Cadillac XTS Aspires For Performance: Ad Break
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The Cadillac XTS is not a rear-wheel drive performance car; neither is it Cadillac’s flagship. But that doesn’t mean it can’t offer a few performance-related features such as lightweight construction and available Haldex all-wheel drive. Or as Cadillac put it, the XTS is bringing the future forward:
The GM Authority Take
The XTS may not have the right driveline or layout to directly compete with the likes of the 7 Series, but that doesn’t prevent it from being a fine luxury car. Now if GM at least offered AWD on the 2014 Impala…
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nice commercial.,,now if the advertising company would stop using such a boring color. if you want sophisticated just go full on black. if u wanna show off a cars lines, go silver. if u want rich and expensive; just about any warm earth tone will do with a mile deep shine.
but this boring deep blue? it looks neither luxurious, or particularly sophisticated (at least not in the commercials.)
What’s the weight on the XTS?
Great commercial, to me the all wheel drive aspect of this will pull in the customers over a pure rear wheel drive experience. But not everyone wants this large of vehicle either… Interesting note I saw 3 new Nissan Maximas yesterday, talk about a sleeper car… The Maxima seems to be catching on all of a sudden… I don’t know how long it’s been out in its current skin, but I want to say 2 years, interesting now it would be selling well.
Cadillac sounds like its having it’s Quattro moment. Haldex is now well proven in millions of vW Audi, Volvo and Fords. Yup Fords from mundane Freestyles to Taurus SHO.
Add it to the Police spec Impala with a turbo V6 and we’ll be in to something.
Forgot AWD in the new Impala. That Aldex should have been on the Regal GS!!!
AWD fixes the problems inherent to FWD, but ruins the perfect dynamics of RWD. Not only does AWD needlessly add weight and friction, but it forces compromise of the steering geometry and necessitates a stiffer front suspension to compensate for added weight over the front axle. MPG, ride quality, handling, weight… all rwd advantages. Here in Philly, it only snows once or twice a year. And when it does, my RWDs never had a problem anyway. This is all marketing to sell the option.
While I agree with your driving dynics point, I disagree with your marketing projection. I’m sure they will sell plenty of AWD XTSs. People love the idea off added security- real, perceived,necessary or not.
Perceived security = exactly my point. Marketing. AWD = “Safer” in the minds of the ignorant. It is no safer than any other vehicle. These days, they all have stability control, traction control, ABS, etc… With stability control, it’s all but impossible to spin the car out, etc. AWD adds weight which increases braking distance. It also adds weight to the front which increases it’s resistance to a change in direction (like in a swerve). So if anything, a RWD version would brake and swerve more effectively than a heavier AWD.
Hey, you are preaching to the choir man, I’m with you 100%. But we are not the average guy on the street. They like and will buy AWD. And even if GM doesn’t make a killing on AWD equipped XTSs they will get a big “perceived” marketing boost just from having it as a feature. We all know most Brands that are always trumpeting AWD don’t even sell that many AWD equipped cars (Subaru excepted).
And in offering RWD on the XTS, it would needlessly overlap with the CTS; a car that already has optional AWD.
The XTS doesn’t need RWD to sell. Looking at the XTS’s demographic and where it will be utilized (livery services and associated fleets), they don’t care about the drivetrain; so the XTS, as seen as a DTS replacement, is fine. If people want RWD, they can get a CTS.
But that is exactly the point, @wtf. The problem is that consumer/market perceptions are very difficult to change/control. Making a product that serves those perceptions is easy to control. If the goal is to make as high a profit as possible, would you make a product that is perceived to be more safe by the masses or spend million in an attempt to change their perceptions, however false-founded they may be.
@Alex,
You can build an entire brand based on attempting to change perceptions. Audi did it to us… so did Subaru. BMW used to do it, when they were pro rear wheel drive (Now they figured out that the average yuppie buyer is too dumb to know the difference and only concerned with the badge, not what’s under the hood). Here is a good commercial from the old BMW we used to know and love. Rest in peace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZTTn2gq67I&noredirect=1
What did Audi do, though? It insisted on building FWD-based AWD cars… Did Audi change perceptions of what a luxury car should be or did they simply capitalize on the consumer (as in the yuppie buyer) who doesn’t know any better (RWD)? I think it’s the latter.
Ironically, both Audi and Subaru still trail in market share in their respective segments… but since Subaru is a bit “different”, let’s focus on Audi for a second.
Audi could have chosen to invest in all-new RWD-based architectures, but didn’t. So instead of spending money and resources in engineering, they spent that money in marketing by attempting to convince buyers that FWD-based AWD (excuse me, Quattro) is this technological god-send. It was (and still is) an up-hill battle — so I’d wager they spent much more in marketing trying to change perceptions than they would have spent ditching FWD/AWD and moving to a proper layout.
But hey, least BMW still builds a full lineup of RWD vehicles.
Either way, I still believe that a performance car company has no business making FWD-biased/based vehicles — and that the XTS would have made a fine Buick flagship (styled as a Buick, of course).
Great post… I think Audi, with its aggressive marketing, convinced the USA that AWD is needed even in Southern California. The customer doesn’t even know what Front biased or Rear biased means… Most of them probably think their front wheel drive Audi is AWD. So even if the brand itself hasn’t sold well, the drivetrain layout certainly has. Rear biased or front biased, to the customer, AWD is AWD. You are right about the profits coming first, and good car making coming second. It’s a sad reality that marketing can fool so many people. But BMW, instead of sticking to their guns, decided recently to keep silent about their RWD, and focus on selling the 2 to 4,000 dollar X-drive option, despite the fact that it’s a tack on to keep the American soccer moms happy. All of this was a bow down to Audi’s “brand” building (or drivetrain selling).
