Every Photo of the 2019 Cadillac XT4

Cadillac is in flux. Johan de Nysschen, veteran of Audi and Infiniti, who led Cadillac out of Detroit and into Soho, left the company in April. In September, General Motors pulled the plug on Cadillac's East Coast adventure. Now Steve Carlisle, a career GM guy, is at the helm, and the crest is moving back to Michigan. But long product-development cycles mean that as Cadillac retreats to its midwestern home, some holdovers from the New York era remain. The XT4 is one of those remnants.

Cadillac has boasted that the 2.0-liter's twin-scroll turbocharger is designed to provide plenty of low-end torque, but we found motivation lacking below about 3000 rpm.

A nine-speed automatic is the XT4's only transmission. The base XT4 is front-wheel drive, but an all-wheel-drive system is available and allows drivers to choose when to send torque to all four wheels via a button mounted on the center console.

The optional 20-inch wheels and Active Sport suspension are not the ideal combination for our battered Michigan roads, nor can the XT4 match the BMW X2's handling poise.

From this angle, Cadillac's first-ever subcompact luxury crossover, the XT4, sure looks imposing, doesn't it? In reality, it's a fairly small SUV designed to go head-to-head with BMW's X1, Audi's Q3, and the Mercedes-Benz GLA-class.

In our opinion, some of the cash spent on CUE's new knob would have been better used gussying up the XT4's interior.

Despite the car's small footprint, there's space for an average-size adult to sit behind an average-size driver.

During our testing, the all-wheel-drive XT4 accelerated to 60 mph in 7.8 seconds.

Cadillac updated its much-maligned CUE touchscreen infotainment system with a console-mounted dial, but the knob can only be used to scroll. It does not toggle left, right, up, or down, as the best of its kind do (see BMW).

The Sport model we tested shares top billing with the XT4's Premium Luxury trim-both start at $40,290-but despite some plush materials (a soft-touch dashboard and lashings of carbon fiber are the high points), the cabin isn't quite as well executed as we'd hoped, nor is its interior design as thoughtfully strange as that of the Volvo XC40.

When all was said and done, our test model rang in at $56,835.

That price includes some options-like forward-collision alert and pedestrian avoidance ($770)-that come standard in competitors such as the BMW X3 and the Volvo XC40, and there are tells in the interior finishings that betray the XT4's family relationship with the Chevrolet Equinox.

The model we tested came wearing $625 in glittering orange paint and $1100 20-inch wheels (18s are standard), lending it a concept-car air.

What doesn't always make sense is the XT4's price tag. All-wheel-drive Sport models like the one we tested start at $42,790-not out of line for a vehicle of this sort.

An all-new entry in GM's powertrain portfolio, the XT4's 237-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four makes use of variable valve-lift modes and adopts GM's cylinder-deactivation technology; both functions represent an effort to balance perform­ance and fuel efficiency.