Cadillac XTS…Car design Part2

American Big 3 has been doing downsize for last 3 decades, but particularly to GM, I just don’t think they are still having problem with it.

I talked about Cadillac XTS the other day.

For try, I extended Front & Rear end of Cadillac XTS.

This is how I did by Adobe Photoshop….actually, it is not bad at all……

This means XTS needed longer front and rear ends to be better design.

But, I still can’t stand the popped up rear end and limited head clearance at the rear seats.

So, this is what I did….this is based on my previous work plus extended front and rear ends.

Actually, this is quite impressive….but even original XTS is 5.1m long and those modified one is well over 5.5m….this is about same as ancient Full-size vehicles…..

At least they should have done this kind of model 10 years ago when gas was cheaper.

Old day, Americans did not care about body size at all. They just extended size to make better design. That is how they are still not good at designing within limited size.

This is also the good example of it.

Or….designers make this kind of model….but they have to fit it to smaller size….this will completely destroy the design. In this case, I would have to say design process itself is wrong.  Designers and engineers need to work more closely to…

Cadillac XTS….Car design…

When I was walking around Downtown San Francisco, I ran into cheaply ugly looking car in front of a Luxurious hotel….At least, Audi which was parked behind looked way more respectable to me.

I looked at the vehicle carefully and I recognized that it was Latest Cadillac XTS….which is the largest Cadillac 4 door sedan today !!

Cadillac does not look good in front of luxury hotel???  What is happening?

Let’s look at the design…..well….it is hopelessly bad….it looks like big fat Toyota Prius or something…At least it is not the proportion of Luxury 4 door sedan.

Badly sloped front windscreen creates poor drivers position, also rear windscreen is causing limited head clearance at the rear seats.

Doors are too flat and it makes it looks dull and fat.

Popped up rear end…

This design is completely ignoring basics of basic of car design.

So, this is what I did by using Adobe Photoshop…..

• Lifted up Front windscreen to create better front space.
• Lifted up Rear windscreen to get extra head clearance at the rear seats.
• Dropped down the popped up rear end.
• Extended height of door windows to improve the vision.
• Added press line on doors to give some accent.

That is how I did….basically, all I did was related to improve cramped interior space and at the same time, it is improving the styling.

But….unfortunately the base was too bad…..to me it looks like Prius turned into Camry….I still don’t think it is enough for luxury sedan.

It has been a year since this model came out, but I have seen only a few times in Vancouver and it was the only one I saw in San Francisco !!

Do you remember that Cadillac used to be the most popular luxury car and saw everywhere in the United States…?

It is based on Chevrolet Impala and costing more than double, but it looks much worse than Chevy…..that is the reason It is not popular at all.

Last 2 decades, GM have been  trying to copy Japanese. I don’t think anything wrong to learn from something…but they are making big mistake.

“Each design has a right size.”

Prius looks OK (Personally I don’t like it) because of its size. If you transplant the design into bigger size, usually it will not work.

That is the risk of copying Japanese design. They have to be very careful…..