Mid engine “Corvette” might be a Cadillac like this 2002 Cien Concept.

Any news about a mid-engine car from GM is guaranteed to ricochet around the world and get tongues wagging. Especially amongst armchair critics circling the internet waiting for a scrap of evidence that might break the story of what exactly GM has up it’s sleeve when it comes to big kahuna, mid-engined supercars.

We’ve speculated on this hot potato subject before, but we’re going to go out on a limb and declare the mid-engine “Corvette” will actually be a range topping Cadillac.

We’ll explain how we came to this conclusion, but first let’s start at the beginning for people that might not know the key players.

Cadillac has been hitting it out of the ballpark as of late with a ferocious range of V-Series cars and big daddy Escalades that they can’t build enough of. On the other hand, the 100+ year old company can’t seem to move the sales needle with the critically acclaimed, but slow moving ATS and CTS models.

Cadillac head honcho Johan de Nysschen. If you like alpha-numeric model names and the current direction Cadillac is heading, you can thank this guy. If you don’t, you can thank this guy.

To shore things up, GM recently anointed South African born, former Audi chief Johan de Nysschen to guide Cadillac to the promised land. He joined another poached exec, marketing chief–and ex-BMW alumni–Uwe Ellinghaus, and they wasted no time time explaining to Americans what they thought a Cadillac should be. They also instituted the alpha-numeric model names as well, which we see as a yawn inducing concession to remake Cadillac in Audi’s image.

Former BMW cheese and now Cadillac marketing chief Uwe Ellinghaus.

Now, we won’t waste anyone’s time contemplating why we needed to hire South Africans and Germans to tell us what our hallowed Cadillac marque means, but we’ll just put that out there and let you think about that for a minute.

Meanwhile, de Nysschen is a known proponant of a top-of-line supercar for Cadillac and sees such a car as just the thing to generate a buzz and break the division free from its sales doldrums.

The Wreath and Crest division has tried this range topping thing before with the XLR. We thought it was cool, but alas, like the old GM was infamous for, they pulled the plug during “The Great Recession” just as things were getting good with V-Series variant etc.

We always liked the XLR. Was the fact that it was based on a Corvette a debit?

Fast forward to last week when auto journalist Paul Eisenstein at The Detroit Bureau ran an article about the future of Cadillac products and it compelled de Nysschen himself to respond. We’ll cut to the chase with the following excerpt from The Detroit Bureau article which carried de Nysschen’s response. Especially telling is the last sentence.

“It’s not so much an issue of Cadillac programs which have been “cancelled.” The only item which is correct, is the change in planning for a Lux 5 flagship sedan, versus the plan which was previously reported to our dealers. Rather than calling it a “cancellation”, I prefer to consider the change to the flagship program as a revision to what will constitute the Cadillac flagship. There will be a flagship, but given the segment development, it will not be a large four door sedan…”

The upper pic might remain a render for the time being.

Cadillac already has the Escalade and with the sedan market soft, they’re not going to field a large 4-door above the CT6, so again, we think this is the best indication to date that the mid-engine car GM is working on will be a Cadillac.

Now, depending on how you feel about a mid-engine Corvette, this is either great news or a real bummer.

We were always skeptical the car was going to be a Corvette for the following reasons:

•  The C7 still has a lot of life left in it. Not only that, Chevrolet just sold more than 40,000 Corvettes for 2016, it’s best sales year in decades. We think it will be a tough sell to GM brass to mess with that formula. Period.
• GM more than doubled the floor space at Bowling Green. Why would they double space for one model?  As Judge Judy says, “If it doesn’t make sense, it’s not true.”
• Moving the Corvette upmarket will alienate hardcore buyers. Most Corvette folks I know like the car just the way it is.

What will power this thing is anyones guess at the moment but rumors of a DOHC motor have swirled around. An LT V8 might be too plebeian for this application.

Bottom line? A devastating 1-2 punch from a duo of GM supercars would be a damn good thing.

Now, why did we need to import 2 guys from overseas to tell us that?

If we’re wrong, tell us why in the comments below.

2002 Cadillac Cien Concept might have been more realistic than we ever imagined.