Day three of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit is comparatively quiet. I took advantage of the lull to chin wag with Clay Dean, Cadillac’s Global Design Director and Dave Caldwell, Caddy’s top spin man. Both men were refreshingly candid. So I challenged the duo on the brand’s marketing mix: product, price, place, and promotion. While the adulation heaped upon the CTS, CTS-V and CTS Coupe indicate that Cadillac’s lineup is better off now than when ‘Slade sales started slipping, what of Caddy’s future?
“When someone [at Cadillac] comes up with a really bad idea, we call it a Cimarron,” Dean declared. The Cadillacs of my formative years predate even this debacle. Back in the day, Caddy was the purveyor of over-sized flaccid barges for middle-income Florida retirees and active Mafiosi. Compared to the tightly-built imports of the day, Caddies seemed poorly packaged, clumsy handling and sloppily built— if only because they were.
To the automaker’s detriment, Cadillac clung to their bigger-is-better, living-room-on-wheels, mid-market brand identity while their target demographic was gradually interred en masse into nursing homes or burial plots. Meanwhile, the rest of the world continued to evolve technologically. Upmarket Americans gradually forsook wreath-crested wafting for a European snob appeal and driver-centric dynamics. By the turn of the century, the once-proud Cadillac brand embodied middle-income America’s obesity and sloth.
Finally, five years ago, Cadillac got serious about adapting to the market trends that they’d derided, denied and declaimed for the better part of two decades. In 2003, Cadillac introduced their 5-Series killer, the CTS. It was no hardened assassin, but the model signaled a fundamental change to the brand.
“Today, the closest vehicle Cadillac makes to the old standard is the Escalade,” Caldwell explained, echoing a sentiment oft expressed by TTAC readers. “It’s really the only old style model left.”
Fair enough. But I harbor the radical notion that brand extensions are inherently dangerous. For example, pickup trucks are for hauling manure and pulling stumps. A pickup truck is fundamentally and irrevocably incompatible with luxury. I view the Escalade EXT a perfect example of Cadillac’s ongoing inability to stay focused. To do one thing better than anyone in the world. To just say no.
“Cadillac should never make a pickup truck,” I challenged the guys. “It erodes the brand.”
Spinmeister Caldwell carefully considered my take on luxury and thoughtfully responded. “Cadillac doesn’t make a pickup truck.”
“Maybe not in PR speak,” I calmly replied, “But if you ask one thousand people on the street one thousand of them will say that the Escalade EXT is a pickup, not whatever non-truck euphemism you’ve invented for it.”
Sensing that our conversation had taken an abrupt left turn, Caddy’s seasoned mouthpiece changed tack. “Sometimes we make products on a short-term basis to satisfy a particular market demand,” Caldwell corrected.
His answer underlined– rather than explained– Caddy’s willingness to tarnish their brand identity and sacrifice long-term viability on the altar of short-term gain.
Today, a Cadillac can cost less than $40K or more than $100K. It can be a two-seat roadster, executive sedan, SUV or pickup truck. So how does Cadillac sell itself as a strong and concise brand when it spans so many prices and genres, when it means so many different things to so many potential customers?
“Modern sporty Cadillac’s are not incompatible with the Cadillac legacy. Cadillac engines were long used in race cars because they were the most powerful,” said Dean. Yeah, but that was before I was born.
“A Cadillac can be any kind of vehicle, even a minivan,” Dean continued, referring to the hydrogen fuel cell Provoq (pronounced “PROvoke”) Concept. “Just as long as they deliver a Cadillac experience.”
And what, pray tell, is that? “To me, Cadillac is about desirability and drama,” Caldwell answered, once again releasing the PR vapors. “Yes, a Cadillac is flamboyant,” Dean added. In other words, it’s like porn; you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it.
I left the show with mixed feelings about Cadillac’s future. The new CTS is one of the best cars Cadillac has built in my lifetime. In fact, while it's still not quite up to world-class standards, the model's attention to detail represents a new high water mark for the entire U.S. auto industry. Yet the definition of what constitutes a Cadillac remains dangerously nebulous.
Cadillac’s brand identity seems to be at the end of a pendulum that’s swung from pathologically recalcitrant in the ‘80s and ’90s, to schizophrenically indefinable today. To achieve brand health, Cadillac find one path. It must integrate its multiple personalities into a cohesive core identity while setting defining parameters wide enough to accommodate changing market conditions, a stringent regulatory environment and fickle public tastes. Until and unless it does, Cadillac’s current success will be a fleeting phenomenon.
