Small Cadillac Coming to Kansas, GM Won't Say What It Is

by Steph Willems

April 12th, 2016 4:43 PM

small cadillac coming to kansas gm won t say what it is

A small Cadillac is coming in about three years, but it won’t be built in Michigan.

General Motors is scrapping a $245 million investment in its Detroit-area Orion Assembly plant in favor of moving a future Cadillac’s production to its Fairfax plant in Kansas City, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Orion’s plant communications manager Chris Bonelli, confirmed the move, but stated, “We’re not confirming the brand or type of product yet.”

Fairfax, which received $174 million in upgrades last year, has three shifts working on the Chevrolet Malibu and Buick LaCrosse, while Orion makes the Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano. Chevy Bolt production begins this fall at Orion, which, until today, was expecting a small Cadillac model in a few years.

Now, Michigan’s loss is Kansas City’s gain. To make room for the mysterious Caddy, LaCrosse production will move from Fairfax to Orion this spring.

What of this new Cadillac? GM is staying tight-lipped on the subject.

There are rumors floating around of a sub-ATS sedan, but that makes little sense considering the current smallest Cadillac’s recent sales performance. Of course, the ATS could move up in size, allowing for a Mercedes-Benz CLA competitor below it.

The general consensus at TTAC is that Cadillac will go for a more surefire way of making money, meaning a crossover.

h/t to Mike

#Cadillac #CadillacAts #FairfaxAssembly #FutureVehicles #GeneralMotors #GM #OrionAssembly

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7 of 54 comments

Derekson on Apr 12, 2016

This car is almost assuredly an XT3 built on the same platform as the Envision and the next generation Equinox. Market competitors would be things like the NX200t, GLC300, and RDX.

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- FreedMike on Apr 13, 2016
  
  I think you have the wrong size there...the XT5-whatever-the hell is the size of the Equinox. I think you're thinking of something more the size of a Buick Encore. If they could make that decent looking, and give it some performance cred, it could go up against the cars you're talking about. My money's on that being the deal.
  
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- Derekson on Apr 13, 2016
  
  @FreedMike XT5 is bigger than an Equinox. And the next Equinox will be smaller as GM splits the CUV line into more sizes. The XT5/Acadia size is in between the old Lambdas and the Thetas. If Cadillac makes all the possible sizes on GM platforms, you're looking at: XT1 (Gamma or G2XX, whatever), XT3 (D2UX, what I expect they're referencing here), XT5 (SWB Chi), XT7 (LWB Chi)
  
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Sportyaccordy on Apr 13, 2016

Truthfully, I think this is what Cadillac actually needs, though it remains to be seen how well it will do. Q5, RDX and NX all handily outsold the ATS/CTS and were probably significantly more profitable too. I said it before but if Cadillac really wanted to reverse its fortunes it should have doubled down on its CUV portfolio FIRST, following up with a smattering of new sedans later. Now the lil CUV market is getting saturated and mature, and it's going to be harder for them to make inroads. I STILL think GM should just submit and spin off Escalade as a sub brand.... keep the XTS and CTS and kill the rest. This experiment has been a huge failure

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- FreedMike on Apr 13, 2016
  
  I disagree. The main reason the ATS and CTS are down sales-wise is that the whole market for small and midsize sport sedans is down overall. Look at GCBC. Without a credible sport sedan entry in these segments, Cadillac becomes Acura. They need to work out the product flaws in the ATS and CTS and flesh out the CUV lineup. They are an established player in that segment with the SRX (or CT-whatever-the f**k it is now), which is the #2 seller in its segment. As much as I think the whole CUV thing is silly, that's what sells.
  
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TMA1 on Apr 13, 2016

The Koreans are going to be pissed that they're not building the new Cadillac Encore.

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RHD on Apr 13, 2016

Whatever the new Caddy model might be, what will its name be? Reply to this post with your ideas! Cadillac BHS (Blue Hair Sedan) Cadillac CHC (Convalescent Home Coupe) Or maybe a 4-cylinder mini-Escalade, the Cadillac GFS (After the divorce, he buys his new, younger lady a shiny, blingy Girl Friend Special).

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