2015 Cadillac ATS Revealed Early

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

A behind the scenes video posted by a production company shows some minor tweaks to the Cadillac ATS. The biggest one being the new front grille/badge, shared with the ATS Coupe.

Although no mechanical changes are expected, someone at the production house is going to be changing jobs very soon, thanks to this slip-up.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Hybridkiller Hybridkiller on Jun 27, 2014

    I'll say one thing, you guys have this tag team act cold. I guess one man's glory-days/ain't-what-they-used-to-be is another man's stuck-in-the-past. The funny thing is, I always thought of Cadillac as like a stodgy (if not affluent) old persons' car. Now that they're innovating and trying to change with the times evidently they suck for doing it. So they need to go back to building overweight aircraft carriers with handling to match, that needed big V8s just to get out of their own way. Ok, I got it now, thanks to all for enlightening me.

    • Old Man Pants Old Man Pants on Jun 27, 2014

      I have a theory... Cadillac has been permanently banned from the ranks of status symbols because for all its cliched association with wealth and privilege, from roughly the '60s through the '80s it really was a working class dream car. Unionized tradesman and factory workers, high school educated salesmen, realtors, store owners etc. aspired to and achieved Caddy ownership on a broad scale during the peak of our postwar economy as their reward and justification for keeping their noses to the grindstone all those years. These were people of dogged, unsophisticated belief in a society and economy that would pretty much taper off and die with them. But their children's generation had forever burned into their consciousness the image of gaudy, block-long Cadillacs pulling up to disgorge funny, stocky oldsters in Hawaiian shirts and checkered shorts who spoke like Archie and Edith Bunker; people whose lives had been sweaty with work, worry and raising large families, guided by staunch patriotism and usually religious. OMG! Eeeewwww! to the yuppies and hipsters that followed, right? I think Cadillac in our collective consciousness represents every embarrassing excess of postwar America and also reeks of an unchained lumpen proletariat that for a brief while earned enough money to co-opt existing status symbols. This is utterly unforgivable to the hordes of diploma mill poseurs. The Mark of Excellence is now the mark of Cain to modern status seekers. I think this may be the baggage to which Dan refers.

  • Hybridkiller Hybridkiller on Jun 27, 2014

    Kenmore, I think you're retrospective analysis is bang on, and I never for a second disputed that Cadillac/GM has legacy issues to overcome. I just don't think that whatever approach they take to try and dig out of that hole is ever going to be good enough for the haters. The ATS is a well engineered driving maching but it's too small and not powerful enough - The CTS is bigger and plenty powerful but it's not a "real" Cadillac (whatever THAT is) - and on it goes... I have a theory too - that Cadillac can't go back to what it once was, and can't (in the current market anyway) compete as a "me too" luxury brand. Maybe they need to forge an entirely new identity to be successful once again, and maybe they actually know that- but continuing to judge their efforts based on past culture and expectations seems to me an exercise in futility. But like they say, haters gonna hate.

    • See 3 previous
    • Hybridkiller Hybridkiller on Jun 27, 2014

      @Old Man Pants I've always had a huge contrarian streak in me - if something is "cool" or popular I don't want it - unless of course I DO want it for my own reasons (after all, I'm a contrarian, not an idiot) Yeah, that extra 25K I could have spent on my last car looks SO much better in my stock portfolio, because unlike the car, it APpreciates.

  • Stanczyk Stanczyk on Jun 28, 2014

    I agree with: 'The effort to transform Cadillac into a credible competitor against the likes of Audi and BMW is commendable, but misguided. Cadillac always has – and always will be – a purely American commodity. The only reason Europeans were drawn to Cadillacs in the first place was that they were once an unabashed and completely unapologetic representation of American luxury motoring.' .. but there's no chance that Caddy could chase RR .. !?! Previous CTS is the best they did in the last decade(attractive oryginal A&S design: sedan and coupe .. no cabrio, though + good engines) .. and they should fallow this path.. Escalade is a nice 'one of a kind'(full-size) 'hash-mobile' .. and XLR was quite brave design.. Unfortunatelly new CTS looks gaudy and messy , the same with 'blunt-looking' ATS .. They should go global(not 'global product'!) with niche 'american' Cadillac .. (it would be also nice, if Ford would put some money into Lincoln and bring it back to life ..)

  • Hybridkiller Hybridkiller on Jun 29, 2014

    Look, this is a largely subjective argument and as such the side with more matching opinions wins - so you guys win. I've already acknowledged that the sales numbers are bad, but apart from that the argument I'm hearing is nebulous and unfocused - You keep moving the goalpost around, all the while pining for the good old days and making meaningless statements like "that's not a Cadillac". Here's a news flash - nobody's buying the kind of cars Cadillac used to make - and no one wants them anymore (well, except for a dozen or so people on this website) So the question then becomes, where does Cadillac go from here? Perhaps a little effort towards understanding their target audience. The ultra-wealthy, the "1%", don't buy Cadillacs - never did, never will, so we can focus on the single-digit millionaires (7 figure net worth) and the upper middle class in general. These people are not old money, they mostly built their financial portfolio the old fashioned way - they pursued a lucrative career, started a successful business, maybe climbed the corporate ladder, etc. You don't build a really good financial situation for yourself without being (somewhat) disciplined and pragmatic. If you think most of these people don't care about boring things like fuel economy and (for some) having a car that's easy(er) to park and maneuver on urban streets, you'd be wrong. Most moderately successful people - the kind who can comfortably afford to drop 70K on a car - don't want the biggest, most ostentatious thing they can find. And yes there is research and data to support this, I can dig it up if you want, but I'll simply point you to a book titled "The Millionaire Next Door" (it's research-based, not just an opinion piece). My point is, people who care about "image" and "prestige" are going to buy a Merc, BMW, or Audi. Period. It's the way the world is right now. They're not going to buy a Cadillac, even if it's an ATS with a wet bar and sofa in the back and an LT4 shoehorned into it. Add to that the fact that the brand is trying to climb out of a hole that took GM multiple decades to dig. One more time: I'm NOT saying they're doing everything right by any means, but Cadillac is facing headwinds that have absolutely nothing to do with the calibre of their current offerings - if you can't see that then you're missing the big picture. Peace to all.

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