Dec 6: Present, Past, Future

The winner.........the 2014 Cadillac CTS.

Up against some pretty tough competition like Mercedes and BMW, but Cadillac came away with this impressive and well respected award. Seems like nothing but superlatives are being used to describe this new car. Sure, the name "CTS" is not new, but with the new for 2013 ATS tackling the BMW 3 series, the Benz C class and the Audi A4, the CTS has been moved up market to go head to head with the vaunted 5 series, the E class and the A6. And in its debut year, it wins this award.

The other day, I blogged about how Lexus was rebranding itself from being a mobile living room to a sports sedan. Cadillac has had to do the same. This picture shows the image Cadillac had used to define its brand for years, actually from its very beginnings.....

Big, luxurious, usually with a businessman behind the wheel, this ad showing a two door was about as sporty as a Cadillac got back in the day. With diminishing sales in the '80's and '90's a rebranding was in order. Their first effort was the 1992 STS, but really, its breakout year was 1993, when the big Northstar V8 was made standard. This became a car that was generally held in high regard for its time..........

But like many things GM started, the STS went off the rails and subsequent versions became irrelevant and fell back into the traditional Cadillac ways. Trying again in 2002, they presented us with the CTS........

A very capable smaller sedan, meant to do battle with the 3 series, although in size it more closely was aligned with the 5 series. So a little off target, but a good car none the less and one that kept getting better with the introduction of the impressive V versions. Cadillac also raced this car with great success. Just what was needed to compete with the German brands.

Rebranding. It takes a long time. The 2014 CTS being the result of a program that started over 20 years ago. Now Cadillac is staying the course and establishing itself as a legitimate sporting luxury car. One that can hold its own against the traditional big guns.

So what is next? Always a good question. Cadillac has shown us some very interesting concept cars over the past 10 years, hinting that they would like to do a top of the line car on a par with the 7 series, S class and the A8. A daunting task, but just looked what they teased us with this past Summer.......

The Elmiraj. If this is the big gun that Cadillac wants to use to fight the top German brands, it looks like it will be a very interesting battle.

Until next time.......