Cadillac destined for Oz

GM's premium Cadillac brand is still on the agenda for Australia, according to Holden boss Denny Mooney. "In the first quarter of next year, we'll be more specific about the (Cadillac) plans," he told Carpoint at the recent Australian International Motor Show.

"When they've [Cadillac] got a full range of right-hand-drive products we'll bring them in. We've got right-hand-drive CTSs running around right now," Mooney revealed. The CTS is a mid-sized luxury sedan that competes in international markets with low-end variants of the BMW 5 Series and Mercedes E-class.

Mooney says "a full portfolio of products" is required in order to enable dealers to make a business out of selling Cadillacs. He reiterated that the premium US brand could be launched here "inside of two years".

How will it impact on Saab? "I don't think it'll impact much. Cadillac and Saab sell in the same markets all over the world," Mooney said. "They're very different kinds of customers, and very different kinds of cars."

What about Caprice? "Once again, it's very different kind of car. The kind of customers you go after [with Cadillac] are not necessarily shopping Holden. They're shopping Mercedes, BMW, Lexus… Those kinds of vehicles. That's who they're going against in the US, and that's who they'd need to go against here."

Asked what sort of sales volumes Cadillac would need to generate locally to make the business case add up, Mooney said: "Lexus has been here for 16 years, and we've got a lot of data on how they've tried to build the brand. Mercedes and BMW sell about 15,000 cars and they've got a pretty good business, but we'd only need to sell half of that to make a go of it."

Adding weight to the prospects of the iconic brand making an appearance Down Under, GM global chief Bob Lutz said at the recent Frankfurt motor show that General Motors would not "let Australia be a white-spot on the global Cadillac map" as it developed new right-hand drive models.

"Right now in right-hand drive we have the BLS, CTS and the successor to the next-generation CTS, so at this point it is a somewhat limited line to two saloons, and I think to get adequate coverage of the Australian market we also want to do the large saloons, the STS and probably the SRX, neither of which are right-hand drive at this point," Lutz said.

The BLS is a compact-sized sedan based on the Saab 9-3 and is being pitched in Europe against the likes of the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4. Although it borrows the 9-3's underpinnings, the BLS is clearly identifiable as a Cadillac from the outside. That said, the interior has some telltale Saab cues.

Two petrol engines will be offered in the BLS -- a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder and a Holden-sourced 190kW Alloytec 2.8-litre twin-turbo V6. The 2.0-litre is offered in two states of tune -- producing 129kW and 155kW respectively.