Pinnacle of the midsize sports luxury sedan segment, the envy of each car maker. Three decades after launching it, the BMW 3 Series may even be the most benchmarked car in the world. Certainly the all new F30 is no different in that respect.
A common practice among car manufacturers is to get their hands on the newest car model in a segment from their rivals. Once the car is in their possession, a series of tests and measurements are completed by research and product development engineers collecting valuable data to help reverse engineer their benchmark vehicle. In this case, once Cadillac realized that the CTS is more of a BMW 5 Series competitor rather than a 3 Series competitor. They set out to build a direct challenger to the 3 Series with the Cadillac ATS.
Like the BMW 328i, the entry level Caddy ATS has a similar 2-liter turbo charged 4 cylinder engine. It produces 272 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque powering the rear wheels with a choice of a 6 speed manual or 6 speed automatic transmission. As we now, BMW has been underrating their turbo charged engines since the N54, therefore the N20 turbo 4 is no different with “only” 240 hp and 255 lb-ft of torque. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of which car you want to live with on a daily basis.
On that note, we’ve compiled two different view points about the 2013 Cadillac ATS Turbo vs BMW 328i Turbo from two different sources MotorTrend vs CARandDRIVER.
MotorTrend: MotorTrend pitted the all new 2013 Cadillac ATS 2.0T against the class standard BMW 328i 2.0T N20 on an episode of Head2Head. In short, their comparison favored the ATS over the 328i in all area except the Cadillac’s manual transmission shortfall. See the video below.
CarAndDriver: The second comparison between the 2013 BMW 328i and the 2013 Cadillac ATS is from CarAndDriver. Their comparison favored the 328i over the ATS for a car to live with every day. See the video below.
At some point, all car makers have to reverse engineer something. One thing for certain, no car maker was able to engineer that “BMW feel” in any car we’ve driven in recent years. There is a unique character about a BMW that’s been present since the early 70’s that has been impossible to replicate by car makers over the years. True BMW enthusiasts can attest to that.
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