A clay model of the cancelled Caddy hatchback, yesterday

Cadillac today announced that they have halted development of a B-segment compact hatchback due to a lack of available letters at the beginning of the alphabet.

“We’ve been naming our cars by size,” explained Cadillac spokesspeaker Delvin Approximately, speaking on the condition that we loan him bus fare. “You know, the CTS is smaller than the DTS, the ATS is smaller than the CTS, et cetera. We left plenty of room between the CTS and the XTS, but right after we launched the ATS, we realized there’s no letter before ‘A’. We’ve really painted ourselves into a corner here.”

Cadillac division head Dean Bootler callled the oversight “a boneheaded move,” adding, “When I find the person responsible, I’m going to put my foot up his ass and walk around the Renaissance Center with him. We’re off the record, right?”

Approximately would not give details about the car, but sources inside GM described it as a rear-drive hatchback with a two-liter turbocharged engine and all-wheel-drive. The car was being readied for a reveal during this fall’s auto show season, with production beginning late in 2013.

“We thought about calling the car ‘Minus-ATS’ or ‘One-TS’, but those names are just plain stupid,” said Approximately. “You can’t sell a car without a name, so we just decided to scrap the whole project. Shame, really. I drove one of the prototypes, and it was fackin’ nails.”

This isn’t the first time General Motors has had alphabetically-related problems. In recent years, the company has named their car platforms “Epsilon,” “Epsilon II” and “Super Epsilon,” apparently not realizing that there are several other letters in the Greek alphabet from which they can choose.

Photo © Carscoop — hat tip to Kevin M — everything else © Autoblopnik