“A Cadillac can be any kind of vehicle, even a minivan,” Dean continued
In short…WRONG!!!
Worst possible example…even worse than a pickup.
So how does Cadillac sell itself as a strong and concise brand when it spans so many prices and genres, when it means so many different things to so many potential customers?
Well, the same could be said of BMW, or Mercedes (And to its credit, TTAC has said that of both the German brands).
I don’t see anything inherently wrong about offering a variety of prices and types of cars over a model range, as long as there is some central theme, whether it be driver involvement or the latest technology or passenger-cabin isolation.
Mr. Montgomery is absolutely right when he calls the brand identity “schizophrenically indefinable”. The CTS, XLR, and SRX make sense as BMW-type cars (or crossovers). But then you get to the cars that were restyled but brought over from previous generations, essentially to sell to the traditional Cadillac demographic, or the cash-cow Escalade.
You can either see this as a natural evolution of a product line where Caddy is slowly phasing out the hearses as it focuses, or as GM trying to have it both ways and eeking out as much as it can. And that depends if you have faith in GM or not.
“A Cadillac can be any kind of vehicle, even a minivan,”
Oh really! How about:
a FedEx Cadillac delivery van or
a Cadillac aircraft tug or
a Cadillac dump truck, econobox, supermini, tank, APC….etc. Is there no end to the claptrap coming from these GM spinmeisters. They are in a world of their own.
Today, a Cadillac can cost less than $40K or more than $100K. It can be a two-seat roadster, executive sedan, SUV or pickup truck. So how does Cadillac sell itself as a strong and concise brand when it spans so many prices and genres, when it means so many different things to so many potential customers?
And then I look at Mercedes Benz. They too run the gamut from an entry-level C-class that starts at around $25k to the half-million dollar SLR McLaren roadster, with everything in-between, except for the pickup truck (but they make do with a military-grade vehicle). If a Mercedes R-class doesn’t tarnish that brand, an Escalade or two shouldn’t put Cadillac in danger of facing an identity crisis either.
The problem with branding is that it turns you into a one-trick pony, and when others copy your act and can build a better pony than you, what will you do then? At one time, the only reason you bought a Subaru was because of their all-wheel-drive system. But then Ford added AWD to their Fusion, and BMW put the X-Drive on their cars, and Mercedes made every model available with 4Matic, and Chrysler offered an AWD version of the 300, and Volkswagen added 4Motion to the Passat, and suddenly you’re left wondering what made the Legacy unique in the first place?
Years ago, the idea of a luxury SUV was considered an absurdity (and to some readers, it still is), but then it sold, and sold well, and then Lexus followed suit with the GX, and Infiniti with the QX, and Mercedes threw leather and chrome on the G-wagen, and even BMW got in the act with the X5, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem to be so absurd anymore. Considering the multitude of luxury appointments you can get in today’s pickups, I don’t believe putting a crest and wreath on it is out of bounds, nor should it be.
I’ve seen the argument made by various TTAC writers that car brands should be more focused around a single mission statement. While I don’t think anybody disagrees that having a strong brand identity is a good thing, I think some of the TTAC crew take this idea too far
I don’t think a Mercedes SLK and an S Class have very much in common at all, but they still somehow both fit into Mercedes’ brand identity. On the other hand, something like an R-Class (or the aforementioned “Cadillac Minivan”) seems pretty out of place.
There’s nothing wrong with saying a brand should be about ‘desirability and drama’. I don’t see any reason why an SUV/Truck can’t fit into what Cadillac does.
I think Cadillacs should be flamboyant, great looking cars that coddle the driver while outperforming the majority of the cars in their respective classes. I don’t think this excludes Cadillac from producing many different kinds of vehicles
It’s funny that this argument comes up when discussing Cadillac. oboylepr gave the example of a Cadillac dump truck or delivery van. Back in the “Standard of the World” days, the best dump truck or delivery van would have in fact been referred to as “the Cadillac of dump trucks/vans”
“To achieve brand health, Cadillac find one path. It must integrate its multiple personalities into a cohesive core identity while setting defining parameters wide enough to accommodate changing market conditions, a stringent regulatory environment and fickle public tastes.”
Lets admit that 6 years after its launch the EXT is past it’s prime, and will more than likely be dropped within the next 2 model years. However, I challenge anyone to actually pick a brand that meets all of the spintacularly (yes, it’s not a real word) ridiculous parameters set out in the above statement.
