Cadillac Teases '08 CTS Sedan, Possible '09 Coupe

DETROIT — The redesigned Cadillac CTS sedan that will be formally unveiled in January and begins arriving at dealers in late summer will be joined in mid-2009 by a sister model — an all-new compact sport coupe that may be called Cadillac CTC, sources say.

Cadillac on Tuesday sent news media a teaser shot of the front end of the '08 CTS, with global design boss Ed Welburn and product development czar Bob Lutz posing on either side of the signature egg-crate grille.

The official premiere takes place in early January during media preview days at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The '08 CTS goes into production in July at GM's Lansing plant and will likely be assembled at other locations, including Russia and China.

Cadillac so far has declined to release details on the next CTS or even to confirm the existence of the CTC coupe that's slated to begin production in late spring 2009, other than to say the new CTS interior will be much higher quality.

Supplier sources say a beefed-up 3.6-liter or 3.9-liter V6, mated to a six-speed automatic transmission, will likely be the base powertrain combination, with either a 6.0-liter LS7 V8 or a supercharged 4.4-liter Northstar V8 powering the next-generation CTS-V that arrives in model-year 2009 and the proposed V-Series CTC that could begin production in 2010.

Both the 2008 CTS sedan and the 2009 CTC coupe will ride on an updated version of GM's rear-wheel-drive Sigma platform. There is a provision for all-wheel drive, but there is no word so far on plans to add an AWD variant.

Cadillac also is said to be considering a convertible variant of the CTC, possibly with a retractable hardtop.

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