Cadillac XLR Production to End in 2009
There was a time when it was Cadillac that was on the chopping block over at General Motors, not Saturn, Pontiac or HUMMER. GM’s luxury brand was losing market share to not only the Europeans, but was also losing it to upstart Japanese luxury brands such as Lexus and Infiniti. Rather than shutter the doors and leave Lincoln as the premiere domestic luxury brand, GM put Cadillac through a brand revitalization program. Part of that program involved the creation of the Cadillac XLR retractable-hardtop sports car. Now, some six years later, the last Cadillac XLR will idle down the assembly line this spring.
| Ceasing production of the XLR has a human cost, as well. The XLR was based on the Corvette chassis, and was in fact built alongside the Corvette at the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plan in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Forty XLR workers will be laid off alongside 114 other workers at the plant.
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The idea behind the XLR first saw the light of day in physical form as the Evoq concept car back in 1999. Introduced at the 1999 North American International Auto Show, the Evoq drew critical acclaim from industry watchers and renewed interest from car buyers who had long ago written Cadillac off as a dusty old brand. While the Evoq spawned an entire design ethos which spread to several Cadillac products, the car to most resemble the Evoq in finished form was the XLR.
The XLR was introduced in 2004 to serve two primary purposes. The first was to serve as a desperately needed halo car for the Cadillac brand. Cadillac needed additional proof that it was not stuck building land yachts and unsuccessful smaller cars (the ill-fated Catera comes to mind). The second purpose was to provide Cadillac with a directly competing product against similar cars such as the Lexus SC 430 and the Mercedes-Benz SL500. While the XLR completed its mission as a halo car with admirable success, it is debatable as to what extent the XLR made inroads to a market dominated by the venerable and highly-regarded SL-Class.
This leads us to this week's unfortunate news. Sales of the XLR decreased 28 percent in 2008 compared to 2007. A total of 1,350 units were sold in 2008, almost exactly a quarter of the number of SL cars sold by Mercedes-Benz (5,465 – down 10.8 percent from 2007). Now considered an aging design, the halo effect is diminished, and with a decline in sales it no longer makes sense for Cadillac to keep the XLR alive. This is not to say a similar car will not find a home in Cadillac’s stable in the future, but for now Cadillac hopes potential XLR buyers will move to its CTS and CTS-V cars to fill the gap.
Ceasing production of the XLR has a human cost, as well. The XLR was based on the Corvette chassis, and was in fact built alongside the Corvette at the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plan in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Forty XLR workers will be laid off alongside 114 other workers at the plant. These layoffs are scheduled to happen by March 1st. The Corvette will be unaffected by the closure of the XLR line, and GM has stated the Corvette brand has a long and secure future with the company.
For 2009, the XLR is being offered in Platinum and XLR-V trims. The two-door, two-passenger XLR was – somewhat surprisingly – updated for the 2009 model year. The Platinum is equipped with Cadillac's 4.6L Northstar V8, which produces 320 horsepower and delivers up to 24 miles per gallon on the highway. The base MSRP on the Platinum comes in at $86,215, putting it a full $12,000 less expensive than the SL500, but almost $20,000 more than the Lexus SC 430. The XLR-V is equipped with a supercharged 4.4L V8 producing 443 horsepower and up to 23 miles per gallon on the highway. The high-performance XLR-V has a starting MSRP of $104,215, but for your extra cash you get a Cadillac capable of doing zero to 60 in 4.7 seconds and features a quarter-mile time of 13.0 seconds at 110 miles per hour. The top track speed of the XLR-V is 180 miles per hour, but on the street it is limited to a “mere” 155.
By: Todd Jensen, Autotropolis Editor
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