The family needed a new hauler. The SRX looked good. I drove everything, and was ready to sign for it, but the local dealer(s) were a horror. One tried to sell me a flood car, and looked at me quizically when I pointed out the grit from the flood and the rust. The other never called back, and I drove the Acura MDX. I bought the MDX. The dealership experience for the Acura was like BMW-the dealership experience for the Caddy was horrid in two places.
Great product cannot overcome a dealer body derived from a 1970’s Used Car Lot mentality.
for the record, I was polite, well dressed, and arrived in a 3 series……..
My expectations for a good car include quality design and execution, a degree of exclusivity and best attention to customer service. Cadillac lacks these attributes. So does Mercedes.
To me, Cadillac has one of the strongest brand identities in the GM portfolio. A Cadillac is a sporting luxury vehicle in the same vein as a BMW or Mercedes. I think they have succeeded in shedding the “luxo-barge for old people” image in favor of something slightly less sporty and nouveau-riche yuppie than BMW, something slightly more edgy and less staid than Mercedes (thanks in large part to their current design language.)
Are there a couple of oddballs in the lineup? Sure. The Escalade EXT is just weird, and the DTS is in some ways a holdover from the luxo-barge days. But the rest of the Cadillac lineup makes perfect sense – they’ve got a bling-mobile (Escalade), a crossover (SRX), two sedans at different size and price points (CTS and STS), and a halo car (XLR.) It works.
At the moment Cadillac is one of the few bright spots in the GM firmament. GM is perfectly capable of screwing that up (and this piece shows why design people and PR people should never be allowed to make strategy) but right now I think they’re doing quite well.
Where will Cadillac be in a couple of years? I hear of BLS, CTS, CTC, BRX, Escalade, XLR. DTS and STS are the walking dead, and an EXTinction is likely as demand drops off. Will the lineup be able to hold their own with a looming recession and higher energy prices? Will the downmarket B-randed vehicles sell strongly, or will they suffer the fate of the Jaguar X-Type, the unwanted stepchild of an aspiring brand? And what happened to rumors of an all-hybrid Cadillac lineup?
—
OT: The ‘Slade of ride-on cars, yours for just $65 plus shipping. And the Fisher Price ‘Slade, $300. Get ’em into a Caddy EV when they’re young, in hopes that there might be one when they’re licensed. If you’re making monthly payments on that baby, you’re living a little beyond your means.
We’ve gone with the fire engine and Kettler tricycle instead. No bling bling in the playroom, or anywhere else on our property.
@thetopdog
I’ve seen the argument made by various TTAC writers that car brands should be more focused around a single mission statement. While I don’t think anybody disagrees that having a strong brand identity is a good thing, I think some of the TTAC crew take this idea too far.
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Two of my favorite cars that I never should have sold were my 62 and 64 Cadillac convertibles. I agree with the statement that Cadillac should not sell a pick-up. Neither should Lincoln. The SUVs I can understand, since so many buyers today equate car with SUV. Until these people come to their senses, luxury makers have to offer Utes, that’s why so many of them do.
The SUVs I can understand, since so many buyers today equate car with SUV. Until these people come to their senses, luxury makers have to offer Utes, that’s why so many of them do.
In my view the Escalade is the spiritual successor to the Eldorado.
Biggest in size, in engine displacement, in attitude.
