184
The Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept was designed as a luxury sedan/personal headquarters — built for luxury and connectivity. It's like a giant Vertu cell phone encased in a cocoon of blubber hiding in a sleek, stylish spaceship-like metal muumuu.
The concept previews a new integration philosophy guiding the development of future wreath-and-shield models' in-car electronics. The intent is to progress Cadillac's intuitive in- car electronics systems from deployable touch-screen navigation systems in the CTS and SRX product lines to a minimization of traditional buttons and switches. Designers blended the display screens into a flowing instrument panel they call a "dead front" design, because the panels appear black until the car is turned on and the screens illuminate. Also, because in the XTS concept's current incarnation — the STS and DTS — it's probably the last car many owners will ever own because they're in their 80s.
On the outside, the XTS Platinum Concept has a distinctive proportion that supposedly "transcends the traditional aesthetic of luxury sedans and carries the brand's Art and Science design in a more progressive manner." We think the sleek profile and short, high deck lid makes it look like a spaceship on steroids. We kinda like it — but only in that "wow, look, it's a techno-barge from the 21st-and-a-half century" kind of way. It's the kind of thing we hope we never end up buying, but it we did, we'd play with all the toys and run our hands over the piano black instrument panel until we'd rubbed the gloss right off. Because frankly, it's just damn sexy. Is that American luxury? Not lately it hasn't been, no.
