Anybody who looks at a CTS knows it is a car that is the result of a lot of design and styling work. That means we have a lot of partnership with the designers. Dramatic design is a huge part of any Cadillac.

A perfect example is the 2008 car's track width. The design studio wanted to go a little wider, to get that great stance and proportion. But that has a huge impact on us - so there was a lot of collaboration on that in the early days of development. The good news was that a little more track width was great for what we wanted to do in terms of driving dynamics. This was a win-win, and a big milestone if the development of the new car.

For more on the design side of things, John Manoogian, director of design for Cadillac exteriors (and a guy we worked with a lot!) has posted a discussion about the design of the '08 CTS on FastLane.

Posted by Editor at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

By Rob

I wanted to show off a bit of hardware we created that is pretty unusual. This photo shows a special “cutaway” display that we built a few months ago.

This full-scale display showcases all the “guts” of the CTS that you can’t see underneath the very nice bodywork.

We took parts from our pre-production cars and assembled this to show all the car’s underlying structure and technology. We’ve used this around the world to help us explain the chassis, powertrain, and structural underpinnings of the car in a dramatic way.

Posted by Editor at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By Rob

Okay, the production launch is underway. So much energy and focus goes into preparing for the launch that it’s natural to ask, “What now?” Our "future" product is now a reality, that being the 08 CTS. But, in the world of vehicle development and testing, it’s all about the future.

Right now, several of our test cars are being reconditioned to test ideas and content that is being planned for the future. I can’t go into all of what those aspects are now, of course.

But here’s an example I can cite: one thing we’re on the record about is that we’re going to add a diesel engine to the car in the future. This diesel is primarily planned for Europe and other markets where diesel is prevalent. It will be a new engine planned for a future model year, but now is prime time in terms of its testing and development.

Posted by Editor at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

By Liz

I mentioned we’ve spent a lot of time at the famed Laguna Seca raceway. This place is not just home to a great Skip Barber driving school and some fantastic motor sport events. It is also home to this fox! Actually the guys at the Skip Barber school tell us that a family of fox are frequently seen – normally just off the circuit. This little guy ventured all the way down the racetrack and into our garage area. I got pretty close to him and snapped this photo right inside the pit wall.

This is not entirely unusual, as the track is inside the larger Laguna Seca parkland in Carmel Valley, Calif., where there is a lot of wildlife amongst the beautiful hills, mountains and vineyards. I was even warned to steer clear of certain areas while going out for a run, as mountain lions had been recently spotted in the vicinity.

I followed those instructions completely!

Posted by Editor at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By Liz

We apologize for the slow pace of our posts of late. But it's launch time.

In addition to the ongoing development and launch process, we have been hosting some journalists and giving test drives in northern California in recent days. Here and here and here are some online accounts from some of the car experts and journalists we hosted that will give you an idea of how we conducted these previews.

While it is one of the more fun things we do, it also is very important and quite a bit of work. We plotted out a drive route a little bit like what we would do on a vehicle development drive – many hundreds of miles thru a variety of pretty challenging conditions. And we included a brief track test. This test was at the legendary Laguna Seca raceway in California’s beautiful Monterey Peninsula. This is a great sports car track featuring the famous and treacherous “carousel,” a series of curves that carve up a severe downhill section on the backside of the 2.2-mile track.

In all, it was a pretty serious test of the car for our guests – quite a bit more aggressive and challenging that what typical consumers would do in a short time frame.

Posted by Editor at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)