Coupe Earns Laurels While Losing Wreath
2015 Cadillac ATS Coupe Review
By LAWRENCE ULRICHAUG. 15, 2014

If Yoda were a luxury-car analyst, he would advise and soothe Cadillac with a Jedi epigram: Patience you must have.

After decades in the desert, followed by a long climb to relevancy, Cadillac came out fighting in 2013 with a veritable light saber of a sport sedan, the ATS. Measured solely on athletic handling and fun-to-drive factors, the ATS pulled off the unthinkable: It defeated the dark emperor of the class, the BMW 3 Series.

That the BMW beats the Cadillac in most other categories — engines, transmissions, mileage, seating comfort and trunk space — just shows that Cadillac must keep on training if it’s to unseat a brand and a model that have had a 40-year head start.

Cadillac’s 38,000 ATS sales last year might seem disappointing, compared with 97,000 for the 3 Series sedan and 79,000 for the Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan. Yet the glass-half-full view is that, as an opening salvo in this hypercompetitive segment, selling nearly 40,000 compact Cadillac sport sedans isn’t half bad. (The ATS did outsell the Audi A4.)

The more troubling statistic might be that sales of ATS sedans have fallen 21 percent this year, through July, according to AutoData. General Motors is halting production of the ATS and the larger CTS for three weeks because of swollen inventories.

This all suggests that Cadillac needs to do more to get the ATS on buyers’ radar. Or that shoppers have seen the positive reviews, but aren’t yet convinced that Cadillac’s cars or image measure up to the Europeans’.

As a slowly reviving Jaguar has learned, the only answer to that is to keep pushing, delivering so many worthy models to market that you can no longer be ignored or belittled.

The ATS coupe shows Caddy pushing ahead, filling a market hole with a hot-driving foil to the BMW 4 Series, Mercedes C-Class coupe, Audi A5 and coming Lexus RC.

While its sedan cousin is handsome, the coupe looks more sporting, and seems far more persuasive on the street than in auto show displays. Bob Boniface, Cadillac’s design director, says that while the brand doesn’t put much stock in focus groups, it went back to the drawing board when consumers overwhelmingly rejected a muscled, high-waisted version that resembled a smaller CTS. “There was a lot more visual mass and heft, and people really picked up on it,” Mr. Boniface said in a recent interview. “We got religion and changed everything.”

The showroom version emphasizes width and streamlined elegance, with slimmer roof pillars, lower window sills and larger rear glass. The coupe introduces Cadillac’s modernized grille and wreathless crest emblem, which the sedan is adopting for 2015.

The coupe shares the sedan’s 109.3-inch wheelbase, but it’s nearly an inch longer and 1.4 inches wider, with a 1.1-inch lower roof. The wide-body coupe looks especially strong and well-planted from behind, with subtly canted taillamps. Eighteen-inch alloy wheels and tires are staggered, with grippier, one-inch-wider rubber in back.

You pay a price for this style in the back seat, which gives up headroom to BMW and Audi coupes. Legroom is better, with just enough space to quell most complaints. But the front seats could be more supportive for hard driving and more comfortable for the long haul. Those seats remain a weak spot for Cadillac, compared with the thrones of Audi, BMW and Mercedes.

The cabin hits its deluxe cues with reasonable aplomb, including available semianiline leather. The Cue infotainment system, while improving, remains a work in progress. A clever touch: Its central control panel powers open to reveal a hidden cubby.

Standard features, also found on the 2015 sedan, include keyless entry, Bose audio, remote starter and capless fuel filler. The coupe is also the first among dozens of 2015 G.M. models to adopt a 4G LTE connection for the OnStar communications system — said to be 100 times faster than before — that can link up to seven wireless devices to the Internet for as little as $5 a month. Wireless phone charging is another optional attraction, as is Siri Eyes Free text-to-voice functions for iPhones.

Internet speed aside, driving velocity is the ATS’s forte. Maximum torque of its standard 272-horsepower, 2-liter turbo 4-cylinder has been raised to 295 pound-feet, nearly 14 percent more than the 2014 sedan’s.

With the lightest base curb weight in the class at 3,418 pounds, the ATS can sprint from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 5.6 seconds, Cadillac says, and even a touch quicker for models with the 3.6-liter, 321-horsepower V6. I slightly prefer the V6’s smoother power delivery and sound, though the 4-cylinder makes the ATS feel more urgent.

The torque-enriched 4-cylinder does feel slightly more decisive than before, with less turbo lag. Starting at $38,990, this 2-liter version also offers an increasingly rare 6-speed manual shifter. Most ATS coupes will come with a 6-speed automatic with magnesium paddle shifters. All-wheel drive is an option with either engine, for roughly $1,700.

I drove both a 2.0T Luxury model that starts at $42,915 and reached $47,735 with options, and a well-stuffed 3.6L AWD Premium coupe that started at $52,430 and topped out at $54,025.

That Premium model comes with a Magnetic Ride Control suspension that adjusts to the road surface every millisecond, along with a limited-slip differential and sticky summer tires.

Unlike some competing systems, the magnetic suspension changes the Cadillac’s comportment in a way you can really feel. The comfortable Touring mode is about 10 percent softer than the standard model’s mechanical suspension, and the Sport mode is about 20 percent stiffer.

On secluded roads in northern Connecticut, the coupe reminded me of what makes the sedan such a winner: The ZF electric steering is pure and precise and the chassis is absolutely unflappable, thanks in part to excellent weight distribution: 51 percent in front, 49 percent at the rear. Even at road-blurring speeds over ruined asphalt, nothing threw the ATS off its thoroughbred stride.

For decades, automakers from Audi to Infiniti have tried, and failed, to match the soul-stirring handling of BMW’s 3 Series (and now, the 4 Series coupe). On the fleet heels of the ATS sedan, this new Cadillac coupe does exactly that. The critics are bowled over, yet the public remains unmoved. For Cadillac, the trick will be to turn all those glowing reviews into a bonfire of sales.