These are my feelings:
Overall, a big disappointment. Of the previous vehicles adopting the Art+Science theme, the XLR is the most successful and the SRX the least successful. To keep the momentum, Cadillac should have carried on with what they did with the show cars--give us different iterations or flavors of the overall design language. The STS clearly fails to take the language another step and doesn't even apply it as well as the CTS, the first vehicle out the door with the new look.
It's obvious to me that Lutz (or someone) watered down the look.
The headlight treatment is the weakest element. The lights taper from bottom to top, giving it a static feel that might have been ok on the SRX, which as an SUV needs to look solid and safe. The STS, however, needs to look nimble, rakish, fast, and luxurious. Something a biit narrower that canted inward and tapered from top to bottom, like the Sixteen's headlights, would have been much more distinctive.
The grill doesn't add much to the package--where are some of the lovely grills we saw on the show cars? It's far too small. This car will look even blander with a mesh V-series grill.
The body shape, at least what we've been able to see from the spy shots and the one official photo, neither attempts to apply the design language on a softer overall shape, nor carriers it in the opposite direction, progressing with the knife-edge direction it was first shown with. Instead, it looks tamped down and cheap. This looks like the product of one of GM's factories of old, not the product of fresh thinking.
The old Seville had its own presence, a certain elegance. The new STS looks bland and even a little narrow--it visually doesn't look much larger than the CTS, at least in these photos. There's nothing here to appeal to a BMW or Mercedes or even Lexus driver.
My bottom line: Huge missed opportunity at a very very important moment in the Cadillac comeback. No wonder they didn't show it at Detroit--they knew they blew it.
Overall, a big disappointment. Of the previous vehicles adopting the Art+Science theme, the XLR is the most successful and the SRX the least successful. To keep the momentum, Cadillac should have carried on with what they did with the show cars--give us different iterations or flavors of the overall design language. The STS clearly fails to take the language another step and doesn't even apply it as well as the CTS, the first vehicle out the door with the new look.
It's obvious to me that Lutz (or someone) watered down the look.
The headlight treatment is the weakest element. The lights taper from bottom to top, giving it a static feel that might have been ok on the SRX, which as an SUV needs to look solid and safe. The STS, however, needs to look nimble, rakish, fast, and luxurious. Something a biit narrower that canted inward and tapered from top to bottom, like the Sixteen's headlights, would have been much more distinctive.
The grill doesn't add much to the package--where are some of the lovely grills we saw on the show cars? It's far too small. This car will look even blander with a mesh V-series grill.
The body shape, at least what we've been able to see from the spy shots and the one official photo, neither attempts to apply the design language on a softer overall shape, nor carriers it in the opposite direction, progressing with the knife-edge direction it was first shown with. Instead, it looks tamped down and cheap. This looks like the product of one of GM's factories of old, not the product of fresh thinking.
The old Seville had its own presence, a certain elegance. The new STS looks bland and even a little narrow--it visually doesn't look much larger than the CTS, at least in these photos. There's nothing here to appeal to a BMW or Mercedes or even Lexus driver.
My bottom line: Huge missed opportunity at a very very important moment in the Cadillac comeback. No wonder they didn't show it at Detroit--they knew they blew it.