#CadillacCTS

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.

Today’s edition of Buy/Drive/Burn was generated by a discussion over at the TTAC Slack room. The conversation turned to sporty midsize luxury sedans from 2014, and one staff member regarded one of these choices with a “meh.”

Let’s see how you feel about them.

GM’s snazziest brand may have vacated the Big Apple in a New York minute, but that doesn’t mean they’re taking a break on research and development. It’s been 15 years since the marque appended the consonant “V” onto trunklids of its fastest sedans, so the company is rolling out a new trim to mark the occasion.

The 2019 ATS-V and CTS-V will be endowed with a limited run of these Pedestal Editions. While Pedestal may not have the same gravitas as Talisman, these new whips do a dandy job of cranking the wick to eleven.

The production run for the 2018 Cadillac CTS-V Glacier Metallic Edition, set to take place in 2017 on behalf of the 2018 model year, will be limited to a scant 115 units to celebrate Cadillac’s 115th anniversary.

Sounding like the proper name for a glitzy Jeep Grand Cherokee, the CTS-V Glacier Metallic Edition operates with the same 640-horsepower supercharged 6.2-liter V8 of less costly CTS-Vs, but Cadillac demands $15,895 for the privilege.

That brings the CTS-V Glacier Metallic Edition’s price up to $103,885 including destination, a lofty sum for a performance-oriented Cadillac.

Yet the 2018 Cadillac CTS-V GME — you can’t expect us to type Glacier Metallic Edition every time, not when Cadillac alternatively calls it “smoky light gray” — is more than just an anniversary paint job. The CTS-V GME still undercuts the Mercedes-AMG E63 S and Audi RS7 and is slathered with typically optional equipment.

Lately, it seems everyone wants to talk about Cadillac sedans. Too bad few people want to buy one. The future of the storied brand’s traditional passenger car offerings was recently called into question by a report claiming two Cadillac sedans, including the CT6, are slated for execution.

Hashtag fake news, brand president Johan de Nysschen responded. In a reply only slightly less vague than the initial report itself, the brand president said no sedan models were on the chopping block. Nope, the Cadillac lineup will strut into the 2020s with three sedans, he said, making no mention of the fact Cadillac has four sedans.

Okay, so we knew the aging (but facelifted for 2018) XTS had no long-term future. But what about the survivors? In a recent interview, de Nysschen spelled out the plan.

(Update: This story has been updated to reflect new information.)

Not since the dark days of the recession has General Motors had so many vehicles clogging its inventory.

Bursting at the seams with unsold cars (but not trucks or SUVs), the automaker will temporarily turn out the lights at five assembly plants and kill off three shifts in order to bring things back into balance. For thousands of workers, that means the kind of extended Christmas holiday you don’t want.

American luxury car shoppers are driving right past Chevrolet/Buick/GMC/Cadillac dealerships it seems, according to 247WallSt.com.

The website collected a list of best- and worst-selling vehicles based on time spent on dealer lots, and all Cadillac’s cars — save the CT6 — are in the top 15 worst sellers based on that metric.

It’s been almost two decades since BMW unleashed the E39 M5 on the motoring public, and the sport sedan segment has chased its ghost ever since. Not long after the BMW was crowned mythic perfection, Cadillac made a substantial shift in its development focus to court younger, more performance-minded buyers.

Since then, Cadillac has generously pilfered the Corvette program parts bin to move the brand away from the retirement home and onto America’s non-existent Autobahn. In the meantime, BMW’s M Division has set its playbook on fire and begun heaping content onto its performance models.

When the second generation CTS-V broke the production sedan lap record at the Nurburgring in 2008, it became clear that the conversation was really starting to change.

Forget the SUVs for a moment. Cadillac sold more than 100,000 cars in 2013 with similar totals achieved by the ATS, XTS, and CTS. The market has expanded since then, albeit not nearly as much on the car side of the ledger as in the light-truck portion.

Nevertheless, Cadillac will likely sell fewer than 70,000 cars in calendar year 2015.

Is the upcoming CT6 the answer the Cadillac’s car woes, or just another big Cadillac that will do little more than generate all its showroom activity by stealing sales from the CTS and XTS?

Cadillac announced Monday that deliveries of its 2016 Cadillac Touring 6 sedan — or CT6 — will begin in March with a starting price of $54,490 when equipped with a 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

The new top-of-the-range Cadillac sedan will also be available with a 3.6-liter V-6 paired with all-wheel drive and a $56,490 price tag or Cadillac’s new 3-liter twin-turbocharged V-6 sporting all-wheel drive and a $65,390 MSRP. A crème de la crème CT6 Platinum will sticker for $84,460.

All CT6s will send power to the wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission and all prices include a $995 destination fee because you’re definitely paying that.

But what of the CTS?

In each of the last five months, General Motors has failed to sell more than 1,800 copies of the CTS. Sub-2K CTS sales months are unheard-of. Even in 2012, when CTS volume slid 15%, Cadillac averaged 3,914 CTS sales per month in the United States and never fell below 2,300.

CTS volume dropped 31% in 2013 and another 4% in 2014. However, over the course of the last two calendar years, Cadillac averaged 2,644 CTS sales per month and never slid below the 2,000-unit mark.

In 2015, the CTS has been hit even harder.

In just a few years these nameplates will disappear from Cadillac showrooms

It got a little buried in the rush of news out of the New York Auto Show, but GMInsideNews reports that at the private introduction of the Cadillac CT6 last week, the night before the NYIAS media preview, Cadillac head Johan de Nysschen confirmed that the existence of the CT6 flagship will make the current XTS large sedan superfluous. That seems to have been a foregone conclusion, but somewhat surprisingly de Nysschen also said that when the time comes to replace the CTS and ATS models, not only will those nameplates die as the brand moves to the CTx nomenclature, the new cars won’t be direct replacements. De Nysschen also announced that with the exit of the XTS, Cadillac will be leaving the livery business.

“That’s not going to happen…Either you have to bring your volume aspirations into alignment with reality and accept that you will sell fewer cars. Or you have to drop the price and continue to transact at the prices where you were historically. I think the logical conclusion is that it’s better to build off a very solid base in terms of [product] credibility, charge a fair price for the car and realize you have to wait until the volume comes.”

That quote was from Cadillac boss John De Nysschen in response to questions about cutting the prices of Cadillac models, which some dealers complained has risen too quickly. How quickly that’s changed.

From the Twitter page of Juan Barnett comes a breakdown of sales of the last-gen Cadillac CTS. Including the CTS-V.

There will be no manual transmission for the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V, but that’s ok. If you’d like a coupe, or a stick shift, there’s always the ATS-V.