Cadillac has announced pricing for the highly anticipated, incredibly crucial addition to its lineup, the 2013 ATS sport sedan. A base MSRP of $33,990 puts the ATS in the dead center of compact performance sedan starting prices. For the record, the current BMW 3 Series starts at $34,900, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class at $34,800, the Lexus IS at $33,595, and the Audi A4 at $32,500.
The ATS’ 202-horse, 190 lb-ft 2.5L base Ecotec four cylinder may not be as powerful as the 240-horse base engine from BMW, but it’s essentially even with the base offerings from Mercedes, Lexus and Audi, while being significantly lighter than all of them. And let’s face it, most luxury sedan owners are far from hardcore, and not everybody wants 272 horsepower out of the gate. Also important is the fact that Caddy anticipates “well over 30 mpg” for the ATS.
For an ATS equipped with the mid-range 2.0L turbo, consumers will find that the 272-horse, 260 lb-ft variant will start at $35,795 including destination; the powertrain will offer automatic and manual transmissions, along with either rear or all-wheel drive. However, it’s tuned to run on premium. Topping the range will be the ATS equipped with the familiar and powerful 3.6L LFX V6 block, producing 321 hp and 274 lb-ft of twist in this application, starting at $42,090. This range-topper has been hailed among Cadillac insiders as an absolute blast to drive, be it with a standard transmission and old-fashioned rear-wheel-drive, or a sophisticated torque-vectoring all-wheel-drive system. A paddle-shifting six-speed automatic will be the only transmission available at launch. For those that were hoping for a V6 manual, at the moment, no dice.
0-60 acceleration time for the V6 variant is expected to be somewhere in the five-second window. If it can beat the Lexus IS350’s official time of 5.6 seconds, and the BMW 335i’s time of 5.4 seconds, it would be the segment’s new leader. However, we’d like to see if the Cadillac ATS team was able to get the speed down to under five seconds, the territory of the $47,300 Audi S4.
Lastly, 410 new employees have been hired at Cadillac’s Lansing, MI Grand River plant where the ATS will be assembled. A total of 600 new employees are expected to be part of Cadillac’s $190 million investment in the facility.
Comments
wait when did gm get paddle shifters and why aren’t they availabe on the corvette????
If it’s anything like the paddle shifters in the (last years) Malibu… I’ll just leave it automatic.lol
Can’t wait to see this though. I’ll be in the market next year, right now I have Malibu, Verono/Cruze, and Regal on my list, this is a bit more in terms of price, but it looks to be worth it.
Jeff…..Not a bad price….I thought it would be closer to $31k, especially with the pleather seats….weill have to see it…but Verano i slooking better every day…..the new 2.5 engine….2013 models are out in August my dealer said and with new colors
Corvettes with automatics have had “paddles” since MY2006. It was the first year for the 6 spd. auto. 2005’s (first year of C6) had 4 spd. automatics.
Audi A4 is a major piece of junk. And so is the S4, albeit a tad better than the A4. I still can’t understand how a company can say its all about performance but sell cars with a warmed-over FWD layout. Quattro is a nice gimmick but doesn’t fix the fact that the cars are über nose heavy. The ATS gas win written all over it.
The ATS would be even sweeter if that overbuilt LFX V6 ran at a higher compression ratio and was tuned for premium fuel. 350+ hp easily.
Dan what do you mean by pleather seats? Didn’t they say they were using top line leathers real wood real carbon fiber real aluminum?
Matt, the base ATS is leatherette….same as Mercedez and BMW…you need to upgrade for leather….but, I think the wood is standard on all? The base does not come with standard Brembo brakes, but they can be ordered on base from what I have read. Maybe it will be very nice as a base but I will bet most dealers will have only one or two in silver or black
Oh I want the high end one then, well I rather get xts I prefer big.bodies and take the wheels off And throw on some 20″ swangas And vogues
Matt…the vinyl seats come in gray or caramel colors…..No wood for base from what I can see…maybe later it will change.
Wow this car is going to be awesome. It looks really good, it’s lighter and just as much, if not more horsepower. The interior looks great and that’s pretty cool that CUE comes standard! But I’m a little confused on why they aren’t going to offer a manual on the V6.
Where did you hear they aren’t? They definitely are. Just not with AWD.
http://wot.motortrend.com/2013-cadillac-ats-to-start-at-33990-undercuts-bmw-328i-202327.html
Second paragraph.