The Cadillac BLS is a strange beast,
particularly to us Yanks. It’s a front-wheel drive Caddy based on the Saab 9-3 that’s being produced for
two purposes. The first is to flesh out Cadillac’s fledgling range in Europe and get the American luxury marque
closer to annual sales of 20,000 units by 2010. (Last year Cadillac sold 2,000 units in Europe).
The BLS,
however, is produced at Saab’s Trollhattan factory in Sweden, which also produces the 9-3 and 9-5 for Saab. The
factory is currently underused and building Cadillacs there helps keep the workers busy. They’ll have a lot more
time on their hands when production of the next generation Saab 9-3 and 9-5 is moved to Opel’s factory in
Ruesselsheim, Germany, according to Autoweek.
A BLS Wagon would instantly fill some of that excess production capacity at the Trollhattan plant while also
giving Cadillac another Euro-only model in its lineup. GM Europe President, Carl-Peter Forster, has already confirmed
plans to build a few thousand BLS wagons a year starting in mid-2007.