Cadillac News: Cadillac: CT6 To Become Technology Showcase, Other Name Changes In Store

[William Maley]

Cadillac will be positioning the CT6 as a technology showcase for the brand. Automotive News reports that GM is banking on suite of new technologies to entice customers into checking out the new flagship.

“Cadillac is the place where we will experiment with technology our customers want in the future,” said GM Vice President of global product development, Mark Reuss.

Such technologies include lightweight body structure combining steel and aluminum to give the car both stiffness and agility; a suite of super cruise automated driving technologies; a new rear-view mirror that streams video from the rear-view camera; and a new twin-turbocharged 3.0L six-cylinder that is promised to be the most powerful in the class.

In other Cadillac news, the brand's Chief Marketing Officer Uwe Ellinghaus told Forbes that along with CT nomenclature for sedans, crossovers will change over the XT nomenclature. Much like the CT, the XT nomenclature will have a number at the end designating the model.

“It’s a logical thing to give some mental space like this in your naming scheme. So many other brands have done that sort of thing, across industries. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t fit our immediate business needs, but this simple logic will help us build this brand and enhance recognition over the long term,” said Ellinghaus.

Despite the name changes, one model will be excluded from this. The Escalade will keep its name as its the most memorable nameplate in the brand's lineup.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required), The Detroit News, Forbes

(Author's Note: Hat tip to Cmicasa the Great on the CT6 story. -WM)

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[G. David Felt]

Cadillac Leadership and Marketing need to better explain this stupid CT / XT crap to the world. Escalade will stay but they are flushing away ATS, CTX, XTS history and totally ignoring the name history they have that would do much better.

 

Truth be told, XT, ST, etc is what one would expect out of concept auto's.

 

Names are where it should be at!

[67impss]

Just sounds like pre-bankruptcy to me (Saturn, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, hell even Caddy) total loss of brand equity. If their cars are world class why now dump what people are now just getting confortable with. This would have made sense post bankruptcy with curent new release models,wanting to forget the likes of Devliie ect... It's just stupid profit makes this division think like New York City .02 cents

[smk4565]

XTS doesn't really have any history to dump.   But they did dump 50 years of Eldorado.   I think they should have names.  They had names in their glory days, XT4, CT3 sounds like names for Kawasaki bikes.  At least if you use Eldorado, Seville and Fleetwood most people would know it is a Cadillac.

[balthazar]

^ Usually, the word "Cadillac' in front of 'Seville' handles that job.

[Cmicasa the Great]

Thanks for the props WM. 

 

To 67impss:

 

Are U really balking about the Cadillac using lightweight technologies, new user interface techs, and exclusive engines? Come on bud.. the idea is for the brand to be the "Standard of the World again." There is no way they can achieve this by essentially going BACK to the time of the "rolling sofas."

 

Cadillacs sales are down yes.. and everyone is dumping on them this year for a 4% drop.. but last year they were the toast of the town because they were up 22%. If corrected including this years 4% drop we are talking 9% increase since 2012. Using Mercedes as the metric.. whose sales were up 12% in 2013 and up 9% this year, averaging a very similar to Cadillac percentage of 10.5%. That's with a drop in overall ATP due to the CLA being the car than boosted them.

 

 

To Balthazar.. I agree as always with your assessment of smk's commentary on Cadillac. 

 

To smk.. WTF does "GLK, GLA, CLA, or SLK" sound like then? U my boy are a Hypocrite with a capital "H."

[riviera74]

CT/XT does not really mean anything, does it?  Names would still be best.  People aspired to own a Fleetwood/Brougham at one time; why can this not happen again?

[KevinW]

Something in this spy photo caught my eye - Does the angle of the rear wheel (relative to the plane defined by the rocker panel and window sills) while the steering is close to full lock confirm the CT6 will offer QuadraSteer (or whatever the marketing folks name it this time)?!

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--OxXstAGU--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/yabc2bhfcwpdba4bw8gt.jpg

[G. David Felt]

Interesting but I also see what you mean, it does look like this cadillac has rear steering. I always thought it was an awesome technology that GM needed to roll out to more auto's to lower the cost but I can also go with the CT6 having it to get it started again.