Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen recently stated that the brand is going to start tracking its own performance more separately from the rest of General Motors to give the marque the ability to fund a new, likely exclusive engine architecture.
De Nysschen stated this during an interview with Automobile Magazine, elaborating that the new engine family would be “highly modular and [could] be structured for four, six or eight cylinders, not only with performance in mind but it must perform better and be more efficient than the old engines.”
Because China is such a promising market for the brand presently, the new engine family would likely start with efficient, small-displacement engines geared toward that market, according to de Nysschen. Obviously, this means that four-cylinder engines would be among the very first produced; six- and eight-cylinder engines would follow later in the decade, the largest of which would likely power a halo car or two to follow and surpass the coming 2016 Cadillac CT6 sedan.
While Johan de Nysschen shared that he’s hoping to keep this new engine family exclusive to the Cadillac brand, he also admitted that there might be some willingness to share with other General Motors marques.
Comments
Just what Cadillac needs to really bring a real level of exclusivity to the brand. It’s always been unfitting for a high-profile luxury brand to have its power train technology based so heavily on its nonluxury products. When there’s a Chevrolet engine under the hood of a Cadillac, the Cadillac feels like a Chevrolet; both the good and the bad qualities are inherent. Just look at the reviews of the 2.0l turbo 4, 2.5l 4-cylinder as well as the 3.6l V-6 in the ATS and CTS. All the German brands have more exclusive engines and trannies powering them, and they are said to be more refined in power delivery and performance. While the ATS and CTS gets praise almost solely for their dynamic suspension, but gets knocked for everything else. And there’s no way GM can market these car’s powertains by openly stating it’s sourced from Chevrolet and Buick.
An exclusive engine family is long overdue for the Cadillac brand. And this’ll really give Cadillac something to market and do battle with the Germans and Japanese.
Alfred P. Sloan would be proud. It’d be nice to see divisions again rather than brands.
This is very key and I never thought anyone would have the balls to give this a try.
It is so difficult to convince people Cadillac has changed as long as you give them the same engine as the Camaro. That is why I was glad to see the 3.6 TT as it was at least some effort to set them apart. I have been disappointed as the Turbo 4 in Cadillac should be at least 320-350 HP.
I had hoped at best for GM engines in Cadillac tune and dress but this is a home run if they do it right and I expect they will.
I will warn this will not be easy or cheap to do so be patient with them and let this fully develop before getting overly critical.
Doing the right thing is never easy or cheap but they are giving it a try.
God Speed!
I wonder how different these engines are going to be, are they going to be the same GM engines but with different displacements and a more “refined feel” to them (like jamel mentions)? Or will they be engineered from the ground up?
@ Cc I believe they will be engineered from the ground up just like the Multi-Award Wining Northstar V8 was in the Mid 90’s early 2000’s, about Dam Time too!!!!! 😉
I expect they will be different from Chevy and they will be much better funded than the N Star. I would hope we would not see the same ring issues and head gasket issues we had with the N Star.
It did win awards but the did have their share of issues. Simple things like head studs would have stopped the gasket issues but GM cheaped out in that era. I do not expect a repeat of this.
Sorry when it comes to a 4-cylinder engine I disagree. GM North America has not had a successful 4-cylinder for an eternity. In contrast, when Opel introduced the 16-valve 1998 cc engine, it was universally recognized as the best 4-cylinder in the world at the time for low down grunt, emissions, economy and power. It is the grandfather of what is in virtually every 2-litre GM engine. Opel knows far more about 4-cylinder engines than the Detroit engineers, so go to where the expertise is.
Report 2.0l L4 turbo intercooler engines in Cadillac : 1-5 km/l on highway,below 1 km/l in city, AVG 0.6 km/l,unstable power output,overload forever.
This is all very interesting indeed. A great move towards luxury exclusivity. BUT……will Cadillac also design and build a few Diesel blocks too? A must for their slow burning Euro invasion. Just hope they test them to every concievable limit before release.
Because of the cost I expect Cadillac will still pare with someone to do the Diesels. The low volume and cost would make it difficult to do cost effective.
I am also wondering if GM may partner with someone else to use the Cadillac engines in their low volume car. I would expect they would choose another smaller company that would be low volume and only enhance their image of the engine. Not sure who it would be but it is something to consider.
Some one like Lotus uses other engines and a V6, Turbo 4 would help them a lot and even a V8 would help if they can ever move back up market. The only issue is Lotus is not in very good shape now. But you get the idea of spreading out cost to other smaller MFG with a positive image.
They also could increase volume as selling it to boat MFG as Ferrari already does too.
In theory, this could also be used to produce 10 and 12 cylinder engines… ya know for keeping up with ze germans.
AUDi uses the same tdi,fsi and tfsi as other VW groupe. So, why Cadillac can’t use the gm engine familly or could be part for developing engines…