In his recent review of the 2013 Cadillac XTS for the Automobiles section, John Pearley Huffman noted that Cadillac’s new luxury sedan would soon colonize the curbside check-in areas of airports throughout the United States, supplanting the discontinued Lincoln Town Car as the country’s livery workhorse.
Would-be fleet buyers of the XTS have grander designs on the sedan, and judging by a photo posted recently to the Web site of G.M.’s fleet and commercial division, General Motors is happy to oblige them. There, the XTS is depicted in three distinct guises — livery sedan, limousine and hearse — suggesting that the XTS is primed to inherit the mantle vacated by the DTS full-size sedan, the brand’s former fleet chameleon, that ended production this year.
The vehicles may appear ready to ferry a passenger to an airport, prom or place of eternal rest, but David Caldwell, a spokesman for Cadillac, said in a telephone interview that two in the triumvirate were not immediately available.
“Limo and hearse customers will be able to order the chassis by end of year,” he said. The work of stretching and building on the XTS donor vehicle is performed by a group of preapproved manufacturers, called upfitters, who participate in the Cadillac Professional Vehicles Network, Mr. Caldwell added. “This was how it was done with the DTS and other vehicles over the past decade,” he said.
Livery customers can elect a specific option code, which brings options that bear little relation to the vinyl bench seats and tire-iron sleeves that are beloved by some customers.
“The Livery package is just above the center point of what the retail customer would get,” Mr. Caldwell said. “It basically slots between the Premium and Platinum packages.” Such a vehicle would cost a livery customer roughly $50,000. “This might limit the appeal, but we didn’t want anyone to get into the car and think it was a separate or somehow lesser vehicle,” he said.
Cadillac cannot control the extent to which its XTS, marketed to compete against the Lincoln MKS and to lure the occasional shopper from the Mercedes-Benz showroom, is customized. The outer limits of aesthetic decency and frame rigidity, however, will probably be pushed soon, Mr. Caldwell said.
“You have not lived until you’ve attended the Limousine, Charter and Tour convention,” he said.
via wheels.blogs
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