What the hell are they doing giving cars the three letter destinations? XLR, CTS, SRX, hell I get confused with other car brands that do similar. At least in BMW it usually stands for the series, and engine size, like the 328i, which is 3 series, 2.8 liter Inline 6. But it bothers me that Cadillac still has the Escalade name in it's fruity alphabet soup! If Cadillac really wants to be the Standard of the World, they should go back to naming their cars, at least then it will stand out; as not many Luxury brands name their cars.

 

I mostly agree, although I will point out that the last two numbers in BMW's model designations does not always refer to the displacement of the engine.

The supposed reason for doing this is to strengthen the image of the marque (i.e. Cadillac) instead of the individual models. This is why Acura started doing the same thing a few years back, though to be honest I don't think it was entirely successful. As you point out, the nomenclature needs to mean something, and any idiot can figure out that a 5-series BMW is supposed to be better than a 3-series BMW. With Caddy's and Acura's alphabet soup, there's no clear reasoning and therefore the danger of confusion in the marketplace.

Personally, "XLR" sounds like some kind of household cleanser. I like the Evoq name much better.

 

You know Caddy will end up adding an 8 to the end of the XLR name. "XLR8"

Come on DO IT, I know someone from GM is reading this!!!

You know they should name more cars like that if they want to go alphanumeric.

 

I know it sometimes doesn't refer to the model like the 540i, since this model has a 4.4 V8. Mercedes names all their cars this way, SLK 320, E430, etc. But the average Joe Blow doesn't know this, and probably wonders. So when they ask what "CTS" means, you tell them Catera Touring Sedan, in which the response might be; why not just call it Catera?

What about if they *high hopes* build the Cien? WTF is that going to be? The HUN, the CIN? It just doesn't make sense. Cadillac seems to be wanting to be European rather than American.

 

There is an interesting article in this week's Business Week that touches on how GM is trying to change its product image by changing the names of all of its models. Since Cadillac was the first to division to receive the Lutz treatment it also under went the first renaming round. The article mentions how the Catera became the CTS to overcome the poor image the Catera had. It also discussess the upcoming Cavalier to Cobalt switch.

I guess GM thinks the alphanumeric naming convention is sophisticated or something.

 

Its not that hard to understand, at least the Caddys look different from each other. CTS, STS, DTS, XLR, EXT if you cant tell the difference you should be shot.

 

You're right, we can, but I think that's just because we follow Cadillac relatively closely. I personally get the various Acura lines mixed up all the time, so I'm guessing that Joe Consumer is having trouble with any company that uses letters only, i.e. Caddy and Acura.

Most of us here probably recall Pontiac tried something similar in the 80s with their T1000, J2000, and 6000. Fortunately Firebird escaped that little diversion.

 

There is a structure to Cadillac naming patterns:

CTS = C-Series Touring Sedan
XLR = X-Series Luxury Roadster
SRX = S=Series Reconfigurable Crossover
DTS = D-Series Touring Sedan

etc etc etc...

Basically, the first letter is the series, the second describle the vehicle, and the 3rd is the type of vehicle it is...

Of course, the one that throws me for a bit of a curveball is if STS keeps the STS name... then you'd have STS and SRX which don't appear to be the same 'series' to me...

Ah well, at least that is how it works acording to some article I read a while ago....

 

call me the average joe in this convo...
but i noticed the same thing with cadillacs (all just using letters in car models) and i had no freaking clue what any of them meant before i read this thread (but neither did i care, because i think caddy makes horrendous looking cars)
but yeah, i was also confused with bmw and mercedes naming too
i vote for just namign the damn car- it's too confusing to keep throwing in letters and numbers and expect to remember them

just my .02

 

THe new naming is so people concentrate more on the Cadillac name than the car name.

When a Chevrolet Camaro driver is asked what that drive they say Camaro, when a BMW 328 driver is asked they say BMW.

 

It seems to me that Cadillac has a obsession using the last 9 letters of the Alphabet. Not just Cadillac but other car makers as well. Anyway, with the 3 Letter destinations, why does Cadillac still use the "Escalade" name? Kind of silly that they are trying to change their image, yet they still have a car with an actual name in their lineup.

 

Out of these three cars, only 3 are in production and are new. I know the DTS is in production as well, but it hasn't been restyled to incorporate the arts and science theme and isn't exactly new. The EXT is just a extended version of the Escalade, and guess what, it's offical name is Escalade EXT, not just EXT by itself.

Edit: Crap. I meant the EXT is the Avalanche equalvilent. The ESV is the new Surburban length Escalade.

 

I don;t get that...

STS stands for Seville Toring Sedan
CTS stands for Catera Touring Sedan
DTS stands for Deville Touring Sedan
SRX=?
XLR=?
Escalde won;t change because it has maybe the best name recoginition of all Caddy's names amoung people who say "bling bling".
The problem is there is no cosistancy


With BMW X means SUV, Z means Roadster, xi means AWD, M means performance.

1 means compact sedan
2 means compact coupe (once they come out)
3 means small sedan
4 means small coupe (will once the redesigned 3 comes out)
5 is a mid sized sedan
6 is a midsized coupe
7 is a large sedan


I think GM is trying to be like BMW and use letter, but I have often wondered if GM themselves have realized that there is a scheme for GMW's letters.

 

Well they do have the Escalade EXT and Escalade ESV sub-models...

I think the Escalade name has been too valuable to drop, but eventually, I can see it being simply the "E-Series"

 

I think the Grand Prix was actually the 1st vehicle design that Bob Lutz had any influence on that hit the streets (Lutz's influence Regal & Corvette delayed them a year).

Sounds like a good article (there was one on CEO Wagoner in BW bak in February that was excellent), but I hope they weren't implying Lutz had anything to do with any current Cadillac models. The 1st Cadillac he had influence on (the CTSv) won't be out till the fall, the CTS came out almost a year before he got there, and he's a known opponent not only of Cadillac's "Arts & Science" look, but the only reason the new XLR came out is because it was too far along for him to kill it, as he initially planned to do.