Cadillac Needs to Bring Back the DeVille.

Cadillac is now offering almost only SUVs. Its last sedan is the CT5, a pretty nice car. But one that is really too small and not really as quiet and roomy as you’d expect from a proper Cadillac sedan. What the GM luxury brand really needs is a new DeVille sedan.

At various times in its long history, the Cadillac DeVille series was available as a 4-door sedan, a 2-door coupe, and even a 2-door convertible. Through many generations, the sedan was produced from 1949 to 2006. The 2-door coupe was dropped by 1993. Up to 1977, the 2-door Coupe DeVille was often more popular than the sedan. Something hard to imagine these days, when 2-door cars are very rare in general. These large sedans were always pretty popular for Cadillac, with over 100,000 units sold most years. Of course, sales started going down in the early 2000s. And while the CT6 was a better car than the DeVille ever was, sales numbers never went over 10,542 units back in 2017.

Of course, large luxury sedans are far from being the most popular things these days. But it seems Cadillac will try again soon, with a second generation CT5. I test-drove a few CT5s over the past few years, and they are just not roomy enough. They are also not smooth and quiet enough. These just try too hard to appeal to BMW drivers, for some odd reason. These days, it seems the Escalade is the most luxurious Cadillac you can buy. Which, no matter what, is still an overpriced version of the Chevrolet Tahoe. Which is still a truck, and far from what a luxury car should be. 

The illustrations above show what a new DeVille sedan could look like. Something that would obviously not be that popular these days. Although who knows. I’ve seen weirdest things happen.

The name DeVille is also not well known to current car buyers. But retro does sell. Old names like Integra, Prelude, and others are back.

I say, why not!