

These SUV buyers will not be flocking to wagons, because cargo space was not a priority in the first place. When the economy turns around, they’ll turn to crossovers and whatever new styles can make them feel good about themselves.

The only reason SUVs replaced wagons is through idiotic government meddling. CAFE gave truck-based wagons (read: SUVs) preferential treatment. Once that is gone, and now that the gas prices have gone up, the sales of SUVs dropped off the cliff. Wagons are not fully replacing them because there are no decent mid- or full-size wagons on the market to speak of (at utilitarian prices – please don’t give me examples of A6 or somesuch).

Det 2.8 has a choice – insist on SUVs, or try to replace the functionality with more fuel-efficient wagons. Considering the incredible foresight that GM overlords have displayed so far, I would not count on the latter.

This is not.

I don’t particularly like the new CTS, either. The old one was a good looking car; this one bloated. The wagon form doesn’t help: it adds more visual bulk and clutters up the few nice lines the sedan has. About the only compliment I can give is “it’s better than the CTS coupe.”

GM’s more recent designs–excepting the G8 and the various Saturns–have been very nose-heavy. I don’t think it’s a proportion that will age at all well.

Total sellout of the brand. Nothing high class or up scale about it. Trashy and tacky actually.

GM could have avoided my criticisms about it being ugly if they hadn’t made it so ugly.

GM already makes two attractively styled wagons, they both have Saab badges on them. Unfortunately, they both, er, feature that legendary GM build quality that has helped sales so much.

“Americans won’t buy wagons”…Rubbish.

Are there some secret wagon sales that haven’t been reported in the media?

Wagon sales have been dead in the US for many years. Maybe this Cadillac is ahead of the curve, although I doubt it. And I hope for my sake that it isn’t ahead of me, because I don’t want to keep looking at those nasty taillights.

This wagon might be subjectively ugly, but at least it isn’t anywhere near objectively ugly (a la Focus, Aztek, etc.). I think it’s pretty. Of course I don’t think it’ll sell and GM will add the sales numbers to the argument of “Americans Hate Wagons,” but I’m glad it’s on the market.

P.S, Two statements that are getting really old?
“Americans won’t buy wagons.”
“Americans won’t buy small cars.”

Rubbish. Looking at car sales right now, Americans won’t buy SUV’s. Small cars are selling and I guarantee that in the current environment a wagon with the room of an SUV/CUV but will style and the fuel economy of a car will sell, and sell big.

Also, the Magnum flopped because a) came out during the SUV years b) interior was too cheap for the price they were asking.

The Cadillac wagon looks fine, as far as sales go, I doubt GM expects it to sell in the hundreds of thousands, given that practically nobody in this country buys Audi or BMW wagons, the only ones that were selling were the SUV-ish Audi Allroad and Volvo XC70, and only in the Boston area.

And this is the wagon version.

It’s like…. who thinks the A4 is hot, but thinks the A4 avant is ugly?

Exactly — no one!

The CTS Wagon’s a looker.

Americans don’™t like wagons at all, so it isn’™t going to sell well here, either. If anything, it’s going to hurt the brand, because it just creates more confusion about what a Cadillac is exactly supposed to be.

If I may throw a little gasoline on the fire, just to get it going real good – Cadillac shouldn’t be making a sport wagon. Of course they shouldn’t be making PUs either. Nor “near luxury” cars. But what the hell is a Caddy anyway? They may as well rebadge the Aveo, offer a leather seating option, and be a full line car maker.

I agree that Americans don’t like wagons; Not in big enough numbers to make this worthwhile. It’s an old time sedan based wagon, and as we all learned in the early ’80s, these have very little utility other than being able to put small children in the “way back”.