Why bother with all this track testing? Do people drive their CTS's on a race track or on the road? Is all this money spent merely to find some nit of detail for bragging rights to compare against real luxury cars like BMW or Audi? Cadillac would be much better off to stop skimping on the details in their cars - work on fit and finish and body panel tolerances, improvements in the paint finish (eliminate orange peel), quality of plastics, using real wood or aluminum, improving user friendliness of radio/NAV controls, quality seat design and bolstering, etc etc etc. Cadillac's just don't exude the luxury look and feel like a Lexus, Mercedes or BMW, yet they are priced the same. Is it no wonder that sales continue to drop?

Rob, I realize your job is to test these cars after the fact, but there is no other place to get this feedback to your designers and engineers. Is anybody listening? Is GM only about building for cheap and end result product be damned? Aren't Cadillac's supposed to be built to a higher standard?

Ted -
Track testing is not just about bragging rights. It is about the same attention to detail your post mentions. These development steps insure our vehicles can withstand the ultimate test for Chassis Dynamics, Powertrain cooling and Powertrain performance. We have developed a "Global" vehicle and it must compete and beat the best in the Sport Luxury Segment. The "track" tells us if we are there with our design and content. What we learn testing on the track is baked into the content of the car to get the prepared vehicle for real world driving. This type of testing accelerates or learnings of what a customer might experience driving down the AutoBahn in Germany everyday @ 150mph or comuting to work on the winding and twsity roads in the US. I understand that you want Cadillac to raise its game to those you perceive are the best. This requires testing vehicles to the limit. We are not by ourselves when we show up at Nurburgring in Germany. BMW, Mercedes, Audi are there testing as well to insure their cars stand up to the ultimate proving ground test, Relative to fit & Finish, we have put alot of focus on this for the new CTS. Our Gaps and Flushness will be world class and premium materials are used throught this new vehicle. Real Leather IP and seats. As well as the use of real wood for the uplevel options and our NAV system will be one of the best ever. Just you wait and see.

A couple of additional key pionts - Cadillac sales are about 40% higher than at the start of this decade. Our quality, materials, electonics often are measured by industry analysts as equal to or better than many of the other brands you seem to prefer. We're not all the way to where we wish to be, but those who take a fair look at our products often end up surprised and impressed. Our mission is to create the best cars possible, and track testing is one of many ways to get there.
Yes we are listening.
A final idea for you: perhaps you could try to contact the other top brands you mention, publicly listing your grievances. Let us know how that works out for you.

Thanks for the comments!
Apologies on the length of this, but I wanted to meet your questions directly.

Rob, thanks for the comments. It's true that I really wish that GM would rise to the same level as the other brands mentioned in the post. But with the continued focus on cost reductions at GM, we both know that it won't happen anytime soon, if ever. While Cadillac sales may be higher than 10 years ago, it is largely because of Escalade sales. Where would Cadillac be without the Escalade? The STS and SRX are both dogs because they just miss the luxury mark - for the money, there are much better cars available. The beancounters obviously won out over the designers or engineers. I would really prefer to buy a Cadillac, but you will need to sell me with luxury content, fit and finish and not marketing hype. I truly hope the CTS is up to the challenge. Will it beat a BMW in all aspects? Will the quality of finish in the leather stitching (even in the back of headrests) and paint finish be on par with Lexus or Audi? Do you have these cars at your disposal to benchmark?

I agree with Ted's comments. I'd love to drive an American luxury car, but there just aren't any.