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Cadillac's XT6 is not, for better or worse, a mini Escalade

In its latest attempt at reinvention, Cadillac has created a trio of admirable sedans — the ATS, CTS, and CT6 — cars that challenge or beat the competition on their own terms, and do so with audacious exterior styling rendered in a distinctly American idiom. But American customers have been ditching cars in favor of high-riding crossovers, and what Cadillac has not had up until recently is a suite of appropriately (or bizarrely) sized crossovers to offer potential consumers, something competitors have been deploying for years or even decades. And so the new, full-size(ish) three-row Cadillac XT6, unveiled officially last week at an event in Detroit, is intended to help address the premier domestic automotive luxury brand's current product shortcomings. "I guess we had so many priorities and had to decide what's the most important thing," says Andrew Smith, Cadillac's executive director of design. "We decided to approach this one from an interior perspective, to do things like provide ease of use for owners, upgrade the infotainment, and allow time for ourselves to learn lessons from the launch of XT4." The XT6 doesn't exactly break any new ground within the segment, but that's not necessarily a criticism. Though huge from a sales perspective, the two-box crossover category is not the industry's leader in beauty or innovation. Still, Caddy's most recent previous crossover, the size-Small XT4, managed to create handsome proportions and a premium appearance at first glance. The XT6 doesn't feel quite so ambitious or coherent, with a front end that is at once sneering and soft, a lengthy flank that feints at muscularity without delivering, and a rather abrupt tailgate that blends the rectilinear and the anodyne. Maybe consumers won't notice? "Our biggest challenge was giving the vehicle a character that works on this scale and platform," says Smith. "We want to make sure all of our cars feel different. We didn't want it to be a mini Escalade. No one wants a mini anything. But we wanted to give it Escalade presence, but in scale. So it's this combination of nice, and aggressive. I'm convinced we will sell more than we think we'll sell." Maybe he's right, and we definitely don't see this vehicle cannibalizing sales of the Escalade. People who want a bold Cadillac can still get that one, and will have a brand new option later this year, we expect, when a new Escalade is released.

Next Cadillac CTS-V confirmed for Detroit

As a car enthusiast, you should be excited for the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. Hell, we can barely contain ourselves – it's shaping up to be a great show. And this bit of news only heightens our expectations – Cadillac will be bringing its third-generation CTS-V to January's North American International Auto Show. That bit of high-performance news has been confirmed to Autoblog by Cadillac officials. In fact, we've received an official invitation to the brand's press conference, and while the latter is light on information, it does say, "it's time for the V-Series to elevate to the next level." Considering our last experience with the CTS-V, we're not sure what there is left to elevate, although we're hopeful that Caddy will come up with something. What that could be, of course, is very open to speculation. When the last CTS-V debuted in 2009, it arguably outgunned Germanic challengers like the 500-hp BMW M5 and 518-hp Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG for a lot less money, boasting a detuned version of the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1's 6.2-liter supercharged V8. Could that trend carry on, with the next CTS-V borrowing the supercharged, 650-hp mill from the new Corvette Z06? If escalation is the name of the game, the Z06 engine would seem to once again allow Caddy battle it out on firm, big-booted footing with BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Of course, all will become clear on the morning of Tuesday, January 13. Like we said, we can hardly wait. Related Video:

Cadillac adds torque-number badging to most new models starting in 2020

Few phrases describe huge swaths of America better than a phrase spotted on the back of a top-fuel dragster at an NHRA event: "You can never have too much horsepower or ammunition." If Cadillac CEO and wily Canuck Steve Carlisle has his way, the revised phrase would substitute "torque measured in Newton-meters" for "horsepower." Starting with the 2020 model year, America's luxury brand will add torque figure badges to CT and XT models, beginning with the XT6. The badge above kinda almost sorta represents the torque produced by the luxury crossover's 3.6-liter V6. That badge did not appear on the XT6 we photographed at the Detroit Auto Show. In U.S. parlance, twist in the XT6 comes to 271 pound-feet. Translated to Newton-meters, that's 367 Nm. Then round that up to the nearest 50, which Cadillac will do, and one arrives at 400. True, the rounding prevents a future of number jumbles like the 2020 XT6 367 vs. the 2021 XT6 419T. Nevertheless, we don't know why Cadillac is rounding to the nearest 50 instead of the nearest 25, since 50 Nm is about 37 lb-ft and could conceal a decent torque increase between model years. A "T" denotes turbocharging, and we imagine there'll be designations for hybrids and electric cars. We think most modern attempts at engine-based nomenclatures soon get as complicated as ciphers or come unmoored from their original scheme. And based on our experience with The Average Car Buyer, they don't care. A bigger number, no matter what that number represents, means more, which is the important thing. Because America, right? Maybe not. Carlisle said, "We're not talking about displacements any more," and the new badging will give consumers "a clear understanding of the power differences across the lineup." The brand believes torque provides a better comparison between ICE, hybrid, and EV powertrains and "the balance between fuel economy and performance." As for the immigrant unit of measurement, Carlisle told CNET, " It's metric, it's universal, it's global, we have to think about all the markets that we're doing business in." Oh, and, "Engineers certainly prefer Newton-meters." The new nomenclature will not be applied to V-series models or the Escalade, because the CEO holds that "special cars get special names." We should probably take a moment to reassure the CT and XT models that Steve Carlisle thinks you're all special, too. Just a different kind of special.