Let me use some examples to illustrate some important points about automotive branding relevant to this discussion… A brand is a simply a promise to the customer. The more specific the promise, the tighter the brand. The better the company fulfills the promise, the stronger the brand. So… BMW = Ultimate Driving Machine. The BMW brand promise can logically extend across several genres: coupes, sedans, sports cars, etc. As long as the vehicle’s fun to drive, it’s a “real” BMW. It’s a bit of a stretch for an SUV to be an "ultimate driving machine," but nothing so radical as to confuse the customer or break the branding promise. Toyota = reliability. The Toyota brand stretches easily and logically into any and all automotive genres. As long as the vehicle’s reliable, you’re good to go. Period. Now, some finer points… Should a BMW be reliable? Of course. But the brand’s success or failure does not depend on its models' reliability. Should a Toyota be fun to drive? It can be. But the success or failure of a Toyota model does not depend on its driving dynamics. Should these brands advertise virtues unrelated to the central brand promise? Absolutely not. The consumer uses brands as simple shorthand to sort through competitive choices. Confusion is a big non-no. OK, go to the Cadillac website. What’s the brand promise? There isn’t one. What should it be? Hell if I know. Cadillac used to mean the top, the most exclusive, the best. The standard of the world. Which is an almost impossible brand promise to fulfill. Does a Cadillac have to be as fun to drive as a BMW AND as reliable as a Toyota (Lexus?) AND as safe as a Volvo AND as luxurious as an Audi AND AND? Good luck with that– especially if you’re competing on price. What William’s saying is that Caddy needs to drill down to a branding promise that's strong enough to sustain the brand’s image, yet elastic enough to sustain sales in a competitive environment. Like BMW’s ultimate driving. Or Toyota’s reliability. Unlike Mercedes’ whatever. Or Audi’s. To my mind, Cadillac should make the world's most luxurious automobiles. Now how you define THAT is a lot more than slightly tricky, but there are some pretty common sense parameters… 1. STYLE – Flamboyant yet classy. 2. MATERIALS – The finest in the world. Period. 3. FIT AND FINISH – Impeccable. 4. DEALER SERVICE – Second to none. 5. TORQUE – Plenty 6. RIDE – The world’s smoothest. 7. PRICE – Unobtainable. Everything else, well, who cares? Anything else, well, it’s not a Cadillac. (In that sense, the CTS is the best Pontiac ever built.) A pickup COULD meet the above seven criteria, but it would be a REAL stretch, given the leaf spring problem (if nothing else). An SUV? Why not? Do you see where I’m coming from? Let me put it this way. When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a slave to the TTAC brand. Even if they don't know what that means, I do. And what you read here is the result. Day after day, month after month, year after year. Hopefully, a little better every day.
RE: Mercedes and BMW
Yes, both brands have tremendous reach from (relatively) affordable to exorbitantly expensive. But Caddy cannot afford to be like their German brethren for one reason: the rest of GM. The broader Cadillac reaches, the more it encroaches on Pontiac & Chevy (perforance-oriented cars), Buick (near-luxury price points), GMC & Chevy (trucks), and Saturn & Saab (Euro styling).
On the other hand, wile Mercedes and BMW’s product lines feature broad range of offerings, Mercedes makes nothing that competes against Smart and BMW doesn’t compete with MINI.
So when can we expect Cadillac scooters?
In today’s automotive landscape, you cannot have luxury without performance. Pillow-soft rides only work for Rolls Royce and Bentley.
I have to disagree with Euro styling. Cadillac has carved out a distinctive design theme that, love it or hate it, certainly isn’t Euro-centric.
Of course, near-luxury price points is a valid issue, and it’s one that Cadillac is going to have to learn to live. The ghosts of the Cimarron still haunt them, and it’ll take a long time for Cadillac to work up the nerve to price their cars appropriately, and for people not to gag, snicker, gasp, and cough out, ‘Cimarron’ at the same time when they do so.
@Robert Farago
I agree with everything except the last two. I think Cadillac has shown that a little sport isn’t too much to ask from them, and sport and luxury isn’t mutually exclusive. It’s almost like you want Cadillac to be The Pensioner’s Choice all over again. That’s not a brand. That’s a curse. But 7 especially stuck in my craw. I’ve been meaning to ask you this in the number of times we’ve talked about Cadillacs, but…just how much should these cars cost to you? To me, it’s $35K for the base BLS or whatever its going to be called up through $150,000 for the ULS.
Bill Montgomery hit on big difference between Cadillac and its competition. BMW and Merc are alone. Lexus has Infiniti. Acura has Honda. Audi has…VW…sort of. In America, at least. I think Hyundai might have Kia in the future. I think this is the way to be. Chevrolet and Cadillac. One mass market brand. One luxury brand. No mid-market. There’s no room for the Sloan model anymore. There will still be fragmentation in the market, but within those confines. Mass market or luxury. Sure, there will still be wild cards like Porsche and Land Rover, but they don’t sell nearly the same volume as the others.
As for brand promise, what about Art and Science? High style and technological excellence. Beauty and innovation. That’s something that can apply to a sport sedan or a CUV.
Not that I disagree with Bill, but the Caddy brand is still more “with it” compared to Lincoln and Chrysler. I mean, after Lincolns turned to reskinned Mazdas and after Chrysler slapped landau roofs on K-cars.
I think Cadillac will be focused and in fine shape if/when GM figures out what to do with Buick (entry level luxury) and Pontiac (mid-level performance) and GMC (pimped out Chevy trucks). Well, if that can ever happen.
The more specific the promise, the tighter the brand. The better the company fulfills the promise, the stronger the brand.
Very true, and in theory a brand could be located anywhere in the brand focus/brand strength matrix. It’s hard to imagine a company doing a good job fulfilling the promise of an unfocused brand, but it’s not impossible. One could argue that Maserati does just that, and Cadillac seems to be trying. However, in practice greater brand focus makes it easier for a brand to fulfill its promise. A focused brand means less distraction, both internally in terms of competition for resources and externally in terms of message.
