Quick Look: Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon

You hear all this stuff about GM going into and out of bankruptcy, closing down plants, Congressional hearings, and all that other business/lawyer mambo-jumbo. With all that going on, evidently everyone is missing the fact that GM, along with Ford, has recently introduced a number of really nice products. For a brief minute, let’s ignore all those politics and let’s just look at the damn cars!

To some, The CTS Sport Wagon maybe an answer to a question that no one asked, but is it really? After all, the market for such vehicle is very slim and historically cars such as the 2002-2005 Lexus IS300 SportCross have never really taken off. When asked about the predicted sales of the Sport Wagon, Cadillac representative gave a range of 5000-6000 and while that may not seem like a lot, there is a but. This sales figure is for the U.S. market only and the CTS is a global platform. In other parts of the world where smaller station wagons are preferred over bigger SUVs the Cadillac may do very well as it has a lot going for it.

Drivetrain

You have seen the CTS before, and all of the sedan stuff pretty much carries over to the wagon. I am not going to rewrite the Press Release here, if you want detailed info, go to Cadillac’s website. What you should know is this:

• Choice of two 3.6-liter V6 engines, a port-injected 263hp version and a directed-injected 304hp version.
• Europeans and Asian markets will get a allegedly diesel version. There is some on news of the development of this engine being cancelled, so we’ll just have ot wait and see. However, if that diesel being developed, and if it is anything like the BMW diesel I recently drove, then Caddy should really consider bringing the diesel to the U.S.
• Six-speed automatic is the only transmission offered. Yes, manual would be nice, but is it really needed? Hell no, it’s a luxury wagon, take it for what it is or go buy a Corvette.
• A choice of rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive.

Features and Options

The engine choice drives your option list, the major one being the navigational system/music combo which comes with a 40G hard-drive and Bose system. Very cool sunroof and power tailgate are standard. Dealer installed, you can get a wireless internet thingy (see pics) which I guess works off a 3G network of some kind, for some amount of money per month. Personally, I don’t even know why they bother with that and the hard-drive when an iPhone does all that already and everyone seems to have one, and it’s not attached to the car.

Spare tire is optional. And the jack is too. What you do get in place of the spare is a very nice storage area and an air compressor. Unlike what you may imagine, the car does not come with run-flat tires, for better or worse. To me, that is just ridiculous and a sign of cheapness. C’mon Cadillac, while you may think that it is trendy not to include a spare tire these days, please throw one in for the people, some of as drive in the middle in nowhere at night.

Wagon stuff

Since the Sport Wagon is not any longer than the sedan CTS, and the wheelbase is the same too, you would think that the interior is not that big. However I was really impressed with efficiency of interior packaging, something that GM is not famous for. The trunk was big and when the 60/40 rear seat was folded is it was dead flat, very impressive indeed. Taking a sample from the European wagon, the car came with mesh netting which is used as a partition between the cargo and passenger compartments.  When the rear seats are folded, the netting can divide the cargo area from the two front seats. Very cool; I think it is something that is mandatory in European markets.

Etc…

I have not had the opportunity to drive this car, but it’s fair to say that its characteristics will be very similar to that of the sedan. Enjoy the gallery. I am a little disappointed with how the pictures turned out as the lighting conditions were poor, and even though I used an external flash, a tripod would have worked better. Thanks for looking.

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