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GM Authority

The Cadillac ATS Was Almost Front Wheel Drive

Imagine a world where the Cadillac ATS would essentially be the next Cimarron. That world was nearly a reality.

“We were going to do a front-wheel-drive Cadillac compact off of Delta because it was going to be less expensive,” Doug Parks, GM’s vice president of global product programs, told Automotive News. “There were people in the organization saying, ‘It’ll be OK. We can dial it in.'”

For those who don’t know, GM utilizes the front-wheel-drive Delta vehicle architecture for the Chevrolet Cruze and Buick Verano. It is a great FWD platform, but not for the segment the ATS competes in. AN continues to note that developers were so set on making the ATS a front-wheel-drive car, that Parks ended up driving a prototype test mule with a 2.0L turbocharged engine around a track in Spain.

“We actually made it pretty darn good,” Parks continued to confess. “But in reality, you can’t go beat BMW or Mercedes when you don’t have the right weight balance and everything else.”

In conclusion, Parks stated that “we finally just said ‘That ain’t good enough. We’ve got to do a very light, properly designed, rear-wheel-drive architecture.”

The GM Authority Take

No kidding, guys. But perhaps the part that takes us aback the most is not that GM switched the ATS to a proper RWD architecture, but that there were some within GM who still thought Cadillac could get away with a front-wheel-drive car in that segment, even years after the Cimarron. We wager that if developers didn’t find it in themselves to do it right with a rear-wheel-drive architecture, the Cadillac ATS would not have won all of the awards it did, or have made the impact it continues to make even today. So in that regard, we’re grateful the ATS is based on a proper rear-wheel-drive platform. And to build momentum, the all-new 2014 CTS will utilize the Alpha blueprints, as will the sixth-generation Chevy Camaro.

Former staff.

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Comments

  1. Cadillac Catera was RWD it was Vauxhall & Opel Omega based.

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  2. So what he’s saying is, he’s a bean counter and excitement for him starts and ends with Corolla. Parks should not only be let go for thinking it was plausible, but then also admitting to it. That is the kind of shit you keep to yourself.

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    1. Bravo, slow clap to full applause.

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    2. It may not have been his call. Parks hasn’t even been VP of product programs for a year. And considering he was the Volt’s VLE beforehand, he’s not exactly somebody who’s clueless. Engineers have to constantly make a business case for everything they do, and they don’t always win. Hopefully with a car guy like Mark Reuss in charge, that will happen less often in the future. I mean, the Z/28 and its stripped interior somehow got approved by the bean counters. So that makes me very hopeful as to what else can happen.

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  3. >April 2
    WAT

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  4. Bean counters that produce unexciting cars have proved boaring also ran cars can sell & make a profit for its maker, however in order to be the best seller & first on potential buyers purchases in this cut throat market need to be exciting, enticing & desirable (to name a few) to get people into showrooms & buying. People don’t want a boring to drive, ugly also ran in brown.

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  5. And BMW is going to be making FWD also.

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    1. But it won’t be the 3 Series.

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  6. BMW are ****

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  7. It’s scary to think that this was even up for discussion!

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    1. It’s not really scary. I’m actually glad GM considered it; it shows that they are at least thinking of the car and its place in the market, as they should for every car they produce.

      I’m also very, very glad GM decided against it and that the ATS exists as is.

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  8. Execute the bean counters grab your pitchforks, torches, daggers, kitchenknives and ladels…

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  9. There are still two factions in GM. The one is made up of those who thing the new way of doing things and the other is the group that want to go back to the old way of doing things.

    These two factions have been at it on nearly everything. To our good fortune the good guys have been winning and their products have been successful.

    There was issues where in the Cruze that many still after the car was out wanted to cheapen it and make more money per unit. But those who know the car is selling so well because they did not take short cuts.

    Today they are arguing over door handles on the LTS. One group wants a high quality unit and the other wants to go with the $5 dollar unit.

    Read Bob Lutz book and he details some more things that some of the old school keeps trying to do.

    Also don’t get fooled that it is all bean counters.. A lot of this is also from some of the old time old School GM people who have had this thinking beat into them many years ago. They do not like to take chances and fight those who do.

    The in fighting at GM would make a good drama.

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  10. Good drama like ” As the stomach turns” from Carol Burnett. Glad this didn’t pan out and the car got it’s RWD chassis. Don’t think Caddy needs a car in the Cruze/Verano segment, but it is an interesting thought as to what it could be like.

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  11. I don’t think it would have been that bad of a car. Kind of more Audi A4 and less 3 series. But the Cimmaron jakes would be never ending. You really can’t talk crap about the ATS besides the manual transmission

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    1. The A4 isn’t a Jetta knock-off so it wouldn’t quite be the same thing. The A4 is very capable because its engines are longitudinally mounted and offer very good front-rear weight balance; it’s suspension is super-complex; and its chassis is very well tuned. There is nothing in the A4 that is “budget-based”. That and the AWD variants and the ultra-powerful V8s that they have been known to come with from time to time, make it a very convincing prospect. VW never skimped with the Audi line and made them front drive not because it was inexpensive, but because there was a safety issue to be said for the design. GM on the other hand is always thinking Spaceship but only willing to pay for Slaveship.

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  12. This is DEFINATELY a story parks shouldve kept to himself!! I mean cmon just when ppl are starting to see the great products gm is producing……he lets this cat out of the bag!!! Well thank God alpha was developed and is arguably shaping up to be the best platform this country has engineered in recent memory. Now all we need is mark reuss for ceo…….and then gm will be off and running!

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  13. Don’t like Audi’s

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  14. Reply
  15. Just for the record the term “old school GM” implies that the entire company embraced the Cimarron and dutifully marched in echelon over the cliff with the damn thing. Wrong, because it was obviously a necessary evil to many at GM. Cimarron came as a result of head-in-the-sand planning that left Cadillac without a fuel efficient model when the (second) energy crunch came. Without such a model it was possible to fire a cannon through the showrooms of exclusive Cadillac dealerships and not worry about tagging a customer. Cimarron was a desperate attempt to save those dealers who would be needed when Cadillac’s more competetive and fuel efficient models arrived (years) later.
    The FWD part was a relatively minor issue because the main problem with Cimmaron was that it was obviously nothing more than a tarted up Chevy Cavalier that had been quickly rushed to market in an emergency.

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  16. There was nothing wrong with the Cavalier it was a world car sold everywhere in similar guises under different identitys including Vauxhall, they were great! Why I feel it failed was because its not Cadillac’s market to market such a vehicle.

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