Cadillac knows its future must include small cars, especially if it wants to be considered a global player, but parent company General Motors’ financial woes means that it has had to pare back some of its more ambitious plans. This included scaling back some of Cadillac’s original European expansion plans and putting on hold development of a new diesel powerplant.
However, plans for a new rear-wheel-drive compact sedan to compete with the likes of the BMW 3-Series and Audi A4 appear to be still on track. This new compact model, rumored to be called the ATS, is expected to go on sale in the next couple of years as a global model.
While in the U.S. the car will form a new entry-level point for Cadillac, in Europe the car will replace the poor selling BLS. The BLS was first launched in Europe back in 2006 and only managed to rack up 7,356 units of sales since then through 2008. Cadillac has since disposed of the BLS.
As for the car’s replacement, new Cadillac general manager Bryan Nesbitt confirmed that a new “high-performance” small car was in the works, not just for Europe, but for all of our markets.
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