Cadillac Urban Luxury Concept

LA Auto Show: Cadillac's New Urban Concept

The last time Cadillac gave us a small, or smallish, car, it was a disaster--the Cimarron, sold during the 1980s. It was a weak attempt by General Motors to put a Caddy in the market that got better fuel economy than its big sedans. But the underlying engineering platform was shared with the Chevy Cavalier, and it felt like it.

GM, a day before it starts selling stock in the new post-bankruptcy company, is showing a small, "urban" Cadillac concept car at the Los Angeles Auto Show that could lead to a car Cadillac can sell to U.S., European and Asian buyers who are looking at similar cars from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Peugeot, Renault and soon, BMW.

Called The Urban Luxury Concept, the car has a wheelbase of just 97 inches with an overall length of 151 inches. The width is 68.1 inches and the height is just under 57 inches.

There is a lot of fanciful interior touches to show how interior space can be maximized through innovation with the instruments. Projectors and a slew of capacitive touch screens that glow tanzanite blueish-purple take the place of knobs. There's also a hide-away right-hand touch pad. See the details in the gallery.

Gallery: Cadillac Urban Car Concept