Buy/Drive/Burn: Three Two-door Cadillacs, One Price Point

Today’s edition of B/D/B is a little different than the norm. Usually, we ask you to choose from competing cars from three different marques all on sale in the same year.

This time we’re asking you to pick a Buy from among three different two-door Cadillacs, all of which cost about the same in 2021.

Through recent research, I’ve noticed something very interesting: In The Current Year, the XLR, CTS, ATS, and ELR (that’s every two-door model Cadillac has produced since 2004) all command the same money on the used market. Their pricing is aligned at around $21,000 to $24,000 (excluding V variants). That’s fairly unusual given their different ages, power, and overall missions. Today we look at the three most traditional options of those four (not in V guise), and leave out the ELR because it sucked.

XLR

Oldest car first. The quite expensive XLR was available for model years 2004 through 2009. The only Corvette-based Cadillac ever, XLR was produced at the Bowling Green, Kentucky factory alongside the C6 Corvette (and for a short while alongside the C5). Standard XLR versions used the 4.6-liter Northstar, which in theory had all its issues worked out by this implementation. The XLR-V was much more expensive and used a supercharged 4.4-liter version of the Northstar. Standard XLRs used a five-speed GM automatic from the STS and BMW X5, while the V used a six-speed auto shared with Escalade. XLR was a rear-drive luxury roadster, its experience limited to two passengers. Its party piece was a German-designed fully automatic folding metal roof. Cadillac planned to move between five and seven thousand per year, and never managed it.

CTS

The second-generation CTS was produced for model years 2008 through 2014. Available in sedan, wagon, and coupe formats, the latter was the final and most striking version introduced. From 2011 to 2014 the standard coupe and V coupe were offered, with V soldiering on alone as a wind-down model in 2015. Standard on CTS coupe was GM’s 3.6-liter direct-injection V6, a 6.2-liter Corvette V8 was reserved for V. Rear-drive was standard, and all-wheel drive optional. The coupe was also available in five-speed automatic or six-speed manual guises.

ATS

The single-generation ATS was available from 2013 to 2019, with the coupe variant offered from 2015 onward. The smallest car here, ATS was wider than its sedan brother. Base power on the ATS coupe arrived from a 2.0-liter inline-four, with turbocharging and 272 horsepower. Up-level power was from the same 3.6-liter mill as found in the CTS above (321 horses). Transmissions had six speeds whether manual or automatic to start, though the automatic was replaced from 2016 onward with an eight-speed. ATS lived on through 2019 before its replacement by the present-day CT4 (an updated ATS), which is not available as a coupe.

Three Cadillacs, two doors each, all commanding around the same money. Which one gets your Buy?

[Images: Cadillac]