Cadillac is still pushing to sell cars in Europe, General Motors president Dan Ammann has told Autocar.
"Clearly our number one priorities are the US and China, but in the longer term there is a role for Cadillac," he said.
Ammann is also realistic about the prospect of Cadillac's fortunes in the world's most competitive luxury market and taking on Audi, BMW and Mercedes in their home markets.
"Is Cadillac going to be a volume contender [in Europe]? Probably not. And we're not going to try and 'out-German' the Germans – but we do want it to be a success," he said.
Cadillac has already had several aborted attempts to take on the European luxury market and it's believed that the current BMW 3-series-sized ATS saloon and larger CTS were both engineered to be sold in Europe. But financial constraints and the promise of easier and quicker success in China meant that European sales were shelved.
The company would also have to engineer a credible diesel engine suitable for longitudinal, rear-drive installation to have a hope of competing properly in Europe.
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"Cadillac hasn't given up on Europe"....
If they want to be
Should have re badge SAAB
The Thing Is...
They sort of tried something like that with the Cadillac BLS which was a re-bodied 3 year old SAAB 9-3, but the end result was disappointing.
Dark Isle wrote:optima
And I believe the 9-3 was just a re-bodied Vectra, so it never really stood a chance anyway, GM just dont understand the market requirements, either that or they do but just choose to ignore them .