New CTS is the Cadillac of luxury sedans

Dan Carney • E-mail

There once was a time when identifying a product as the “Cadillac” of its category was a common shorthand denoting excellence, but no longer. Other carmakers have displaced Cadillac at the top of the car industry, and the automaker is fighting to reclaim its stake as the industry benchmark and the self-proclaimed “Standard of the World.”

Ever since General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner booted out the Procter & Gamble-bred blunderers who used to rule the automaker and brought in Vice Chairman Bob Lutz to revitalize its moribund product development, the company has made steady progress. The new Cadillac CTS is the first evidence that it has reached its destination.

The original CTS was the first car to receive Cadillac’s edgy new styling when it debuted, and the second-generation CTS is the first to receive the company’s full, take-no-prisoners, make-no-excuses standard of execution.

As such, the CTS is a complete success. It’s not only handsome, it’s distinctive. It not only doesn’t blindly follow BMW’s much-criticized and much-imitated “flame surfacing” styling (“lame surfacing” to its detractors), it continues to blaze its own styling trail — one that’s distinct from those of its competitors.

The old car had that unique styling in its broad strokes, but it fell down on the details. Now the car’s grille no longer looks like a bit of chromed plastic frippery from Wal-Mart’s toy aisle. The exquisite LED light pipes in the CTS’ front marker lights and taillights are certain to become a Cadillac signature, at least until everyone else copies them.

Inside, the changes are just as dramatic.

The appalling shiny plastic is gone, replaced with opulent soft, often leather-wrapped, surfaces that are as kind to the hand as they are to the eye. The warm, low-gloss wood, leather and vinyl surfaces, silky switch gear and elegant instrumentation provide a virtual clinic in how interior car design should be done. (I’ve avoided describing the previous model’s unlovely cabin as cheap, because as one Cadillac engineer confided: “The worst part was that it wasn’t even cheap.” Yikes, expensive and ugly all in one package? Thank goodness they’ve solved that problem.)

www.cadillac.com The interior of the CTS has leather-wrapped surfaces.

The CTS’ seats are 10-way adjustable, supportive and coast-to-coast comfortable, and the new infotainment system also merits special mention, both good and bad. The computer touch-screen — no primitive BMW iDrive controller here — retracts into the dash to avoid marring its meticulously styled appearance. Innovatively, it continues to function as a small display because when retracted it leaves the top inch or so visible to provide basic information on the radio station or other musical source.

In addition to plain old CDs, the Alpine-supplied stereo-navigation system plays DVD audio discs for truly startling music clarity.  It will also play DVD video, showing them on the navigation screen when the car is stationary and on the available rear-seat display when the car’s in motion.

You can not only plug in your iPod, you can control it with the CTS’ stereo controls and see its contents displayed on the screen. You can also copy its contents (or your CDs) to the on-board 40-gigabyte hard drive. This system does everything except buy your concert tickets.

But in its wisdom Alpine, the infotainment system’s manufacturer, has relied on Microsoft for the device’s operating system, and anyone who uses a Windows computer can guess what is coming next.

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