Interior and Comfort

Dan says:

To put it plainly, both cars are quite good in this department.

The seating position is good in both, but the Lexus wins out, both for front and rear passengers.

For the rear passengers, it’s a win because, well, they can actually get back there without Olympic gymnast creds, as is required in the Cadillac. Worse still, the Caddy’s seatbelts are designed so that they’re anchored at the seat base, but across where the rear passenger would be stepping to get to their seat. So now you’re dealing with the door pillar, the seatback and the seatbelt, not to mention the rakishly low roofline ready to crack your head. It’s a little much, and it’s snug back there so it just goes to show that the ATS Coupe isn’t really meant to haul four people on the regular. Not if they plan on staying elegant once they pull up to the ball, anyway.

While not cavernous by any means, the RC’s rear seat experience is a step above the Caddy’s, even though the latter actually has more legroom. I chalk it up to the Lexus’s deeper rear buckets, which allow for a lower seating position and less bumping against the headliner.

For drivers and front seat passengers, however, the experience in both cars is a nice and airy one, and indeed, front headroom is almost identical in both, while the RC beats the ATS to the punch in the legroom department (which is probably why the reverse is true in the back seat’s case). The same goes for the Lexus trunk, which gets a nice opening large enough for an adult-sized hockey bag and has a flat loading floor.

Not so the Cadillac, which has ridges on its floor and requires you to squish said hockey bag into the opening. Both cars get covered trunk hinges, though, which is great as it makes them that much easier to load. I mean, how many times have you shoehorned a load into the trunk, only to realize you can’t close it due to the hinges being jammed open? That’s not an issue with these two.

The Lexus’s taller windows also make it easier to see out of (both cars maintain big over-the-shoulder blind spots due to the aggressively-raked C-pillars, however), as do the wing mirrors. These are way, way too small in the Cadillac and make the items found on the Lexus look like they belong on a pickup truck. With a tow package.

Brendan says:

From a styling and quality feel here, both cars are again a mixed bag. The Lexus is again a somewhat overstyled effort, although if you delight in surprises and hidden details, it’s very good.  Fit and finish are also excellent, and if the display looks a little dated, the instrument cluster is fresh.

Pretty much the reverse is true with the ATS – many cross-shoppers will climb into this car, take one look at that instrument cluster, and mosey on back to the BMW dealership to lease yet another 3 Series (oh, they’re calling it a 4 now? Whatever… same again, please). That’s a shame, because the rest of the little Caddy’s interior shows promise. Real materials are used, the stitching is unique, and it all looks made to a premium grade. However, again Cadillac lets down the side a bit with fit and finish around the upper air vents on the dash. This is a car hugely improved over past efforts, but some fine-tuning is still needed.

Both cars are, like all modern vehicles, dominated by their infotainment, about which Dan will go into in detail below.

Connect with Autos.ca