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Cadillac ATS was almost front-wheel drive

"We were going to do a front-wheel drive Cadillac compact off of Delta because it was going to be less expensive," Doug Parks, General Motors' vice president of global product programs, told the Automotive News during the Detroit Auto Show in January of this year. That sentence, referring to early ATS discussions more than five years ago - a period when the automaker, and the industry, was struggling - reveals that Cadillac's highly acclaimed rear-wheel drive compact sedan almost never happened.
Parks revealed that that automaker actually built a 2.0-liter test mule, on GM's Delta platform (shared with the Chevrolet Cruze and Buick Verano) and tested it in Europe. While the prototype was "pretty darn good," according to Parks, the team realized that in order to compete against Mercedes-Benz and BMW it would have to invest in a new rear-wheel drive platform.
The resulting all-new Alpha platform would eventually underpin the Cadillac ATS, and many would argue that its balanced rear-wheel drive chassis is its single most important attribute. Thankfully, the Alpha's goodness won't stop with the ATS. The upcoming 2014 Cadillac CTS and the future Camaro will also share its architecture, meaning the Cimarron will remain a distant memory.

Cadillac recalls 17,500 SRX CUVs in Canada

When reporting on recalls, Autoblog generally tries to focus on the US market. However, a recent campaign in Canada seems important enough to be worth mentioning because it could eventually affect American drivers. General Motors is repairing 17,481 Canadian examples of the Cadillac SRX from the 2010-2015 model years because of the possibility of a loose nut in the rear suspension. For the moment, the automaker hasn't yet announced whether the CUV in the US would require a similar campaign.
The notice was dated September 18, 2014, on the website for Transport Canada, similar to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the US. It says, "the rear suspension toe link jam nuts" might not have been sufficiency tightened, which could allow a rear wheel to turn "inboard or outboard" while driving. If this happens, it could cause a sudden change in handling. Canadian Cadillac dealers are inspecting the parts and replacing the toe link if necessary.
This campaign isn't listed on the GM's running recall tally from September, which includes exported models, but it does list four other campaigns for the SRX this year - three in this range of years and one for the 2004-2006 model. Autoblog reached out to the company to ask about the possibility of this recall expanding to the US and were told "We have not publicly announced US recalls" for the issues affecting the SRX. The New York Times was given a similar quote. Scroll down to read the notice from Transport Canada.

Cadillac tipped to call flagship something other than LTS

Cadillac wouldn't be Cadillac without large sedans in its lineup, and while the XTS has had to hold down that end of the fort all on its own, it won't have to for too long. That's because the luxury brand in the General Motors portfolio is preparing to roll out its new LTS, stylistically previewed by the Elmiraj concept pictured above. Only now, the latest thinking is that the upcoming flagship model may not be called LTS at all.
As Automotive News points out, Cadillac's naming scheme is all over the place at the moment. The ATS slotting below the CTS makes sense (alphabetically), but where do the ELR, SRX and especially the Escalade fit into that naming hierarchy? And how would LTS - as the project has been known until now - sit above the XTS?
Fortunately, Cadillac may be on the case, as two of the division's most recent senior appointments seem keen to rationalize the naming scheme. One is Uwe Ellinghaus, who joined Cadillac as chief marketing officer late last year. Speaking of the brand's nomenclature last spring, Ellinghaus was quoted as saying, "We are aware that this is currently a weakness of the Cadillac brand." And his new boss is bound to agree.