Cadillac’s new flagship will share a cradle  with the new Buick LaCrosse but will be wider and more luxurious, industry and General Motors sources say.

The Cadillac, code-named XTS, is expected in 2011 and will replace the front-drive DTS and rear-drive STS, the sources say. The X in the code-name suggests that all-wheel drive will be optional or standard.

The car is part of an emerging strategy for Cadillac that mirrors BMW’s three-car lineup of small, medium, and large. The CTS would be the medium-size car, and a new small Cadillac also is expected in 2011, sources say.

GM has made little secret of the new flagship, showing a drawing of the concept to dealers at a meeting last month in Detroit. Details are emerging about its platform and production site.

The new flagship may be assembled at GM’s Oshawa, Ontario, plant, the Canadian Auto Workers union says.

GM told the CAW last month that the Oshawa plant will be getting two new midsize sedans, says Chris Buckley, CAW Local 222 president.

While the specific models were not revealed to the CAW local, “there is a very real possibility that a Cadillac will be built in the city of Oshawa,” Buckley says.

Oshawa will produce a hybrid, short-wheelbase sedan in the first quarter of 2011, and a long-wheelbase sedan will go into production in 2013, said Jennifer Wright, a GM Canada spokeswoman. She declined to reveal the brand of the new models.

The Cadillac sedan will be developed on GM’s new global midsize vehicle platform, industry sources say. The first U.S. vehicle developed on that front-drive platform is the 2010 LaCrosse, which goes on sale this month.

But sources say that platform will be modified, creating a car that is 1.5 to 2.0 inches wider than other vehicles developed on the same platform. The LaCrosse is 73.1 inches wide, already about a half-inch wider than the CTS.

A source says Cadillac wants the cabin comfort that buyers expect in a luxury vehicle. Overall, the Cadillac sedan will be about 200 inches long. By comparison, the redesigned 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-class sedan is 191.7 inches long and 75.9 inches wide.

Still to be determined is whether all-wheel drive will be standard or optional on the Cadillac XTS.

The Oshawa car plant produces the Chevrolet Impala and the Camaro on separate lines. Buckley says the line for the rear-wheel-drive Camaro is flexible and can assemble rear-wheel and front-wheel-drive vehicles.

General Motors Co. said it canceled plans for a Buick sport-utility vehicle announced Aug. 6 after potential customers said in person and online that the model lacked luxury touches they expect of the brand.

The decision was made Aug. 14, after GM earlier in the week showed the SUV and other future vehicles to consumers, dealers, employees, analysts and news reporters, Vice Chairman Tom Stephens said yesterday on a company blog. One blogger called it “hideous” and users of Twitter dubbed it the “Vuick.”

“We were all struck by the consistency of the criticism,” Stephens wrote. “It didn’t fit the premium characteristics that customers have come to expect from Buick.” He didn’t elaborate on the vehicle’s shortcomings.

The decision to cancel the Buick was based on all of the input, face-to-face, blogs and tweets, Christopher Barger, GM’s spokesman for social media, said in an interview. No matter how they expressed it “they just didn’t like it.”

The plug-in hybrid technology that was to be used for the Buick SUV will be applied to another vehicle that Detroit-based GM will discuss soon, Stephens wrote. GM had said it would begin selling the plug-in hybrid version in 2011, after the gasoline- only model began sales in late 2010.

“It’s obviously a sign of a faster GM and a GM more open to outside feedback,” said Jim Hall, principal of auto consulting firm 2953 Analytics in Birmingham, Michigan. “It also suggests there were already concerns inside the company about the product.”

Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson has said he wants to transform GM to be more responsive to customers and make speedier decisions.

Dubbed ‘Vuick’

Negative feedback spread on Twitter Inc.’s site after users began calling the vehicle a “Vuick,” a reference to GM’s Saturn Vue that provided the basis for the Buick. It looked more like a retread than a fresh design, they said. Detractors began using the “#Vuick” name as a hash tag — an indexing tool on Twitter that lets users quickly find messages on the same topic.

Rebranding a mediocre model with a new name was typical of the “old GM,” blogger Joel Feder said last week on his Twitter account. He called the car hideous and a crying shame. “#Vuick must die,” Feder wrote.

Twitter, used by Oprah Winfrey, Britney Spears and the British monarchy, lets users post 140-character messages. The speed and popularity of the San Francisco-based service has turned it into a source of breaking news and consumer trends.

Twitter had 20.1 million U.S. users in June, according to research firm ComScore Inc. in Reston, Virginia. That made it the third most popular social-networking site, behind Facebook Inc. and News Corp.’s MySpace.

Other Small SUV

GM still plans a different small Buick SUV that it referred to as the “baby Enclave,” Stephens said. The Enclave is a sport-utility vehicle built on a car platform with three rows of seats.

Buick’s U.S. sales peaked in 1984 at 941,611, according to trade publication Automotive News. By 2008, that total had dwindled to 137,200 units, a 26 percent drop from a year earlier.

The brand is popular in China, where Buick sedans are used to chauffeur Communist Party leaders. Sales surged almost tenfold from 2000 through last year to 280,255, consulting firm IHS Global Insight Inc. said.

