General Motors said that the company's Cadillac luxury car brand will be adopting a new naming scheme for its vehicles as Johan de Nysschen, the new leader of the unit, continues his overhaul of Cadillac.
In accordance with the new naming scheme, the next flagship sedan that will be released by Cadillac will be named CT6. The CT6 will be first vehicle of Cadillac to conform to the new naming scheme, and will be aiming to compete with high-end cars manufactured by German rivals such as Mercedes Benz and BMW.
According to General Motors, the simple name for the CT6 "indicates a coming shift to a simplified naming convention for future Cadillac models."
The CT letters come from CTS, which is Cadillac's best-selling luxury sedan. The letters will continue to be used on upcoming cars by Cadillac along with a number that will specify the position and size of the vehicle compared to the other Cadillac models.
Cadillac chief marketing officer Uwe Ellinghaus said that the new naming style will gradually be adopted by the brand, and that the name of a car will only be changed if it has undergone a redesign or if an entirely new model is manufactured.
Many of the global brands of luxury cars are using a similar alphanumeric style for naming car models. For example, BMW uses an X to name its crossover cars, which is then combined with a number as an indication of the vehicle's size. This naming style can be seen in BMW's X1, X3 and X5 vehicles.
The rear-wheel-drive CT6 will be manufactured at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant of General Motors and will be launched as a year 2016 model. The CT6 will be placed above the brand's current CTS and XTS sedans and is expected to command a price tag over $50,000.
The CT6 is also viewed as a new product and not as a replacement of an existing Cadillac model, which necessitates its adoption of the new naming scheme. It will be using the Omega, which is a new form of vehicle architecture developed by General Motors. The CT6 will also contain high-tech features for driver assistance, including the Super Cruise system of General Motors that activates semi-automated steering, brakes and throttle for use in driving on freeways.
The new naming scheme and the development of the CT6 is part of the brand's current strategy that looks to recover the prestige that the band once had almost two decades ago.
Included in the strategy is the separation of Cadillac as a different business unit, which will be moving its headquarters from Detroit Michigan, to the SoHo neighborhood of New York.