I love your list of Cadillac’s brand attributes but I don’t think you are describing a brand we are likely to see from GM um, ever. In fact, I think what you are describing is Rolls Royce. I’m not sure it’s realistic for Cadillac to recapture its place at the pinnacle of the automotive world. Perhaps it should position itself as an All-American take on Mercedes. These Cadillacs would have: posh but accessible styling; big (but fuel-efficient) engines and lots of power; world-class engineering; innovative but not flashy use of technology; GT-oriented handling; a lot of American materials (especially wood); and a “yes-I-do-own-the-road” attitude. What’s not to like?
after Lincolns turned to reskinned Mazdas and after Chrysler slapped landau roofs on K-cars.
To Lincoln’s credit, the LS was a great little car that needed a little more time on the vine and a lot more attitude. Sadly Ford either didn’t have (or snorted) the resources to keep the Lincoln ball in the air, and should the mother company survive Lincoln might become a niche player down the road.
Also keep in mind that at the same time Chrysler was slapping those landau roofs on K-cars, Cadillac was making the Cimarron (and the Continental was based on a Fairmont….). Whoa. Strange days indeed.
I saw a new CTS in the flesh the other day – there was no doubt as to what it was and who made it. Very nice looking, and a strong, non-cartoon presence (like, um, the Z4 and R350). With the SRX and EXT on their way out, a stretched CTS replacement for the the STS, and a little more refinement, Cadillac has finally found it’s footing after decades of abuse. Sure I’d drop the Escalade stretch version, and rush the SRX replacement to market, but overall – yay for them.
Finally, FWIW, I drove an MKZ AWD the other day – a very pleasant surprise overall but in need of a little more refinement and some attitude. But for $28k (going price), it is worth a closer look no doubt.
And my wife, little Miss Wouldn’t Get Caught In An American Car (nor has ever owned one) came home the other day all juiced up about adding the MKX to her test drive list as she searches for a replacement to her Toyota. Considering the EX37 and XC90 are the only other choices on the list, I’d say Lincoln is finally pedaling in the right direction…..
“Today, a Cadillac can cost less than $40K or more than $100K. It can be a two-seat roadster, executive sedan, SUV or pickup truck.”
There isn’t a mass market luxury brand in the world today about which you couldn’t make the same criticism. Lexus, MBZ and BMW all span an even larger price range than $40k-$100k and make roadsters, sedans and SUVS (none of them offer a pickup, but so what).
Cadillac has some problems, but price range span and vehicle segment offerings are not the problem.
There would be nothing wrong with a super luxury minivan being a Cadillac nor would there be a problem with a super premium small car being a Cadillac.
First and foremost a Cadillac has to have Style. It does not need to be absurdly expensive.
I also agree that GM needs to have two US nameplates, Chevrolet and Cadillac. Everything else is just noise … big loud noise.
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work.” Mark Twain Buick, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and GMC are thunder while Chevy and Cadillac do all the real work.
@quasimondo
“And then I look at Mercedes Benz. They too run the gamut from an entry-level C-class that starts at around $25k to the half-million dollar SLR McLaren roadster, with everything in-between, except for the pickup truck”
Mercedes makes a full range of pickup trucks… Sprinter pickup, Vario pickup, some heavy-duty ones (Atego, Axor) and the 41 ton Actros pick-up flagship (2100 lb-ft from the 16L engine!).
And what about the Unimog line?
The difference her is: Mercedes has more than a century of history as a truck brand. It belongs to their brand. Cadillac doesn’t.
@Mirko
I don’t think that the reason Mercedes doesn’t have a problem with the whole brand identity crisis is because of how long they have been making trucks. I think its because they have a long history of making excellent automobiles (their recent past may be an exception though), and people don’t care (or in the case of the States, aren’t aware) that Mercedes makes everything from buses to huge trucks.
However, as your name seems to suggest, you probably are a bit more in tune with ‘die Deutsche Leute’ and how they think.
From what I have observed, it seems that the German people can see Mercedes badges on trucks and buses, and still lust after an S-Class with no problem.
