I ‘m a huge fan of what GM has done with Cadillac over the past few years. After all, for a brand that was famous for not only being the vehicle which most people took their last ride in, but also one that they often drove leading up to that occasion, the brand has done a makeover worthy of a reality TV show. It’s a fact that nowadays you’re more likely to see a young up-and-coming businessman/woman behind the wheel of a Cadillac than a retired grandparent. Now you’ve got to give GM serious kudos for this transformation and I, for one, am over the moon with the new image of the brand.

You know, I can remember the first time I laid eyes on the new CTS. It literally hit me up beside the head like a lead balloon. The styling was not simply up-to-date, but years ahead of its time. And the power on offer! If this was a Caddy built for your average grandfather, then whilst I wasn’t looking, he must have been popping Viagra like M&Ms!

Yes, the CTS-V was wonderful, along with its delicious station-wagon version, but what about this new CTS Coupe? Will it add to the success story, or is this perhaps the first pimple on the neck of this young reinvented brand?

Well, from the front, it’s still the Cindy Crawford of automobiles. However, the rear is perhaps better compared to her famous facial feature. Naturally, one could live with the mole, but somehow you’d always be thinking that perhaps she’d look better without it.

In truth, I don’t really know what happened at Cadillac. Perhaps whilst the original CTS design team was taking a well-earned break in Kuala Lumpur or wherever it is that car designers go for their holidays, GM parachuted in another team to work on the rear. Now that’s fair enough, after all, the original CTS team deserve a break after all their hard work. However, it strikes me that it might have been a tad smart to have let the rear-end guys take a little peek at the front-end styling before they put pen to paper, as that in a nut shell is what’s gone wrong here!

The car just doesn’t sit right. It slopes up too aggressively from the front, and without even looking, you know there’s going to be a price to pay for this around the back, and there is! However, I can perhaps live with that. In fact, this wouldn’t be the first exterior of a vehicle to unsettle me only to have it grow on me over time. So let’s jump in!

Well, it appears that looks are not the only drawback to this rakish design! Now I’m 6ft 1inch, which I guess is tall, but I’m not exactly in the realm of the jolly green giant. However, I had some real issues getting comfortable in this vehicle. Yes, my head managed to fit up into the hole made for the sunroof (I couldn’t imagine what it would be like without one), but the said hole was 3-4 inches in from the door opening, which involved a 10% tilt of head inwards. Now problem, I’ll just recline the seat slightly and lower it! Eh no, because them I felt like a chimpanzee swinging from the steering wheel, and if I attempted the old arm-out-of-the-window cruising pose, because of the vehicle’s high waistline, I then assumed the role of a demented chimpanzee hanging from a steering wheel.

Of course, maybe this new Cadillac was designed for the younger generation and not for a 50-year-old fart like me. Maybe, I needed to get down with the boyz and learn to cruise like those who can’t afford belts and wear their heads/hats back-to-front. Possibly, but somehow I just feel that the design is all wrong. Not only does it take away from what is otherwise a superb interior cabin, but also wrecks the rearward vision (and with the small rear window, that wasn’t overly impressive in the first place).