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Yeah, if Cadillac wanted to make a return to their heritage, the CTS could be Seville, and this coupe could be Eldorado. The STS replacement could be Deville, and they could go upmarket with a Fleetwood.
The beltline is about 6 inches too high, leaving the proportions way too chunky for my tastes.
I agree. In fact, in the pic above, it looks like a small car.
More “Art & Nonsense” ? Why not just eliminate the side windows completely ?
Truly, Superbadd75: if they gave a fig about reviving Cadillac’s image they would be calling this an Eldorado. Now it’s death by 1000 CTS
This is no Eldorado. The Eldorados of the 1950s, and the first-generation front-wheel-drive models of the late 1960s, made a definite statement and had real presence. Even the overblown 1971-78 models stood out from the crowd. This car is really nothing special.
Cadillac hasn’t had a real Eldorado since 1978 (maybe 1985, if you stretch it a bit). I’ve had Eldorados, and this aint one.
Bob
The 2002 (last one) was a pretty decent car.
The name is just the start. They need, also, to stop sending their products out to the street in a Cadillac suit while having “Chevrolet” written on their underwear.
In case no one has noticed: GM hasn’t offered a “real Cadillac” anything for quite awhile. And the stupid initials in place of proper names thing has got to stop somewhere.
Your search is over: it’s now called an Escalade.
With that roofline it better be a hatchback, although I will really know this country has changed if people started buy Cadillac hatchbacks. (BTW I love hatchbacks but you know how real ‘Mericans are supposed to feel.)
But honestly it looks more like a Malibu coupe than a Cadillac from the side.
It looks like someone chopped a CTS in half, grafted an Accord backside on it and then added some sheet metal and bondo to make sure the rear wheel was covered. The rear quarter panel’s considerable flaring out doesn’t quite match the Cadillac design cue, and creates the illusion that the front wheel is larger than the rear.
Did I just out the design department?
I was sorta wondering myself how much of it would still be standing out if you superimposed an Accord coupe over it. I still think it’s a good sized move forward for Cadillac. How many prospective buyers would relate to it as an Eldorado, given the demographic they’re obviously going after?
“The rear quarter panel’s considerable flaring out doesn’t quite match the Cadillac design cue, and creates the illusion that the front wheel is larger than the rear. ”
Beat me to it.
I like it. Any speak of “Eldorado” is 2 decades behind, and remember… where Cadillac last left the Eldo is no place in time to reminisce about.
Cadillac knew it too… they had the nerve to badge the last Eldos as “ETC”s …then again, maybe they were really that clueless.
I have a soft spot for shooting brakes, so this design appeals to me, except as panzerfaust noted, the rear wheel looks too small.
There’s not a damn thing wrong with that picture, except for the fact that the car isn’t in my driveway right now.
The CTS coupe is actually the anti-Eldo.
Looks fat and American.
Say that in Mississippi.
It’s a meta-problem: you can, quite easily, mention the CTS in the same sentence as the 3-Series, C-Class or Lexus IS. Can you mention the STS in the same league as the Lexus GS, let alone the 5er or E?
Here’s a laugh: Lexus LS, BMW 7-Series, Mercedes S-Class, Cadillac… DTS? Really?
Let’s stop dicking around with forum wankery like the wagon and old-car-guy wankery like the coupe and replace the DTS with something that isn’t a cruel joke.
I would be the last to disagree with you on this count, but in the Fusion comments section didn’t you admonish someone for wishing for a manual tranny Fusion, calling it a car 20 or 30 would buy?
Indulge me for a moment but I need to play Devil’s Advocate to delve deeper here: wouldn’t calling for a low-volume S-Class competitor run counter to the need to sell what sells, in a word?
Can you mention the STS in the same league as the Lexus GS, let alone the 5er or E?
Well, you can, but not politely.
Actually, the STS is a nice enough piece, but what it really needs is an interior/exterior freshening ala the CTS, and retuned steering/suspension. The basics are there.
I think Caddy’s smart to retool around the CTS – draw in the younger buyers, and in a couple of years when they’re ready to move up, they’ll have freshened and more competitive cars. BMW did the same thing.
Near as I can figure, there are only two kinds of 2 door cars you can sell today. First, an honest to goodness first rate performance car. Second, a car that is just drop-dead beautiful.
I am betting that the pictured car does not qualify under criteria no. 1. I am positive that it does not qualify under criteria no. 2. This would be less of an Eldorado and more of a Chunky Monkey. Not a good look.
Another vote for “nothing”!
This looks good to me. If you want a trunk, there’s already the 4 door. I’m glad that they made a significant design statement to make it a 2 door.
I wonder who at Cadillac has an AMC AMX fetish…
The 1st gen AMX and Javelin were great looking cars and Dick Teague was a great designer. Though some of his ideas were polarizing (Matador, the Gremlin’s kammback), his AMX/3 concept was superb and the XJ Jeep Cherokee is a classic design.
FWIW, I think Ed Welburn’s team did a better job on the rear quarter/fender bulge/C pillar/sail panel than Teague did on the AMX (btw, the AMX was designed first and then stretched into the Javelin, not vice versa).
I don’t know why people here are knocking the CTS coupe. In person it looks fabulous and has very good proportions. What makes the rear wheel look small in photographs actually gives the rear end more oomph in real life 3d. I think it’s a fairly well executed blend of traditional RWD haunches with Caddy’s art & science design language.
They’ll sell a bunch of ’em. It’s the perfect car for the market segment they hoped the XLR would serve – guys who want and can afford a sporty car and have wives who would freak if they bought a Vette.
