2006 Cadillac Xlr on 2040-cars

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Cadillac's de Nysschen takes aim at Porsche 911, Cayenne

Johan de Nysschen has big plans for Cadillac. He's moved the brand from Detroit to New York, revamped its model nomenclature, and planning a raft of new models for the near future – including a $250,000 luxury sedan to take on the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. But the veteran executive of luxury automakers has some more performance-oriented machinery in mind, too. Speaking with Car and Driver at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week, de Nysschen suggested Cadillac could be ready to launch a flagship sports car sometime in the next decade. The halo model would take aim at the Porsche 911 and do for Cadillac what Audi did with the R8, Mercedes is doing with the AMG GT and Acura once did (and is aiming to do again) with the NSX. Just what form it would take remains a big unknown, but de Nysschen indicated that the brand would need to be built up further before the sports car would be launched, lest it emerge too detached from Cadillac's image. The last time Cadillac delved into that territory was with the Corvette-based XLR, of which it sold only 15,000 or so examples – far below initial targets. The 911 rival isn't the only performance model de Nysschen has in mind, however. He plans to further expand the V series into a more substantial sub-brand to include a crossover to take on the likes of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, BMW X5 M and all those many AMG-tuned Mercedes utilities. The idea of an entry-level model to slot in below the ATS was mooted as well. A range of diesel engines are slated to help Cadillac break into overseas markets in similar fashion to how Maserati has expanded its market reach with oil-burning versions of the Ghibli and Quattroporte. And we wouldn't be surprised to see Cadillac get in on a new flagship SUV being launched by Opel in Europe, either.

Cadillac toned down ATS Coupe design due to customer feedback [w/poll]

Automakers always face a difficult decision when it comes to styling their cars. Design them too blandly and nobody will get excited about them. But style them too aggressively and they'll often end up turning off potential buyers.
Cadillac, for its part, is no stranger to aggressive design, but when it came to the new ATS Coupe, it elected to tone things down a bit. Speaking with The Detroit News in a wide-ranging interview, Cadillac design director Bob Boniface revealed that the original design for its compact coupe was edgier - closer to that of the CTS Coupe - with a wedgier profile, a more steeply raked beltline and a more severe grille. But potential customers surveyed in clinics apparently didn't like it. They found it looked heavy, inefficient and not fun to drive. So Boniface and his team literally went back to the drawing board and "took as much visual mass out of the car as [they] could." The resulting coupe, while handsome, looks far more similar to its four-door companion than did Cadillac's CTS.
What do you think, does the new ATS Coupe look just right, or is it too conservative? Voice your opinion in our quick online poll.

Why we can't have better headlights here in the U.S.

It wouldn't be a European auto show if we weren't teased with at least one mainstream vehicle we can't have here. At the Geneva Motor Show last week, the small but vocal contingent of shooting-brake buffs lamented that the Mazda6 wagon won't be coming to our shores, although they can take comfort in the fact that the vehicle won't get the torquey 250-horsepower 2.5-liter turbocharged gasoline engine we'll get here. Mercedes-Benz also announced a new headlight technology in Geneva that likely won't be available here anytime soon. It's just the latest in a long line of innovative and potentially lifesaving front-lighting solutions that the federal government doesn't allow in this country due to outdated standards — and a current lack of leadership at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mercedes-Benz's new Digital Light system that debuted in Geneva uses a computer chip to activate more than a million micro-reflectors to better illuminate the road ahead. The Digital Light headlamps works with the vehicle's cameras, sensors and navigation mapping to adjust lighting for the given location and situation and to detect other road users. The Digital Light technology also serves as an extended head-up display of sorts by projecting symbols on the pavement ahead to alert drivers to, say, slippery conditions or pedestrians in the road. And it can even project lines on the road in a construction zone or through tight curves to show the driver the correct path. Digital Light will be available on Mercedes-Maybach vehicles later this year, although like any technology it's bound to trickle down to less expensive vehicles. That is, if we ever get it here in the U.S. Audi, a leader in automotive lighting, has repeatedly run into snags trying to bring state-of-the-art car headlights to the U.S. The German luxury automaker's recently introduced matrix laser headlight system, which performs many of the same trick as Mercedes-Benz's Digital Light, also isn't legal on U.S. roads. And five years after the introduction of its matrix-beam LED lighting, which illuminates more of the road without blinding oncoming motorists with brights by simultaneously operating high and low beams, Audi still can't bring that technology to the U.S. either.