Shaking up the Cadillac of Cars

[Bruce Nunnally]

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Cadillac is hoping to shake thing up – quite literally – with the launch of its new flagship sedan.

Dubbed XTS, it’s equipped with a new “Driver Awareness Package” that can spot a car hidden in the blind spot, sense when the driver is inadvertently slipping into the adjacent lane or if there’s a potential for a collision with the car ahead. Rather than flashing lights or sounding a buzzer, the sedan’s driver’s seat will begin to vibrate.

But Cadillac also intends to shake up the established order in the U.S. luxury market. There was a time, not many years ago, when the General Motors brand overwhelmingly dominated its competitors, both import and domestic. Today, Cadillac is little more than a second-tier also-ran at home, and all but forgotten overseas.

“We intend to regain our mantle as the standard of the world,” said Don Butler, Cadillac’s vice president of marketing, during the first media drive of the new XTS, “and we think we have the credentials to do it.”

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