All that japanese needed to hear from this editorial is this-`it`s still not quite up to world class standard.` As long as they are a step ahead of that , they will eat your lunch. Cadillac`s problem is not in the diversity of body types or lack of direction, it`s the dirty blood they have- Rebadged suburban as Escalade( a caddy with leaf springs ), rebadged chevrolet caprice/ brougham/fleetwood/park avenue as DTS. The derogatory origin of cadillac platforms and allways material texture and fit and finish behind germans. I even didn`t mention resale value. Did I mention reliability? what do we need? Zero rebadges! Tight asses, sorry gap tolerances. reliability, german handling, TEXTURE. no more SRX with revealed rear window glass edges, no chewed door gaskets,no saabillacs!
The difference her is: Mercedes has more than a century of history as a truck brand. It belongs to their brand. Cadillac doesn’t.
I suppose nobody would have an issue with Volvo selling pickups because they make 18-wheelers.
BTW, Cadillac has a history of the heavy-duty stuff too.
Tank d’Ville
All that japanese needed to hear from this editorial is this-`it`s still not quite up to world class standard.` As long as they are a step ahead of that , they will eat your lunch. Cadillac`s problem is not in the diversity of body types or lack of direction, it`s the dirty blood they have- Rebadged suburban as Escalade( a caddy with leaf springs ), rebadged chevrolet caprice/ brougham/fleetwood/park avenue as DTS. The derogatory origin of cadillac platforms and allways material texture and fit and finish behind germans. I even didn`t mention resale value. Did I mention reliability? what do we need? Zero rebadges! Tight asses, sorry gap tolerances. reliability, german handling, TEXTURE. no more SRX with revealed rear window glass edges, no chewed door gaskets,no saabillacs!
Funny thing, that dirty blood when you consider the Infinit G20 was powered by Sentra, the ES is a rebodied Camry, the GX450 being a rebadged Land Cruiser, and Acura sells us rebadged Accords, and gives the Canadians rebadged Civics. They’re not a step ahead. Their blood is just as dirty as anyone else’s.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Cadillac offering a pickup truck. It actually if you really think about it is perfectly natural fit. A pickup truck is really a premium vehicle.
Those that need a truck are typically contractors or other self employed types and it is not uncommon for them to be very well off. Those that don’t need a truck but who buy one anyway typically are spending more for a pickup than a lessor priced car. If someone buys a loaded brand new pickup its a lot of money.
Pickups by volume are the best selling vehicles, they sell for more than most cars, I would bet that a Ford truck buyers demographics are much more upscale than their car buyers, especially those that buy loaded trucks.
If you spending a lot of money for a truck why wouldn’t a premium brand make sense? Its actually amazing that it hasn’t been done by Ford. A Cadillac pickup makes sense, a Lincoln pick up also makes sense but Ford never quite pulled it off right.
Sajeev Mehta: the Caddy brand is still more “with it” compared to Lincoln and Chrysler
I can’t disagree with that.
Quasimondo–your mentioned brands have the same country origin. Dodge uses Cummins engines. Fine. Caterpillar uses Detroit Diesel. fine. Sikorsky uses Allison. Fine. Boeing uses GE. fine. But cadillac uses german platform, rebadges and derives opels as BLS and then plays out ` American card` . Lies. And if Infiniti uses nissan engines, it has nothing to do with rebadge.I It is a common practice. problems start when Cadillac takes German built 3.6 er and attributes it to her own engineering. And Accord is barely rebadged, because the acura TL they sell in US is sold as Honda Accord( still modified) in europe, while the european Accord is not sold in USA as Honda, there is a completely different Accord for usa, that shares no sheetmetal with US AcuraTL. And they are a step ahead, because their damn engines don`t break and door actuators don`t stop working after 70k. no matter where you attack japanese cars, it is still goddamned japanese engineered contents. period. manufacturing origin doesn`t matter? then why put an american flag on the last usa -based and made popcorn packs? Every country adopts the manufacturing complexity level according to its abilites and organizational skills.
@jurisb
The 3.6 is German? Really? It’s not available in any Opel. The Vectra/Signum has the turbo 2.8 V6. And don’t get me started on the Antara – that’s a Daewoopel.
I wholeheartedly agree that a car brand is a promise, and Cadillac does need to find this promise. It seems that Pontiac, Chevy, and GMC have found theirs, so finding Caddy’s shouldn’t be that difficult. Pontiac should keep the sporty, fun-driving, GMC should keep “pimping” the SUVs and pickups, and Cadillac should focus on the luxury. Everything else should be killed off, but that’s a different subject… (Seriously though, options are great, but having a Saturn, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Saab, and sometimes Hummer version of basically the same car?!)
