The Hollywood Extra automotive blog has snagged this rendering of what we might expect the rear-drive, BLS’ replacement to look like.

Again, this car would be, unlike the current BLS, rear-drive and based on GM’s new smaller-sized rear drive chassis – the Alpha.

This platform will be shared with the new, rear-drive replacement for Pontiac’s mid-sized sedan/coupe (the G6). Given that the Pontiac that Alpha will replace is currently available in sedan, coupe, and convertible – it is likely that an Alpha-based Cadillac could see a similar range of body styles (the better to compete against the BMW’s and Mercedes in this segement that are available in at least sedan, coupe, convertible, and wagons.

THE: New small Cadillac for 2011

Categories: News, BLS, Rumored Models
No Comments »

Jim Taylor, Cadillac General Manager, in a recent interview with Automotive News, has confirmed that GM is looking strongly at a few products that have been rumored for some time.

First of all, in response to what they are terming ‘shrinkage’ in the segments occupied by the current STS and DTS, Taylor admitted that “we don’t need two entries there anymore”. This pretty much confirms along with his later confirmation that, in AN’s words “the idea of a flagship sedan for Cadillac is still alive.”

So, expect a 7-series/S-Class competitor from Cadillac in a few years.

Also confirmed was that Cadillac is seriously looking at a sub-CTS model since the brand image of Cadillac is sufficiently strong enough now to survive a 28k+ product slotted below the CTS. This all but confirms previous rumors that a rear-drive ‘alpha’ chassis based sedan is in the works to better compete head-to-head with the 3-series BMW (leaving the CTS to go up-market toward the 5-series that it better matches, size-wise).

I, personally, would be all over a smaller Cadillac with a sportier angle than the current CTS. How about a coupe version as well?

Expect an Alpha-based car to debut early in the next decade (as a 2011-12 model).

Categories: News, BLS, CTS, STS / SLS, DTS, Rumored Models
2 Comments »

UPDATE: We’ve updated the BLS image gallery with pictures of the new BLS Wagon. Enjoy.

As expected, last week Cadillac unveiled the BLS Wagon (Cadillacs first wagon ever).

Wagons are much more popular in Europe than in the US/Canada and this additional model should help bolster Cadillacs European push.

See the press release below:

Show me more… »

Categories: News, BLS
No Comments »

Automotive News has managed to get a lot of auto blogs buzzing about the future of Cadillac.

They are repeating what has been said for a while that a new small, rear-drive sedan is on the way, a small SUV is coming too (BRX), that the SRX is likely to be dropped, the DTS/STS are going to be merged.

However, they really botch their projected new lineup by saying the STS/DTS replacement will compete against the 5-series. This doesn’t make a lick of sense since rumors up to this point all point to the CTS moving up-market, the alpha-based BLS taking the CTS’ place as the 3-series competitor, and the STS/DTS replacement going after the BMW 7-series/Mercedes S-Class.

At this point, I think the only real question is if the SRX will get a more SUV-esque replacement with the CTS wagon taking the car-like, mid-sized utility segment or if the SRX will just go away altogether.

We should start to get some more concrete news out of Cadillac in the next year or so (since the rumored product should debut as 2010-2012 model year.

Categories: News, BLS, CTS, STS / SLS, SRX, DTS, BRX / BTX, Rumored Models
No Comments »

CnD is a pretty good magazine – one I’ve subscribed to for years.

However, this latest article on what Cadillac has up their sleeve is only partially consistent with the conventional wisdom.

Short version is that they expect Cadillac to offer (at least in some markets):

CTS coupe
CTS wagon
sub-CTS (they hint that the second generation BLS is coming, but don’t mention the rumored Alpha rwd chassis)
next SRX (unlike other sources, CnD expects the next SRX to stay on the Sigma chassis)
next DTS (flying in the face of everything we’ve heard, they expect there to be a new front-drive DTS due to fuel economy regs – as if front drive is magically more fuel efficient).

All-in-all, a pretty fluffy article that is less than I’ve come to expect from Car and Driver.

There is a nice slide-show of the new CTS that accompanies the article though.

Car and Driver: The Future of Cadillac

Categories: News, BLS, CTS, SRX, DTS
No Comments »