Pundits who've called on Cadillac to return to its roots as purveyor of the world's finest full-size luxury sedans can now officially abandon all hope. Automotive News [sub] reports that Cadillac is trading its luxobarge image for the small, sporty, European thing. GM is killing the full-size STS, DTS (nee Deville) and SRX. In their stead, Caddy will develop a new, high performance BMW 5-Series competitor and roll-out a CTS wagon and coupe. Cadillac will also introduce two new models into the U.S.: a small, entry-level sedan, similar to (if not the same as) the Euro-spec BLS, and the BRX, an as-yet-undeveloped V6-powered cute-ute. Question: who's driving these nails into the brand's coffin? Both Mark LaNeve, GM's top marketing maven and former Cadillac brand manager, and Jim Taylor, Caddy's current jefe, have specifically decried downsizing the brand's products and moving it downmarket. Is this the work of The General's beancounter General Rick Wagoner? Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz? Anyway, that's it for our Cadillac dreams. We're done.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
Put Cadillac out of its misery and rebrand it Cimarron, while they’re at it!
Robert, is it possible that the full-size Cadillac buyers of your no longer exist, or that they have switched over to other brands?
And I have to ask(again), what makes a Cadillac a Cadillac? Arent most of GMNA cars just generic vehicles with different levels of trim? Is there a dedicated Cadillac assembly plant, Cadillac-only engineers, a Cadillac marketing and sales force?
Besides a name that actually meant something 30-40 years ago, what’s the “BIG DEAL”?
I remember a time when when any product that billed itself as the best was referred to as “This is the Cadillac of XXX” In the 70s and 80s I saw that slogan change to…”It’s the Mercedes of XXX”
Now..”It’s the Lexus of XXX”
Sorry to say, but Cadillac, like most of GM’s offerings are no longer on the consumer’s radar screens.
The Lincoln Town Car has a new lease on life! Ford’s pooh-bahs must be ecstatic at this latest GM blunder.
Well, they’ll do whatever they can to bring Buick back from the dead.
While nobody is really going to mourn the passing of those Cadillac yachts, there is no way that Cadillac will be able to compete with BMW. Everyone wants to compete with BMW, it is too contested of a segment, and the Cadillac name is so tarnished that I think younger people would probably rather have a Volvo.
The big 3 can keep “reinventing” themselves, but they really just need to be devoted to their product. They need to refine models every year to make them better than the competition. They need to understand that their brand equity is so bad that they need to pretend they are just starting in the market (i.e. how Lexus broke into the market with a cheap Mercedes).
Then again, there is no point in competing at the high end unless you can match this.
I miss the passing of the Cadillacs of the past along with the other greats.
Pierce Arrow
Dusenberg
Packard
Imperial
and soon Lincoln too.
All this means is that SUV vehicles will survive to move the rich and important persons.
Maybe we have to go through a period without the smooth, roomy luxury of the past and then it will be re-introduced as something special to replace the sporty handling econo-boxes that everyone exalts.
Barge-aholics can still get their Caddy fix if they want. It doesn’t say anything about the Escalade going anywhere. Maybe they should expand the Escalade line to include the Truck DeVille, a passenger car based on the Escalade’s chassis/drivetrain.
Not to go too far OT, but when will GM (and ford and chrysler) bite the bullet that the biggest thing they can do to get competitive at this point is to get the government to take over healthcare expenses?
Assuming there is a different market for luxury barges and luxury driver’s cars, then it would seem logical to have two brands for these two different market segments.
Maybe we’ve discovered a reason for SAAB to exist?
Cadillac has already started copying BMW – its new styling cues are already some of the ugliest in the world.
I’m sure few will mourn the SRX, but it seems pretty stupid to kill off the STS and DTS and focus on smaller cars. We’re going to end up with Caddy versions of the Malibu and Equinox, and that’s just going to be painful to watch.
The illustration accompaning the article says it all.
Just a couple of years after the stunning Cadillac Sixteen concept vehicle, Caddy has surrendered.
Instead of “hitting ’em where they ain’t”, Caddy has decided to try to reinvent themselves from whole cloth into a maker of European sports sedans. Do they really think BMW, Mercedes, and Audi buyers will buy a Cadillac?
Once again, GM has squandered the heritage of a great marque in a vain attempt to be what they aren’t (and shouldn’t even try to be).
The Sixteen heralded a return to Caddy’s roots as “The Standard of the World”, and while nobody really believes they are, it at least marked a desire to return the marque to glory.
Now we’ll get the BLS(Saab), another crossover (Wow, we need MORE of those!), and a BMW 5-Series fighter to be named later. Oh, yeah, a CTS wagon, too. Cadillac has SUCH a fine history of wagons…
Cadillac should be the ptototypical American Car, with style, presence, and effortless power. No whiny little 4 bangers, no “sport wagons”. Just substantial, luxurious, capable autos of the finest engineering. Big, torque monster V-8’s.
