First Drive Review
The new Cadillac ATS coupe is the lovely, delightfully adept product of a Hobson’s choice. Luxury-coupe sales are stagnant, yet here comes a new luxury coupe because there are really no alternatives. At least the new ATS coupe is a hottie that’s gratifying to drive.
Here is the backstory: It’s so expensive to engineer a new platform that no company does it for just one mainstream model. After the high-volume sedan is developed, its guts usually get stuffed into another model as quickly and cheaply as possible. That leverages the component set with yet another new product that can reach a different customer, bringing in more sales at relatively little cost.
Thus, the BMW 3-series sedan, at which the four-door ATS is squarely aimed, begets a coupe, a convertible, a wagon, and the new 3-series GT. The problem for Cadillac is that, in the United States where Caddy’s sales are heavily concentrated, sedans are king while all these other potential variants are relative sales duds. None provide any significant volume, and most of these segments, including two-door luxury coupes, are actually in decline as their traditional buyers age and SUVs and crossovers continue their march toward domination.
Still, GM’s luxury-car executive chief engineer Dave Leone told us at the ATS coupe launch in Connecticut that, when faced with the choice of doing a coupe or the likely second option, an ATS wagon, the decision was easy. “Wagons are only popular in three places—Europe, Australia, and in journalists’ driveways.”
Amen to that, brother! However, try as we might to convince the public that wagons are cool, we automotive journalists must admit collective failure. Leone says his numbers tell him that, Subaru and Volvo notwithstanding, dealers sell 15 coupes for every wagon, and thus the two-door ATS was a shoo-in choice. (That decision also makes a third ATS model, a convertible, much more likely to actually happen.)
Look over the photos and judge for yourself, but we think the ATS sedan translates extremely well into a coupe. Designers walked away from the butch, superwedge themes of their last sedan-gone-coupe, the CTS, and went for light, spare, and elegant. The ATS’s roof drops because coupes should have lower rooflines, but so does the beltline as it heads rearward. That keeps the rear-glass area reasonably ample so that the design doesn’t get heavy, as it did in the CTS coupe, and so that back-seaters aren’t sealed in a dark cave.
Sure, this idea is lifted straight from the playbook of the BMW 3-series coupe/4-series (among others), which has operated this way for generations. And it makes the ATS coupe less distinctive than the old CTS coupe. But it also makes the car look both more lithe and a little less overtly masculine, a good move in a segment teeming with female buyers.
The ATS coupe also looks good in back, where thin, vertical taillamps preserve a Cadillac trademark while also making the car look wide, squat, and powerful. An aerodynamic spoiler shaped into the trunk and the thin band of brightwork under the trunk lip adds visual detail. Helping the car’s athletic stance are slight increases to both the front and rear tracks. In front, Cadillac’s new streamlined and windblown crest dominates the grille, which strives to be a modern interpretation of the egg-crate chrome-deco jobs of the past.
In going from sedan to coupe, the ATS loses its base 2.5-liter four-cylinder—hardly a devastating loss—and gains some amenities, including a slightly stiffer suspension, standard 18-inch wheels, standard front Brembo brakes, a backup camera, and so forth. The base coupe uses the 272-hp 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder, with the 321-hp 3.6-liter V-6 serving as the upgrade engine. Optional all-wheel drive can be paired with both engines for about $2500 (it includes heated front seats), but only the rear-wheel-drive 2.0-liter can be ordered with the six-speed manual.
Every sheetmetal panel except for the hood is new to the coupe, while the basic ATS structure, an exceptionally stiff cage of mostly conventional and high-strength steels, remains unchanged. Sadly, the B-pillar also remains, a stout stump necessitated by the requirements of chassis stiffness and side-impact protection. Nearly 400 feet of bonding adhesive in the body help preserve twisting and bending numbers. In fact, Cadillac claims that the ATS coupe is 42 percent stiffer torsionally and 28 percent stiffer in bending rigidity than the old CTS coupe, and if it’s any looser than the ATS sedan, you can’t feel it on the road. And high-spec ATS goodies such as the ZF electric-assist steering rack carry over.
