Never mind that the Cadillac ELR is a flawed vehicle: A beautiful car with meek horsepower; a sophisticated car with an overly optimistic price. Its chassis is still GM’s Delta platform. And the Delta is pretty damn good. Despite having a torsion beam rear axle, the Delta has underpinned the Cobalt SS, Astra OPC/VXR, Cruze BTCC race cars, and even the Buick Verano. Despite the Cobalt being a flaming pile of excrement on so many levels, its chassis was benchmarked against the Mk. 4 VW Jetta’s for refinement and handling. GM’s engineers did a decent job there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF_i3GTUxNk[/youtube]

So if Cadillac were to say, “Hm, we want to make the ELR even more ridiculously overpriced,” what would an ELR-V be like? Best as I can tell, it’d have the 280-horsepower 2.0-liter turbo-4 from the Astra OPC/VXR. And it wouldn’t weigh two tons. The Delta was designed before the long-rumored Mark Reuss “We don’t date fat cars” edict that led to the Alpha platform coming in so underweight. In fact, interestingly enough, insiders have said Reuss told engineers their jobs were on the line after the first rear-wheel-drive ATS mules were just under two tons of fun. Of course, this was after an entry-level Delta Cadillac was already prototyped, which he said was decent but wasn’t what the brand needed to compete against BMW and Mercedes-Benz. It’d have been another Cimarron. Everyone overlooks Audi because when was the last time anyone checked how much an A4 FronTrak really understeers?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PErKLbB4NW4[/youtube]

Instead, that front-drive luxo Delta chassis more or less evolved into the Astra and Verano, except the Verano doesn’t get the auto-adjust headlights or HiPer struts found in its European cousin. The Verano doesn’t get its engine tuning, transmission, tires, or much of anything else. But it does get triple-layer door seals. And with the turbo, it weighs more than a loaded Honda Accord. What should have happened was Chevy coming out with a 280-horsepower Cruze with HiPer struts, a six-speed manual, and a laundry hanger spoiler. Maybe even a hatchback, too. It should have had Lexan windows, weighed in the neighborhood of 3,000 pounds, and showed that a Korean-engineered car could be fun to drive – because there has never been such thing. Go drive a Hyundai Veloster back-to-back with a Mini Cooper if you need proof. And just because a Genesis Coupe can go all dorifto kingu doesn’t mean it’s a legitimate BRZ beater. It would have given the Ford Focus ST some solid competition and whooped on the Civic Si, but it was deemed to lack a business case. So instead we have a $76,000 plug-in Cadillac coupe that found just 52 new owners last month. Everyone else who wanted a stylish coupe for that money bought an F-Type. What GM should have done, though, was give us a proper sport compact. It should have given us a Cruze SS or Verano GS. Instead, all we got was the world’s prettiest Chevrolet Volt at $20,000 over what it should have cost.