But then Alex not everybody that drives a Deville or DTS that wants to go for a Buick don’t you think?
@Vic I don’t see why DTS/Deville buyers would not want to purchase a modern Buick… it’s as close to their DTS as they will get outside the XTS and the Lexus ES (possibly LS as well).
because these customers still want to be technological and not going a step down…. Now I have seen a old couple that went from a Deville to a LS and RX too but I don’t see a lot of people that went from a DTS to a LaCrosse though because where I live I only see that people went from Lucerne to LaCrosse.
Now there are people who went from DTS to CTS though but I think the DTS customers are about being Luxury and comfortable but at the same time to be technological (CUE)
Moving customers from one brand to another is a whole different question… the fact of the matter is that the LaCrosse, for instance, is a much better car than the DTS or Deville ever hoped to be.
Yes Alex but again not every DTS customers likes a soft-looking LaCrosse!
CTS is a bit small on the interior side to be viewed as the alternate option… Every Caddy should be RWD (AWD optional for snow belt that only a small fraction actually deals with… most of it is plowed same day anyway, and RWD with the right tires has been for 100 years, and still is good in the snow). If they want to be a “premium” brand, then they need to ditch Front wheel drive, and the badge engineering. A re-badged Impala/Buick with leather seats isn’t fooling anyone.
A premium brand needs to be RWD only?
Tell that to the A and B-class, the CT, and the 0-series.
I don’t care about a century’s worth of RWD. RWD exists solely for performance applications and it does so beautifully. The average Joe simply doesn’t care what wheels turn, so long as they turn and they get where they want to go.
The average Joe matters more than Motorhead Joe.
The smaller cars can get away with it, not the largest in their fleets. How many full size premiums or flagships are there that are FWD? Probably not many. And about the performance car market – that is the problem. RWD is NOT only for motorheads. Why shouldn’t the average Joe be able to enjoy a better handling, better riding, better braking, better balanced vehicle? Mainstream RWD got it’s bad name (in the snow and rain) when IROC Camaro’s with summer tires, open differentials, and damn near 60/40 weight distributions were the only ones left… The automakers conned all of us into the front drive push of the late 80′s into the 90′s simply because they were cheaper to manufacture. It’s funny how RWD became the hot item again in the 2000′s after people started figuring it out. A 4000lb car, such as the XTS, should NOT be FWD. There is already enough weight to sling around, and putting most of it up front isn’t helping anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I really like this XTS, and my current Malibu is FWD, and I love that car too… But nothing compares to the RWD car’s I used to own, and I will definitely be switching back next car.
“Why shouldn’t the average Joe be able to enjoy a better handling, better riding, better braking, better balanced vehicle?”
Because he wouldn’t be an average Joe anymore; he’d have become motorhead Joe. That, and average Joe simply doesn’t care about the drivetrain or “sporting” intentions; they want reliable, fuel effiecent transportation from A to B.
By and large, (and I’m certain that I could hit 90% of new car buyers with the following statement) car buyers simply don’t care about RWD enough to make it a top demand on their list of features in a new car. It’s not the automakers, throught a clever and well thought out plan, “forced” everyone into FWD cars. Rather, public demand dictated that fuel efficient and affordable cars were in; the automaker that could best meet the demands stood to win.
That is, essentually, what happened in North America during the 80′s and 90′s. Drivetrain wasn’t even a blip on the radar; the Nissan SX line showed that with it’s continuously falling sales.
People who are in the market for the XTS are the same people who would have bought the DTS, Avalon, Lucerne, RL, Taurus, and the Azera. I’m fairly certain none of the owners of those cars are griping about the drivetrain, and none of them are going to treat their cars like a teenager would with an IROC-Z.
Different times, different cars, different buyers. What may have held true 30 years ago doesn’t necessarily hold true today or 30 years from now. It just so happens that not many people are moved by the availabity of RWD in large cars as they may have been in 1982.
But not everything is “anti-RWD”. Just look at the V-series. Unthinkable in 1982. Unthinkable to do without in 2012.
One last thing, if it’ll help, the the XTS is not and will not be Cadillac’s flagship car. Whatever becomes of that will very likely be RWD with optional AWD.
I hear you on a lot of your good points, but I still don’t think the average Joe sedan shopper is going to spring for a 50k Cadillac over a Camry, or even an Avalon with a basically identical drive-train and a 20k lower price-tag. If Caddy want’s to be viewed as the Mercedes of America, then it needs to stop with the Buick re-badging. Average Joe’s don’t buy “premium” car brands. Infiniti separated itself from Nissan, and damn well I might add. Do they even have a FWD model in their “premium” segment?
JX is FWD
Infiniti as a luxury brand has become a joke.
For starters, an Infiniti is still a Nissan, designed by Nissan designers/engineers. Secondly, the brand doesn’t even exist around the world — where Infinitis are sold as Nissans. Besides the JX, the upcoming Infiniti EV will be based on the Leaf and will be FWD as well. Rebadge galore.
I think Infiniti is like Acura…. It’s more premium than Luxury brand. But then Alex I hope you remember that ELR is based on the Volt.
@wtfwtf I’m not so sure that separation/differentiation is key. Value, badge/brand prestige, and the luxury (or performance luxury) driving experience is key.
As for Infiniti: Infinitis are still Nissans elsewhere in the world with the exception of a handful of other countries. Infiniti consistently sells less than most other luxury makes and is about to introduce a bunch of hotted-up Nissans (JX/Pathfinder and new Infiniti EV/Leaf). Both are FWD, and neither delivers on the traditional Infiniti promise of luxurious performance. In all, Infiniti is a lame excuse for a luxury brand; for an exemplary practice of a full-line manufacturer running both a mainstream and a luxury brand, look to VW/Audi and — now — GM/Cadillac.