Here's another overseas opinion to backup my European buddy
The sizes of the roads have nothing to do with the choice of size. American cars always have been bigger, but we have trucks and busses here too. It has more to do with our taxsystem. You pay more monthly road tax (something you don't have in the US) the heavier your car is and the bigger the engine displacement. You had and have to be a 'big spender' to afford an American car.
Well, most of the square 80's and 90's US designs were absolutely not appealing to the Europeans if you also have to bear more financial load. This is an image that has been built up for a very long time and thus persisting.
This road tax expires after 25 years. Your car is then concidered a classic. So the Old classic US cars you see more and more over here. Myself I have shipped my 70 Eldorado from California to Holland after I drove it for half a year in AZ when I was in flight school.
I was never really interested in any other American car, until Cadillac came out with their new stealth design. The CTS is in the BMW 3, Audi A4, Mercedes C section and does well. Finally Cadillac nailed it to have a (to European stadards) big engine displacement but with a good fuel efficiency.
Do you remeber the Catera? It was based on the Opel Omega platform. A little pimped up, but not really attractive to the US market it seemed. And there has been a lot of (international) platform swapping in the past among other brands.
Also Chrysler has (always had) a succesful base in Europe. They always seem to have models that appealed to European standards and there are also models and packages that were never released in the US and vise versa. They recently created the Crossblade out of European standards. I think it looks nice.
Chrysler always had their own dealership. But Chevy and Cadillac could only be accuired through the Opel Dealer who, actually, knew jack sh*t about it. Not too surprising, also the workshop quality could be questionable and parts had long delivery time. All in all, not so good for the US car image...
The BLS could be a very important and successful step of Cadillac to set foot in Europe. Based on the Saab 93 platform it already has a European feel. But the CTS is a head turner here too! People are just surprised it's a Cadillac!!! Cadillac has no commercials here and only the freaks (like me) know about (the new and improved) Cadillac. Indeed, IMO, standard of the world again. I am only one of hundreds CTS drivers in Germany and Holland. It is almost an event when I meet a fellow CTS driver on the road. We salute eachother!
Anyway, the start is there. The attention of the people is there. As their curiosity rizes when they see a CTS and want to know what car it is (I love it when I see people in the car behind me at traffic lights lean over their steering wheel trying to read the small Cadillac badge! You can see them frown and say C-a-d-i-l-l-a-c ???). Could be a tactic, but I would like to see some commercials for Cadillac too. The BLS is in European standards a very appealing car! BLS, CTS and STS are something like nothing else out here.
And by the way, I LOVE my CTS!