In late July, General Motors filed four trademarks applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The four trademark applications include Cadillac CT5, CT5, Cadillac CT6, CT6, and are filed under the USPTO’s goods and services category of “Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles, sport utility vehicles, trucks, vans, engines therefor and structural parts thereof”.
| TRADEMARK | FILING DATE | SERIAL NUMBER |
|---|---|---|
| CT5 | JULY 21, 2014 | 86343074 |
| Cadillac CT5 | JULY 21, 2014 | 86343063 |
| CT6 | JULY 21, 2014 | 86343098 |
| Cadillac CT6 | JULY 21, 2014 | 86343083 |
Although unconfirmed, there have been rumors suggesting that The General will expand Cadillac’s crossover lineup with sport-crossover variants of the ATS and CTS. As such, CT5 and CT6 could potentially be candidates to serve as nameplates for the new vehicles, although we’d personally vote ATX and CTX, respectively.
How do you think GM/Cadillac will use the names? Sound off in the comments below.
Comments
I like ATX and CTX or maybe ARX and CRX better then CT5 and CT6. Why add numbers to the mix? It would just further confuse customers.
I wouldn’t use crx since that would confused with Honda’s crx
Agreed, good point.
I think Cadillac’s entire naming scheme needs a lot of work. It’s as if GM wanted to copy the Germans through use of alpha numeric naming but without a sound logic, rhyme or reason behind each name chosen.
What exactly does XTS mean, anyway? Clearly the X implies the car’s larger size but Extra begins with an ‘E’, not an ‘X’.
BMW & MB use numbers and letters to denote segment. Caddy just tries to be cute. I’d rather see Cadillac get creative or use global Latin names like Lancia once did. Latin is an universally (unknown) language that avoids speaking to nation of origin.
Wonderful if Cadillac is adding a Medium Crossover Buick Encore style
Cadillac Needs this car
Regards from Spain
But the Encore is a subcompact… the SRX is a midsize. The brand needs a compact (class of X3, GLK, Q5) and redo the SRX on the Alpha architecture to truly take on the X5, ML, and Q7.
I don’t like the idea of adding numbers to the already confusing “alphabet soup” nameplates. Let’s go back to real names!
Back in the 50’s Cadillac used alphanumeric names for cars almost exclusively, the “real names” didn’t start being a thing until the 60s and 70s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cadillac_vehicles
Model [number], Type [number], Series [number], etc.
This is why I find the whole alphanumeric nomenclature to be a bit impractical. I’m more impartial to actual names due to how they convey the meaning of a vehicle. One of the bad marks of ze Germans was how they somehow convinced luxury automobile manufacturers to abandon traditional names in favor of the current naming scheme.
To me, names like Fleetwood, Deville, Town Car, El Dorado, Continental, etc., all defined what the intent of those vehicles were and the image they were to evoke; and, in a way, gave them character. I know the last few vehicles associated with these names were not worthy so to speak, but times have changed, and so has technology.
The old names are stained and damaged beyond repair. Reusing them will not magically restore Cadillac global public image. Every one of them should stay dead, Escalade too.
Consider the CTS nameplate. Try holding up the Eldorado nameplate against the concrete, proven, cachet-building name CTS has given to Cadillac in just 12 years. It’s spawned many diffent Cadillac products that are all connected to one another. Contrast that to the decades of mediocrity the that Eldorado and Fleetwood did to destroy Cadillacs public image at home and abroad; names that are meaningless to today’s luxury buyer.
What’s the Eldorado and Fleetwood nameplate done to help promote Cadillac abroad? A fat Elvis with grease stains and leopard print bench seat? Cadillac is suppose to be America’s premier luxury automaker, and all it represented for near 50 years was anything but luxurious. There was no exclusivity or air distinction for the discriminating tastes. Nothing but kitschy, blingy trash that deprecated like a stone.
Today’s luxury car buyer isn’t looking at the past, and they never will. There is no sense in regurgitating Cadillac’s old, damaged nameplates. They will not captivate anyone new to Cadillac if the brand equity is in the toilet, and all that the Fleetwood nameplate can conjure up is images of obese men in their 60’s dreaming of the 60’s that they can scarcely remember.
“But ‘CTS’ nameplate doesn’t stand for anything” whines the tired and worn purists.
The ‘Eldorado’ nameplate doesn’t stand for anything remarkable, nor does it evoke a ‘meaning’. To me, the Eldorado nameplate stands for low-cost, poorly built, uncompetitive barges that only people in their late 60 enjoy. Nobody is going to want to buy a 2015 Eldorado if all that the Eldorado nameplate has embodies in last 50 years is substandard crap that can only be tolerated by people who think luxury is a value proposition.
The CTS nameplate “stands for” the breakaway from the horrid, trashy past that Cadillac so desperately needed to get away from, and to get back to relevancy. That disgusting, vulgar, detour Cadillac took from the 1950 to 2002 is best forgotten.
Well said GrawDaddy!