With today’s technology, Cadillac shouldn’t have a problem keeping up with the trends; America’s Luxury Brand. Technology/safety, comfort/convenience, at least a bit driver-centric, make sure they handle well, and above all, make the driver feel like he’s driving America’s finest automobile. This isn’t a hard reach for any car, it just takes focus. Anything from a small car up to a full-sized Behemoth could be made to these standards.
On that note, Caddy (as well as Infiniti, Lexus, Lincoln, etc.), kill off the trucks!! Almost every pickup on the market can be bought with options/packages to make them more luxurious than any truck deserves to be, so why make an even more luxurious version? Full-sized SUVs nowadays are used as minivans and driven, unfortunately, like sports cars; my 300ZX is overtaken by Tahoes and Suburbans driving in excess of 30 miles over the highway limits on a daily basis!! These things are not needed on the road in masses, especially when the insulation and suspension make 90 feel like 50. Keep the luxury mini-“SUVs” and “crossovers” (a.k.a. station wagons on stilts) all you want, but leave the truckin’ and luxury apart. Most trucks/SUVs, especially expensive ones, will never see more than maybe a dirty road, and hauling a trunk full of food for a PTA meeting or office supplies doesn’t really qualify as truck duty to me.
As far as the “dirty blood” comments go, I don’t think re-badges are “dirty” as long as the rebadged model has significantly different traits/characteristics (but that would probably be more accurately defined as platform sharing). The problem that Caddy faces is that some of GM’s re-badges/platform shares are equivalent to the ever-popular “buy-trasher-&-spend-7K-pimping-out” belief; in the end, you just have an expensive piece of trash.
Is the EXT really a pickup? or is it just an Escalade with a cargo box.
Also, I could be wrong, but I didn’t think the Escalade and EXT had ‘leaf springs’, maybe someone could clarify that.
In Canada you can buy the Mercedes B-Class, Acura CSX (Civic with leather), what’s that do to their image as a luxury brand.
a lot of people here have pointed out that everyone else does it, too (“it” being stretch to brand to cover every conceivable niche)…so why is Cadillac in any more danger?
I would argue that BMW, while making everything from SUV’s to small sporting sedans to convertibles to 4×4 coupes…still makes everything with a sporting demeanor, tight handling, and a driver-oriented focus. So they have maintained a brand focus while expanding, and look how well it has benefitted them. Lexus to a certain extent has done the same by making sure all of their vehicles are quiet and have the best build quality and fit and finish of any brand.
Cadillac is scattered…I do love the CTS and don’t want to see it go away, but I think they need to maintain a semblance of brash Americana…the Escalade does that well. The Sixteen would have been fantastic, but CAFE is probably the final nail in the coffin for that. A few things are for certain…Cadillac should not do anything smaller than the CTS, should not build vehicles in other countries (Sweden? Mexico?), and should not expand downmarket.
Anytime a company screws with a well-established brand identity, they create anxiety among consumers who have to readjust their internal notion of what that brand means. When consumers are confused or conflicted, they shop elsewhere.
Healthy brands can, some (not Farago) would say should, do this. For example, right now Toyota could probably launch a line of motorcycles in the U.S. market without upsetting the apple cart too much. They’d be given green awards for fuel efficiency and CR would praise the vehicle as being highly reliable despite any data to support this claim [NOTE: sarcasm intended – no need to tell me that CR has sworn off this practice after the V6 Camry & Tundra reliability debacles].
Damaged or flagging brands cannot do this without inflicting further damaging their reputation. At these times its best for a brand to contract to the strength of its core identity and building the best vehicles they can within that paradigm. This is what Porsche did during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when they dropped the 968, 928, and every distracting model that wasn’t quintessentially Porsche (i.e. not a 911). Only after they had their feet firmly back on the ground and the brand repaired did they begin to slowly and deliberately expanding the brand with the Boxster, the controversial but successful Cayenne, and the Cayman.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that Caddy cut their product offerings to one model. But they need a concrete vision of what a Cadillac is, focus on that ideal by eliminating any vehicles that distract from that vision, and build the best cars they can within that context. I think the CTS can be foundational in that process. Furthermore, deviants such as the BLS and XLT must be amputated post haste. The brand is in better shape, but still bloodied by decades of uncertainty and misdirection. It’s too soon to begin branching out.
That said, my concern for Cadillac is not just their current hodgepodge of offerings but the amorphous terms their design team used to explain the brand. It makes me fear for their future. Maybe they just did a bad job of articulating their vision. After all, a Caddy minivan?
Sherman Lin:
Respectfully, the only thing I can agree with is that Ford couldn’t pull of a Lincoln pickup. Most pickup owners, especially contractors, are not well off (I know, I used to be one). But I don’t want to dwell on that.
