Cadillac always intended to offer two sedans in the North American market with the advent of its CT# series of vehicles. Currently, the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 exist to answer demand for American luxury sedans, but when the plans were first drafted up, the CT4 wasn’t part of them.
Instead, the luxury marque fully expected to offer the now-discontinued CT6 alongside the CT5. However, Caddy’s parent company, General Motors, quickly realized that its plans to axe assembly of internal combustion vehicles at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant spelled an early end for the CT6. That would have made the CT5, which at the time of the decision, had yet to be released, the sole Cadillac sedan offered in North America. The idea didn’t sit well with some Cadillac execs, especially considering the marque’s storied history built on sedans.
Enter the Cadillac CT4. This vehicle would not only allow Caddy to compete in the C-segment sedan space, which was the fastest-growing sedan segment at the time, but it could also be developed without much investment thanks to the outgoing ATS Sedan. That’s because the CT4 was essentially a reskinned ATS Sedan, as most of the expensive bits from the Cadillac ATS Sedan – whose last model year yeas 2019 – were repurposed to create the CT4, including most of the underlying platform and body stampings.
When developing the CT4, Cadillac kept the general architecture of the ATS Sedan intact, albeit with key revisions. For example, the vehicle was given new front and rear ends with “bolt-ons” and “inserts” like new headlights, taillights, bumpers and grilles. Compared to creating all-new body stampings on a new platform, adding these new pieces on an existing architecture with a carry-over greenhouse is relatively inexpensive.
Under the skin, a new electrical architecture was implemented for the CT4, swapping out Global A in favor of the much newer Global B, which facilitates advanced technologies such as Super Cruise and its various updates. Additionally, the CT4 retained some mechanical components found in the ATS, like the twin-turbocharged 3.6L V6 engine (production code LF4), which is now found in the ultra-high-performance CT4-V Blackwing. The eight-speed automatic transmission, which mates to the turbocharged 2.0L I4 engine (production code LSY), was lifted from the CT5, which in turn inherited it from the ATS Sedan and third-gen CTS Sedan.
Speaking of the 2.0L I4 LSY engine, it replaced the ATS’ 2.0L I4 engine (production code LTG); in a similar vein, the turbocharged 2.7L I4 engine (production code L3B) – available on the CT4 Premium Luxury and standard on the CT4-V – took the place of the 3.6L V6 (production code LGX). Finally, the ten-speed transmission included with the L3B engine or optional on the CT4-V Blackwing, was added to the lineup over the ATS. The introduction of Global B plus all the powertrain changes resulted in the creation of the Alpha 2 platform as a successor to Alpha 1 that underpinned the ATS and gen three CTS ranges.
Additionally, borrowing design elements and parts from the Cadillac CT5 interior allowed the luxury marque to save even more when developing the CT4, and that’s how the Cadillac CT4 as we know it today was created.
It’s also worth noting just how smart the decision to repurpose the ATS Sedan as the CT4 was. Though widely praised for its driving dynamics, the ATS Sedan ended up becoming one of the smallest vehicles in the D luxury sedan segment during its lifecycle. To address this issue, Cadillac created the CT5, while reskinning the ATS Sedan as the CT4 and repositioning it into a C-segment entry.
In short, the Cadillac CT4 would not have seen the light of day if the Cadillac CT6 hadn’t been subject to an early discontinuation. So, in a way, the untimely demise of the CT6 allowed the CT4 to live. We’re sure many of you would have preferred the CT6 to have remained instead of the CT4, but ce la vie.
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