CEO of Cadillac, Johan de Nysschen, spoke with the folks at Jalopnik earlier today and revealed some interesting information about the hotly anticipated Cadillac CT6 sedan. With what seems to be a full-sized luxury sedan set to compete with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series, Cadillac seems to be prepping the CT6 to be its flagship car. De Nysschen gave few exact details during this interview, but there is some interesting info to take away from it.
His main focus seemed to be on lightweight construction, when talking about the CT6. He was adamant that the CT6 will be the industry standard, in terms of lightweight construction. The “CT6 is a car that really sets the standard in many respects with regard to advanced new body construction technology. It’s a Cadillac, so it stands to reason that it’s great to drive, very refined and sophisticated. The lightweight body construction allows us to push the envelope when it comes to powertrain in a way we know that the rest of the industry will follow,“ said de Nysschen when asked about how the CT6 would stack up against the 7 Series and S-Class.
There will also be a variety of engines to choose from, and all will be of the turbocharged nature. According to de Nysschen, the CT6 will feature a 2.0 liter, turbocharged four-cylinder, a twin-turbo V6 (most likely the engine from the CTS Vsport) and eventually a twin-turbo V8 as the flagship engine. The twin-turbo V8 remark is what lets you know that the CT6 will be aimed squarely at BMW’s 7 Series, Mercedes’ S-Class and Audi’s A8, as all three have twin-turbo V8’s as their flagship engines.
With those kind of engines and, if Cadillac can deliver on the lightweight construction promise, the CT6 proves to be a worthy adversary for the 7er and S Class. However, a mighty V8 not be in the plans at first as de Nysschen seems to think that it won’t need it to compete, “The lightweight body structure allows us to achieve formidable performance even with a twin-turbo V-6.”
If you read on through all of his answers to questions asked by Jalops, you’ll see that the bigger issue Cadillac has to take care of, before releasing the CT6, is brand image. He, along with the rest of the folks in Detroit, is creating vehicles for a market of customers Cadillac hasn’t had before. So it will take some time for Caddy to be able to sell these premium, high-performance luxury sedans, like the ATS and CTS, to customers before it can build a large enough reputation for quality and performance to sell the CT6.
It’s quite interesting to listen to what de Nysschen has to say about Cadillac and its missions. He has brilliantly helmed Audi and Infiniti before moving on to Cadillac and there’s little doubt that both he and Caddy will find some success. Will remain to be seen how much success.
