Video: 2013 Cadillac XTS Teaser Trailer

According to other sites, this car is 202 inches long but with only a 111 inch wheelbase. A Chrysler 300's wheelbase is in the 120 inch vicinity with about 2-3 inches less overall length. Holy overhang, Batman! Is EpsilonII that inflexible? Chrysler could stretch a K-car platform wheelbase by over a foot or more in the 1980s. Didn't always translate well, but it could be done.

This is a huge car with a wheelbase barely longer than your typical midsize. Hiding all that overhang is tricky. And I notive GM is comparing passenger volume (again, other sites) to mid-size German cars. I thought this was replacing the full-sized Caddy? And it is going for the livery market too.

Considering the Malibu platform, the FWD engineering, the peaky (look at the torque number -- other sites, again) motor lugging what is surely to be over two tons of weight (the smaller Regal it's related to hits 3700+ in some variants), and the gawky proportions this car feels far short of anything that should be in a brand line-up that wants to compete with the best in the world.

This market should have been left to Buick which is handling it well. This is sad as a Cadillac.

Welcome back, old GM!

bonzjr says:
" "

You're missing the point of this car. Old people will not go to Buick, its a downgrade. They will go to Lexus, and have been going to Lexus for the past few years. This car isn't meant to go against the S-Class, its FWD after all. GM is currently building a platform that will underpin the car you're thinking this should be. Patience Grasshopper.

No I actually got the point of the car. Hence me saying it belongs in the Buick showroom. And since GM sees and advertises Buick as a Lexus competitor (in the front-wheel-drive luxury space against things like the ES350/RX350), it's a perfect fit.

Does Cadillac want to compete with the German big-boys? An oversized Malibu (not to malign the Malibu -- the 2013 model looks promising -- for a $20k to $30k car) with gawky proportions isn't going to cut it in the Caddy lineup. And even if it were somehow something that belonged, if you also note what I wrote, it's not even a good "big Cadillac." It's underpowered relative to its likely weight (it's a safe prediction it weighs over 4,000 lbs) and has a pretty darn small wheelbase which will eat into interior volume.

It's about deciding what you want the brand to be then sticking to it. Some lateral placeholder isn't the best way to do that.

@bonzjr: Yes, the XTS is an outlier on the Cadillac road map. You can safely ignore it and wait for the promised full-size RWD flagship. The only important questions is this: will Cadillac sell enough XTS to make a profit? If so, mission accomplished. If not, big problem.

Also, look at the SRX. When it was a great-riding RWD crossover with optional V8 on the expensive Sigma platform, nobody bought it. So Caddy downsized it, made it FWD on a cheaper platform, put a weak engine in it and molded it into an RX competitor. Result: sales have exploded. For a business, that's all that matters.