Cadillac dealers are apparently bad at keeping secrets. According to a report in Automotive News, numerous attendees of a recent Cadillac dealer meeting have confirmed that brand boss Johan de Nysschen and his team showed images of "a slew of future vehicles," including a convertible, which would be built on the ATS/CTS Alpha platform. We've been hearing rumblings of just such a car since April 2011.
No other details on the car were provided, such as whether it would be placed in the ATS or CTS family (or get one of Cadillac's new names), if it would have a retractable hardtop or softtop, or an estimated date for introduction.
As noted, Cadillac—which hasn't had a droptop since the 2009 XLR—has been flirting with building a convertible based on the ATS for a while. According to Automotive News, in 2012, Cadillac's then-president had stated that the car was "pretty much designed" but that the decision to build it had been shelved. Now that the ATS coupe is in showrooms, it would make sense for Caddy to green-light the model to take on the Audi A5/S5 and BMW's 4-series convertible.
For its part, a Cadillac spokesman told AN that Cadillac would "like to introduce an open car to the portfolio at some point," but "it's not likely to be one of the near-term portfolio additions." That's understandable, considering that de Nysschen and his team have their hands full readying their upcoming CT6 flagship sedan and a couple of new crossovers.
And that might not be all. Just last month, de Nysschen said that Cadillac has "room for a car above [the CT6], and then these would be very prestigious, very high-performance but luxury cars. I think one also needs some spice in the meal. I'm a performance enthusiast myself. We should also look at one or two sports cars that you buy for emotional reasons, not for practicality, but because they are so sexy and so fun to drive," he said. We imagine one of those might be a droptop as well.
- 2015 Cadillac ATS Coupe 3.6 Tested: What John Keats Would Drive
- Here's What's Coming: De Nysschen Lays Out Cadillac's Product Plan
- Cadillac ATS Research: Photos, Reviews, Info, and More
As for those images? We'd like to see them, too, but Cadillac's dealers are apparently as bad at taking clandestine cell-phone shots as they are at keeping secrets.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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