Yesterday’s post about the 1958 Thunderbird creating the personal luxury segment is relevant to the CTS coupe and yeah, the CTS coupe does fill the Eldo slot in Cadillac’s current lineup. It’s the closest thing to a personal luxury car in that lineup. I think it’s wise, though, to avoid the Eldo brand. If Ford thinks that “Continental” is forever tainted in consumers’ mind as a garish luxobarge, how much the more so for Eldorado?
There are worse fetishes to have…
It’s not unattractive. However, if I were to assume that this thing is going for something like $40k-50k there’s a host of automobiles in that range (and cheaper) longer than my arm I would purchase first.
Wake me when the V variant shows up.
Nothing really – it’s just a CTS coupe. But that the question is posed in this way does say something about the editorial leanings of this website.
For the most part, I like it. Its hard to go wrong with a shape like that.
Two things that bring it down though
1. Too much sheetmetal surrounding the rear wheel. GM’s latest GTO had this same bad design element.
2. Beltline waay too high. I like to rest my arm out the window when I drive. Not with today’s cars though.
Needs more greenhouse and a lower beltline. Why make it look like a hatchback and not make it a real hatchback?
Cadillac sees this car as an alternative to the Audi A5 and Infiniti G37 coupe. The Eldorado name just has no cachet for buyers in this segment. Besides if they did call it Eldorado some dealer will surely slap a vinyl roof on it.
Some dealer’s going to slap a vinyl roof on it no matter what it’s called. It’s just what Cadillac dealers do. It helps perpetuate the idea that Caddies are for old people and pimps.
I would be the last to disagree with you on this count, but in the Fusion comments section didn’t you admonish someone for wishing for a manual tranny Fusion, calling it a car 20 or 30 would buy?
There’s a reason for that: in a volume car like the Fusion, a low-volume halo doesn’t make a lot of sense. Not many people are going to buy automatic four-cyl Fusion SEs based on the existence of a AWD Fusion witha diesel V6 and a six-speed stick. Buyers want reliable, fuel-efficient, competitive transportation.
In the luxury market it works a little differently: by it’s very nature, you’re buying a discretionary toy. You need to make the buyer feel like they’re getting something special, something that’s “the best”, even if they’re not buying the best themselves. Mainstream brands don’t need to worry about the halo effect, or at least not in the same way: Toyota’s “halo” is the Prius; before that, it was the Camry.
Even if they’re buying a stripper C240 sedan with hubcaps and cloth seats, the S63 AMG’s mere existence gives you that feeling, where the front-drive, G-Body DTS that actually looks worse inside and out (than the CTS) does not, and may actually drag the otherwise-excellent CTS down with it.
I don’t think the CTS coupe is a problem, per se, but building this (and the wagon, more notably) is not addressing Cadillac’s core problem: that they have nothing to aspire to, save the CTS-V, which awesome as it is can’t quite do that.
That Mercedes probably makes (or, pre-recession, made) serious margin dollars on the S-Class (while GM has always had to discount the bejeezus out of the DTS) didn’t hurt, either.
Yes, Cadillac needs a flagship sedan. Though the STS is based on the generally competent CTS platform, something got lost in the translation.
I don’t think that Caddy needs two different cars to compete with BMW’s 5 & 7 Series and M-B’s E and S Class cars. Slot a single model right in the middle of those two segments. As was pointed out, the E and 5 are those brands’ volume luxury sedans, not the flagships.
Right now it would be politically unwise for GM to make a Caddy ubersedan, but they definitely need a large sedan in their lineup. GM’s recent offerings have raised the bar on interior design. Make a large Caddy sedan that’s mechanically competent, has a SOTA interior, and has exterior design that’s exciting like the CTS, not staid like the DTS and STS, and they just might reproduce the success of the CTS in a market segment that frankly is more important to the luxury marques’ images.
You’re on target about the STS. It’s up to date mechanically, but it doesn’t have anything dynamically or stylistically unique to hang its hat on. Then again, the same was true of the first-gen CTS too. If I were Ed Whitacre, the same team that did the current CTS would be unleashed on the STS, stat. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t already the case.
@ guyincognito:
The beltline of every GM customer that has ever walked on a Cadillac dealer floor is also about 6 inches too high, so the proportions are right for the segment.
I still think this looks like an update to the VW Corrado. No bad thing, that. I loved the Corrado. But I doubt many Caddy intenders have been pining for a blinged out version of a ’90s hot hatch.
When Cadillac released the first Eldorado, it was a car for the country club set. By the time the mid 1970s hit, it was known for its garish presence, and was preferred by pimps and Texas oilmen. These are the guys we think of when someone says the phrase, “Men who wear large hats.”
Obviously, nobody says that phrase much, so Cadillac needed something to fill the role, built on an existing platform, and to appeal to playas and country club folks.
And that’s why we have this. Two different types of people, and my guess is that it will appeal to neither.
Replace the hard top with a soft one and call it an Allante.
Nothing is wrong! Well, the missing dual turbos, but I couldn’t see those anyway with the hood down. I really like this car. While I agree with most of the comments criticizing Cadillac, I think the CTS group is solid product. People love to hate the STS, and it sells astonishingly badly, but I think the basics are there. At present, it’s underwhelming in performance and quality for the price, but improved interior, more rear legroom, more drivetrain options that don’t add 30k to the price…. and it will be solid. Conversely, they COULD start over and build a car worthy of $80k…. nah. Just make a ridiculously posh Escalade. An Escalade Phaeton v16. (with dual turbo, obviously)
it’s not FWD?