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With the arrival of the CTS Sport Wagon and a coupe model in the near future, Cadillac is setting the stage for a product lineup much more closely mimicking that of BMW's 3 Series. For decades, BMW has spread its engineering costs over several 3 Series body styles and capitalized on the recognition and reputation of the mainstream sedan. The wagons, convertibles, and coupes may not sell in the same volumes as the 3 Series sedan, but each one certainly plays a role in BMW's business. We drove a 2009 BMW 328i xDrive Sports Wagon to see how the golden standard of the sport sedan world translated into a wagon.

CADILLAC CTS SPORT WAGON

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Sport sedans operate in a gray area where practicality gives way to emotion. A thoroughly rational shopping list of the world's best examples would include the Audi S6, the BMW M5, the Cadillac CTS-V, the Lexus IS-F, and the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG. But pragmatism, logic, and good sense are rarely the deciding factors when considering an irrational purchase like a $100K-plus, 150-mph-plus automobile. Instead, right-brain values come to the forefront - style, rarity, sophistication, glamour, equipment, image, and, yes, sex appeal. The aforementioned sedans are undeniably speedy and dynamically impressive - but at the end of the day, the M5 isn't much more than a 528i on steroids, the S6 is an A6 that has undergone a complicated heart transplant via Sant'Agata Bolognese, the CTS-V and the IS-F both have relatively humble genetic backgrounds, and the E63 AMG started life on the same assembly line as 75 percent of the German taxi population.