Thank you! Finally. People act like those old names mean something, and also ignore the fact that historically Cadillac used alphanumeric designations (or “random letters and numbers” as the haters say) for its cars from the brand’s induction well into the 60s, Ya know back when Cadillac was a serious player in the luxury car market like its trying to be again? Not the cheap crap they made in the 70s, 80s, and 90s (the stuff with “real names”). So if anything Cadillac is getting back to its roots now more than ever by ditching pretentious things like Eldorado and DeVille, and switching to names like ATS and CTS.
The CTS was spawned from the Cadillac that ‘zigs’ –the Cadillac Catera: a variant of Europes German engineered Opel Omega; naturally when the Catera was discontinued after 5 model years, following a handful of problematic issues, the CTS ( Catera Touring Sedan) evolved, now built in the good old USA.
Understandably, not marketed to connect with a not so successful predecessor
I disagree the old names have no cachet, and the issues of the 80’s and 90’s can be fixed with good product. These names represented a standard of opulence and a feeling of something truly special that simply does not exist in modern “luxury” cars. The Cadillacs of the 50’s – mid 70’s is the real standard of time for the marque, and pretentiousness is a positive thing for a luxury marque, as long as it delivers the opulence to back it up.
Cadillac’s real measure of importance was not from the 50’s to the 70’s, for that is a period of Cadillac’s shame.
Cadillac’s golden period was from 1902 to 1949.
First of all, ATX and CTX make sense, but they are so obvious that they seem derivative and boring as hell. They send the message that Cadillac has no imagination.
Second, about size. Wouldn’t an ATS size vehicle be very close to the SRX? I realize that is a FWD-based platform, but the size should be similar I think. And going more like the CTS size is going the wrong way. They already have the Escalade. Meanwhile, competitors are moving toward smaller vehicles. Cadillac needs something smaller than the SRX, not bigger.
Why would ATX and CTX mean no imagination? It’s a perfectly logical way to name the crossover derivatives of the respective sedan and coupe counterparts.
Separately, an ATX would be smaller than the current SRX. Really, Cadillac should have 3 differently-sized crossovers at the least:
– Compact (ATX) that would take on the MB GLK, Audi Q5 and BMW X3
– Midsize (SRX/CTX) that would take on the MB ML, Audi Q7 and BMW X5
– Full-size (LTX?) that would take on the MB GL as well as the upcoming Audi Q9 and BMW X7 (the latter is confirmed, the former is rumored)
This lineup covers the size and price gamut quite perfectly, while the Escalade is a different beast altogether and appeals to a different set of buyers than a luxury crossover. That’s why Mercedes-Benz still makes the G-Wagen.
I understand your sentiments. But I’m curious. If the CTS was given the name Seville, would it not have still garnered the success that it has? What about the ATS being called Cimarron? Should the critics, who’ve proven the capable performance and precision of this new age Caddy, convince the market to reject it because it’s called Cimarron? Yes these vehicles were substandard and didn’t deserve to don the name Cadillac, but I personally don’t believe Cadillac is any better by abandoning their original naming scheme and copying the Germans. I never understood why Cadillac, and Lincoln, saw fit to drop their original nomenclature; what’s the value in doing so? If Cadillac is going to copy the Germans, let them copy what it is that truly makes the Germans great: technologically advanced features, refined yet dynamic driving experience, and a reputation that’ll draw customers. If Cadillac would keep some of those “old fashioned” names it’ll at least set them apart from everyone else in the luxury market; or if the old ones are so tarnished then maybe they should utilize the names given to those beautiful concept vehicles they have collecting dust. Even Uber luxury brands like Rolls Royce and Bentley use meaningful names for their vehicles that captures the essence of their engineering, much like Cadillac used to do. It wasn’t the name Cimarron or Fleetwood that damaged Cadillac’s reputation, it was the poorly engineered, rebadged, low-quality, substandard pieces of garbage these names were assigned to.
“I never understood why Cadillac, and Lincoln, saw fit to drop their original nomenclature; what’s the value in doing so?”
First reason: research.
Work in marketing long enough and you’ll see that very few luxury car buyers (luddites) want a car with a “name”.
Second reason: globalization.
A name with 3 letters that are nearly universally-translatable and adaptable work much better on a global scale than any other name you give the car.
Cadillac does not need a Gamma-Based Encore vehicle. I agree with Chris in having three compact, mid-size, and full-size crossovers within the lineup. I also thoroughly enjoy the crispness of names like ATX and CTX, but names like KRX (Kompact, 😉 ) and LRX (Large) would fit a lot better within the crossover lineup.
KRX- Extended Alpha
1.8t I4 with 250HP and 260-275LB-FT
2.5tdi I4 with 225HP and 310-325LB-FT
8-Speed Automatic
SRX- E2XX
2.0t I4 with 290HP and 300-315LB-FT
3.2t V6 with 380HP and 395-410LB-FT (AWD Only)
9-Speed Automatic
LRX- Omega
2.8t V6 with 330HP and 340-355LB-FT
3.6tt V6 with 430HP and 440-455LB-FT
8-Speed Automatic
All cadillac is doing, is renaming its current model lineup. CT5 is the ATS and CT6 is the CTS.