Cadillac design director Bob Boniface has revealed an interesting fact about the ATS Coupe, more specifically about its design, which apparently wasn’t entirely Cadillac’s work.
In an interview with The Detroit News, Boniface revealed that the initial version of the ATS Coupe was more aggressive than the final result, more in tune with the CTS Coupe. However, potential customers surveyed in clinics didn’t like it, with their conclusions being it looked to heavy, inefficient and not fun to drive.
Since “our customer is our boss,” Cadillac says it toned down the design of the ATS Coupe, with the result being the car that you see in dealerships.
“In the case of the ATS Coupe, we listened to the customer. We had an earlier version which is more severe with a lot more wedge and rake to the belt. The side body was thicker. The grille… more severe. Customers told us that it looked heavy, inefficient – it didn’t look fun to drive. So we brought that information back to the studio and we took as much visual mass out of the car as we could,” Boniface said in the interview.
While I don’t think the ATS Coupe looks bad, it would have been nice if the styling was a bit more on the aggressive side, especially since it targets younger customers than the CTS Coupe. Let’s just hope Cadillac’s designers won’t be as easily influenced when it (hopefully) comes to the all-new CTS Coupe.
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