
Look closely at the tail lights for a tasteful homage to the tasteless fins of Cadillac’s glory days. This is post-Lutz art and science, so the original’s severe forms have been softened to add some conventional beauty to the mix, but it’s still bolder than the competition and distinctively Cadillac. With the new SRX, Cadillac has successfully transferred its Stealth fighter-influenced “art and science” aesthetic to the proportions people clearly prefer in a crossover.

Copy cat, cop out, or simply the right way to go? Perhaps all three-they’re not mutually exclusive. For the second-generation SRX it has essentially taken the Lexus RX-chunky proportions, front-wheel-drive platform-and styled it like a Cadillac. But it did not win the comparison tests that really mattered, and was greatly outsold by the Lexus.Ĭadillac didn’t repeat this mistake (yet). The original Cadillac SRX won buff book comparison tests. Should Cadillac do the same, or make the most of a rear-wheel-drive chassis with a longer, lower, more wagon-like shape? Ultimately they opted for the road less traveled-a route even the purveyor of ultimate driving machines dared not take-and paid the price. Lexus with its pioneering RX had opted for the chunkiness of an SUV. It was conceived in cluelessness, with even the vehicle’s basic proportions subject to much doubt. Constraints imposed by borrowing heavily from the CTS sedan weren’t the only challenges faces by the designers of the original SRX. So, if nothing else, the new SRX should look a lot better than the old one.
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Designers would once again be free to execute their visions. Engineers would no longer decide what could and could not be done. Marketers with questionable taste would no longer interfere. Upon arriving at GM, he reduced the power of both marketing and engineering in favor of design. And yet Lutz, often proclaimed the ultimate “car guy,” started out in sales and marketing. Historically, the “car guys” within the auto makers have been engineers. What does it tell us about what Lutz was able to accomplish, and about what work remains? The Cadillac SRX 2.8 turbo is the most expensive-and so least cost-constrained-of these new cars. In retiring (not for the first time, but probably for the last time), Lutz has declared this mission accomplished, with GM’s latest cars as proof. Shortly before the towers fell (it seems so long ago) Rick Wagoner answered many an auto journalist’s prayers by recruiting the living legend to dramatically improve the company’s product development process and the cars it yields. Figuratively as well as literally, Bob Lutz’s work at GM is now done.