Fuel Efficiency

Hall said the plug-in hybrid system that was going to be used for the canceled Buick SUV originally was intended for the Saturn Vue, part of a brand GM is selling. Adapting the system to another SUV will probably mean added costs and reduced performance because the likely candidates, the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain, are larger than the Vue, Hall said.

“Bottom line is they probably can’t afford not to do it in some form” with the new emphasis on vehicles powered by electricity, he said.

GM, which is 61 percent-owned by the U.S. Treasury after a government-backed bankruptcy, is introducing models with greater fuel efficiency as federal mileage requirements rise 35 percent by 2016.

The plug-in hybrid system that would have been used in the Buick SUV shares some technology with the Chevrolet Volt car, which is powered by lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged through a household electrical outlet. The Volt, an electric- drive vehicle with an on-board generator, is scheduled to go on sale in November 2010. The Buick would have been powered by its electric motor or gasoline-burning engine.

General Motors has dropped plans for a new Buick sport utility vehicle because of a lack of consumer interest, only two weeks after the new model was announced, the company said Wednesday.

The automaker canceled plans for the vehicle, which also called for a plug-in hybrid version, after potential customers invited to G.M.’s testing ground last week said the model did not have the premium characteristics they expected from Buick.

Thomas G. Stephens, G.M.’s vice chairman, wrote Wednesday on a company blog that it did so after “listening to feedback from customers, employees, dealers, media and just about anyone else with an opinion.”

“In the past, this would have been a several-month process,” he said.

At an industry conference on Aug. 6, General Motors announced plans to introduce the five-passenger Buick crossover in 2010 and a plug-in version of the model in 2011.

The Buick was expected to be the first commercially available plug-in sport utility vehicle by a major automaker and to follow General Motors’ heavily promoted Chevrolet Volt plug-in car.

The plug-in hybrid technology will be applied to another vehicle “at no delay” and G.M. will discuss the plans soon, Mr. Stephens said.

2010 Buick LaCrosse

2010 Buick LaCrosse

According to Car and Driver Magazine “The redesigned LaCrosse has a stunning interior, comfort and convenience features to match anything in its class, and road manners that keep the driver interested. The exterior is a bit derivative, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is the most interesting Buick sedan in a long time.” With a “Gorgeous interior, handsome gauge cluster, a back seat spacious enough for anyone.”

Conclusion: “No longer a plodding sofa on wheels, the LaCrosse is competent and displays some friskiness without being so aggressive as to alienate current Buick owners.”

2009 Buick Lucerne

2009 Buick Lucerne

Car and Driver says “This is Buick’s top-of-the-line sedan, sharing its underpinnings with the Cadillac DTS. This is a hushed, relaxed-fit full-size car that is smooth, competent, and unlikely to appeal to anyone under 50 years old. The top-spec Super delivers loads of power and luxury.”  With “Plenty of room and power, old-school luxury cruising at its finest, clean interior design.”
Conclusion: “Quiet cabin, predictable dynamics, and smooth ride. It’s a Buick.”

2008 Buick Enclave

The 2008 Buick Enclave

Motor Trend Says “It’s the type of paradox that makes General Motors’ number of divisions such a dilemma. Buick sells 72 percent of its cars in North America through dealerships shared with Pontiac and GMC. GM hopes to have all those dealers selling all three brands someday soon, so the last thing Buick needs is a rebadged GMC. And yet, to reestablish itself as an aspirational marque for buyers (well) under 65, the first thing it needs is something with the style and elegance of the new Enclave. Success pretty much depends on whether the Enclave’s unique sheetmetal and interior convince buyers to choose it over the likes of Mercedes-Benz R-Class, Lexus RX 350, and Audi Q7. As with other modern unibody SUVs, this living-room luxury-along with market demand for three rows of seats, every type of stability and traction control, and every possible airbag iteration known to man-has offset the weight advantages these new car-based SUVs intend to offer. The 2008 Enclave is 8.4 inches longer than the 2007 Buick Rainier (a two-row SUV) with a six-inch-longer wheelbase. The Rainier tows up to 2200 pounds more than the Enclave and is about 450 pounds lighter. Compared with the three-row V-8 GMC Yukon, though, the Enclave is just 0.2 inch shorter and 600 pounds slimmer. At the $3.50 gas pump, this means plus-2 mpg city and plus-3 mpg highway versus either the Yukon or Rainier six, based on 2007 EPA numbers. The 2008 Enclave uses the new EPA calculation, which drops fuel mileage 1 mpg city, 2 mpg highway for AWD models and 2/2 mpg for FWD models. The real advantage these new things have over trucky SUVs is that they can legitimately be called cars. Tall as it is, with its length and proportions, the Buick Enclave melds SUV and minivan into a modern station-wagon shape, heir to an early 1950s Roadmaster Estate or a 1971 Estate Wagon. Squish one of those wagons at both ends to make it not quite so long, but taller for good interior space, like watching a wide-screen movie on a small, square TV, and you’ve got the Enclave.”