Cadillac Wagon Here To Stay

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Even as the German brands are moving away from wagons and towards freak-of-nature pseudo-crossovers like the BMW 5-Series GT and Audi Allroad, Cadillac is standing by their station wagons – and coupes, for that matter. But there may be some product shuffling involved.

Car and Driver recently spoke with Cadillac regarding the future of their two-door and two-box offerings,

“The fact that we offer coupes and wagons, that’s gonna continue,” Don Butler, the VP of marketing for Cadillac told us recently. But, he clarifies, “I’m not saying that will necessarily continue forward in the way we’re doing it today.”

C/D thinks that the coupe duties will shift to the ATS, with a larger CTS Coupe doomed to fail. BMW offers a 6-Series and Mercedes has an E-Class coupe, so in theory, there’s room for a CTS Coupe. But an ATS-based coupe (like the Audi A5, or the rumored BMW 4-Series) is the more likely candidate. With the CTS growing larger to better compete with the 5-Series and E-Class, the obvious choice for the wagon is the CTS. Cadillac claims that the CTS Sportwagon outsells the BMW 3-Series, and wagons are traditionally bought by a brand’s wealthiest customers (if you believe what Mercedes PR has to say). Continuing to offer the wagon makes sense both from a sales and prestige point of view. The SRX crossover will always be the volume seller anyways.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Bryce Bryce on Apr 17, 2012

    CTS wagon is a restyle of the Holden wagon which still sells so its a cheap build for GM it was amortized centuries ago

    • CJinSD CJinSD on Apr 17, 2012

      They have different platforms, different front suspensions, and different wheelbases. As far as modern cars from one corporation go, they're barely related and Holden's VE Commodore isn't amortizing the tooling for the CTS.

  • Daveainchina Daveainchina on Apr 17, 2012

    I find it interesting how the majority of the comments here aren't about the Cadillac but instead about Audi/MB/BMW. I for one am happy to see that Cadillac is keeping a wagon. I'd really like to see an ATS version and a CTS version of the Cadillac in the future. But talking to the average buyer who knows little about cars all they say is "what if I'm (insert random place) and get stuck? With a CUV/SUV I feel I won't get stuck. They are always playing what if games and never really thinking about how they truly use their vehicle. If people would take a more honest assessment of how they use their vehicle, we'd see many more wagons and much fewer CUV/SUV on the road.

    • Ubermensch Ubermensch on Apr 18, 2012

      It's the same with people thinking they need AWD/4WD. I would say that fewer than 5% of the population actually NEEDS AWD. Most would make do with some good winter tires.

  • Rjones Rjones on Apr 18, 2012

    Now if they'd just fix that D pillar.

  • Kyree Kyree on Apr 19, 2012

    I was pleased to see that America would again be making wagons, after finally getting the taste of the unsightly Dodge Magnum out of my mouth. And I would love to have one of these CTS wagons--were it not for one glaring design flaw. Unlike any other wagon in production that I can think of, this one's C-pillars exhibit an extreme mismatch in the heights of the rear-door windowlettes and the quarter-panel window, an obvious result of Cadillac merely extending the profile backward while using the same door assembly as on the sedan. It recalls a time where flagrant and hideous iterations of such were produced (such as on the second-gen Saturn SW and fourth-gen Honda Accord wagon). With this division's angular styling and strong motifs, an implementation of a wagon that wasn't originally designed into the model line in question is a tricky feat to tackle, but in all honesty, I'd rather they scrapped the windowlette design and put plastic separators between the rear-doors and quarter-panel windows, a la the current-gen Cadillac SRX crossover. Cadillac would probably call it character. Meh...

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