New Slogan: “Cadillac – When Hyundai Is Out Of Your Reach!”
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
What! This is a kick in the head! No doubt driven by the new CAFE threat. I guess politicians prefer being driven in Suburbans that DTS.
The CTS is a BMW 5er competitor. No?
Where does this leave Buick? Oh…Wait…Customers have already left Buick.
Maybe GM should just rebadge Impalas as Cadillacs.
We can debate twenty ways to Tuesday what Cadillac ought to be, but reality is that GM has proven they cannot execute autos as well as most, even Hyundai. Who cares if they’re getting better if the competition is as well. GM execs are watching the building burning down and have busied themselves with choosing window coverings.
“While nobody is really going to mourn the passing of those Cadillac yachts,…”
Now hold on there, Bubba Louie! Can you imagine making a movie like The Blues Brothers or any of the cop shows of the 70’s with BMWs? I understand that with the conditions that prevail they are not condusive to daily life anymore. But that doesn’t mean that they will not be missed. I miss them now. And I’m not THAT old. Saw a real nice 79-ish 4 dr Deville in the mall parking lot yesterday. I lusted after it.
Also, at this time I am driving a 72 Catalina for my 64 mile round trip daily commute. Miss my cup holders,center console and comfortable seats from my recent cars but no car I have driven in the last 10 years smooths out the POS roads I have to drive on daily like this beast.
I have and do mourn their loss. Why did the stupid world have to change, anyway?
Competing directly with BMW is just dumb. It’s too hard, for one thing. Two, everyone’s doing it. Three, there are plenty of people in the upmarket that prefer the old Cadillac type of car than BMWs.
I thought they were on the right track already.
So if Cadillac is doing the small euro sporty thing, where does that leave Saab. Or Saturn which is now the euro brand? Wait, isn’t Pontiac supposed to be the performance division that’s going to be doing more euro styled cars (like the G8)? Looks like Buick is the new Caddy. Maybe GM execs have a crystal ball and this is all part of one big plan… yeah right.
The CTS fills an interesting market niche, for the price of a 3 at the size of a 5 Series. Its a competetive car.
Cadillac has hopefully finally understood that in the full size sedans at the prices it wants to or needs to charge. Its chances are as good as a snow ball in hell. Nobody pays that kind of money for a Cadillac, and those that do are unfortunately turning up in the obituaries.
The 16 they should do as a halo car, but do they have enough….!!!
I just read on Motor Authority that Cadillac is also planning on introducing a new V12 flagship sedan. They also say that the new smaller sedan will be RWD on the (allegedly) forthcoming Alpha platform, while the BLS is a FWD Epsilon car. So the news isn’t quite as bad as I first thought. Of course, it still does raise questions about just exactly where Cadillac is supposed to be positioned in relation to GM’s other brands.
Not to worry, the Sixteen will return in 30 years as the Sixteen Thousand. This number will refer to the quantity of steam turbine blades driven by the heat energy from a suitcase-sized 1000kW fusion reactor. Too bad I won’t live to see the day…
If Caddy goes down market wont that make all of GM’s badges compete agains eachother in the same segments. So that leaves Buick leading the sale of large boats at 6 sales a month, awesome recovery plan.
I dont see anything in this piece of news that says that caddy is going down market. They’re just building smaller cars that are more dynamic. They’re basically building a competing car for every BMW out there, except for the X5 and X6. This might not be that bad a news…
Didn’t they recently kill all there RWD future plans. Won’t it be hard to compete with BMW without a really great RWD platform.
To clarify I meant downsizing the brand into the same mismosh all the other brands are in. And once the rebates start flying the prices wont be that different from the way they look either.
Fact is that Cadillac died years ago when they switched all of their land-yachts to wrong wheel drive.
Last year I bought a used Seville with 59K on the clock for $1,500. The car cost $40K when it was new. One year and 5,500 miles later, my impression is this: Had I bought this car new for sticker price, I would have blown my brains out a week later. Now that’s what you call buyer’s remorse.
Never let me say again ‘Nothing GM does at this point could baffle me’.
Seems like another radical fix for something that is broken in other areas. If they were to build outstanding quality cars (RWD), price them competitively, and make the service department and sales dept a joy (no haggle even?) then there would be no need for BMW ala Detroit.
stupid stupid stupid
Cadillac has always stood for mammoth cars with style, luxury, and power
what’s so hard about that?
I thought the STS was their 5 series competitor….
That’s what it’s always up against in the comparos…
Compare the interior dimensions of the current CTS and STS. There differentiation is too subtle. Using a 5-series competitor to replace both the STS and DTS makes good sense. If they are successful in building on the CTS's success with a new mid-size competitor, there will be room later to add on a bigger flagship.