This is rare 3 way fail.
GM failed..
Caddy couldn't give the BLS away and it failed
Saab failed



http://www.autoblog.com/2010/04/17/r...s-development/

Well, it's certainly a good-looking small sedan, IMO. To bad that substance, here, didn't equal style.

Here's the interior:



It also had a wagon version:

Serious waste of money past/present.

Yeah it's amazing to think they thought that was going to sell.

Oddly I like the exterior.

Yeah, Mike, it's hard to criticize its looks. I just wonder how well it would have done in the U.S. Its obvious competition would have been the Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ, which hasn't done badly at all.

Cadillac Bad Looking Saloon

Perhaps it was a waste of funds, but $140 million, by GM standards, wasn't even a drop in the bucket.

In a free capitalist economy, that is also one of the chances you take running a buisness. Some expenditures are going to be successful; others not.

It would be a drop in the bucket for most automakers. Except GM was bankrupt with a negative net worth. They had more debt than assets. They had more debt than cash. They had a zero money essentially, broke ***. GM is example of how poorly run a company can be, a broken business model, a poor example of capitalism at work.

The car is a proven failure, and ugly too.

It was a very poor car and nobody over here was ever going to pay real money for it. They made decent (read: cheap) second-hand buys once depreciation had savaged it, but the local Cadillac dealer to me rapidly went out of business when it launched and the rest soon followed. The trouble is Cadillac has no brand equity in Europe and no-one is going to pay more than what would be spent on a mid-priced Korean saloon for one. It also looked, to many people, like a Vauxhall Vectra with a posh grille.
I confess that the estate version looked ok to me.


Everyone loves the big Cadillacs of the 50s but there does not seem to be a link from them in peoples' minds to what is offered today.

The BLS, though, was developed before GM went bankrupt (which was just last year). How much it contributed to the bankrupcy is a debatable point.


Failure in the marketplace, yes, but Mike and I both seem to like its looks.

Not surprising. This would not be the first Cadillac to share a platform with Saab and Vauxhall. That was also true of the old Catera, which, of course, suffered from poor reliability as well. And, unlike the BLS, I can't honestly say I liked the Catera's looks.


The 60's-vintage Caddies, in some ways, were even nicer, although none of them had the extreme flamboyance of the famous 1959 model....a favorite of singer Evis Presley, who actually gave them away as gifts to people he liked. But, in the 1950's, Cadillacs were not necessarily considered Grandpa/Grandma, white-hair cars...that stereotype did not come in till later on.

Today, Cadillac sedans have pretty much forgotten what the brand really stood for, and are generally trying to copy BMW and Mercedes.

Yes, but Mike is car savy enough to know a dud when he sees one: "Yeah it's amazing to think they thought that was going to sell."


GM was already a dead company at the time, not saying this car contributed significantly. The balance sheet prior to declaring bankruptcy already resembled a horribly failed business.

Looks are subjective, certainly every opinion will be different. Having impaired vision could he helpful in this case.

The car is a documented failure as of today (4/20/10).

I liked the BLS, I'm sad it didn't do well.

And I'm w. mmarshall and Mike on this one, I like it's looks.

I kinda like the exterior......................

It is not always easy to predict success or failure with an all-new model. The actual designers/marketers of the original Mustang, Mazda Miata, Dodge/Plymouth minivans, and Chrysler PT Cruiser, for example, did not actually expect them to sell well, and yet they became sensations overnight. Conversely, some vehicles that WERE expected by their companies to sell well, like the VW Phaeton (because of the great bargain it was, price-wise, compared to its V12 BMW/Mercedes rivals), did not.



Of course it is....at least in Europe. I never said otherwise. But one will never know how well it might (or might not) have done here. The sister Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ (which would probably have ben its closest competitor) has actually done pretty well...but the MKZ, of course, has an AWD option.