Cadillac would be a stronger brand if it didn’t sell pickup trucks. GMC would be a stronger brand if Cadillac did not sell pickups. Chevy would be a stronger brand if Caddy did not sell pickups.
I’m not against GMC making more luxurious up-optioned trucks. In fact, GMC might be able to create some much needed brand distinction (from Chevy) if they were allowed to build a premium pickup. Cadillac should stay away from any vehicle with an open bed that can accommodate a quarter yard of cow manure. A large trunk stuffed full of bodies is okay, but please, not bovine feces. Get it?
“To achieve brand health, Cadillac find one path. It must integrate its multiple personalities into a cohesive core identity while setting defining parameters wide enough to accommodate changing market conditions, a stringent regulatory environment and fickle public tastes.”
don’t you think that as our culture and population become more diverse that it becomes more difficult for a brand, any brand, to just be one thing to all people? Brand health may in fact be quite different from financial health and brand survivability. Even Porsche has a SUV and I think that fact alone ought to make one rethink what brand does mean.
7. PRICE – Unobtainable.
Yeah, there’s a lot of money to be made in the unobtainable market.
Sorry, I completely disagree. The fact is that there is very little difference in quality and features between brands and models than in the past. So why buy one car over another? It has to have *something*. Yes BMW has the “ultimate blah blah blah” thing going. Good for them.
I want a car that is fun to drive and makes me feel good about the monthly check I send to the finance company. For that to be possible, I have to be able to afford aforementioned check. The CTS fits that description in our case. Each time my wife and I pick up our CTS at the garage, we get a little thrill because it doesn’t look like a camcord. Our first-gen CTS still looks good six years after its introduction. The new ’08 that we often see parked in the garage looks even better. In the end, all prognostication by pundits means nothing compared to being able to sell cars, period. The CTS has been a success for years. If Caddy can keep buyers interested enough, they’re doing a good job.
BTW, I agree that it’s time for GM to have Chevy and Cadillac and no other brands. That would solve all the branding problems nicely.
A few points along with my prescription for Cadillac:
I really like RF’s point, and especially like how he says a Cadillac truck is a stretch. Nothing is impossible, but a truck would be hard to fit into what we think a cadillac should be. Branding guru’s that make statements like this, but which are absolute, always miss the mark IMO.
I would also point out that “Cadillac” used to be a synonym for “best”. Cadillac didn’t make TV’s, or dishwashers, but people selling those things often claimed to be or make the “Cadillac” of their industry. In fact, it was also used in a negative sense to imply that something was too good, expensive, or luxurious for the job. “That’s the cadillac of hammers, sir. If you just need something for weekend chores, you might prefer this one.”
In the eighties, everything changed. We went through a phase of saying, “It’s the Cadillac of X, except Cadillac’s aren’t that great anymore, but you know what I mean.” And then it was over. Whatever you think about branding, they killed that brand.
I would argue that it was not poor reliability that killed the brand, it was a combination of poor workmanship with lack of differentiation that really did the trick. Plenty of luxury brands have had mediocre reliability. This is acceptable if you push the envelope, but not if you are just the cushier version of a Chevy.
That is what killed Cadi – It became in everyone’s mind a Chevy with fancy (cheaply made and applied) finishes.
Cadillac needs to go back to it’s roots. The cars need to be over the top luxurious, powerful, attractive, formal, and built to extremely tight tolerances. The door needs to sound right when shut. All the modern tech needs to be there, and done right. The bells and whistles need to be the version used at the symphony, not at the fire house. The cars need big, smooth engines that never complain when pushed. I would argue that the handling does NOT need to be up to German standards, but today, land yachts are not acceptable. The cars need to get a B or B+ in handling at least, not be top dogs in that area.
Here is the kicker. In spite of all of it’s woes, GM needs to make these cars at a price 10 points lower than the competition. Sell them at a price that is as low as you can, still maintain a luxury class image, and not lose money on every one.
Once you prove that Cadillac is once again the “Cadillac” of cars, then you can raise the price of the new cars to start making money and simultaneously help maintain the values of the used ones.
Now, don’t sit down and congratulate yourselves. Instead, pour more and more money into R&D. There is no reason that a 21st century cadillac owner should have to drive their own car. They should drive themselves. It’s doable. We know it can be done, it’s just a matter of doing it. Go do it.
If GM proposed this strategy, and REALLY executed this strategy, they would get the investment needed to stay in business and get back to being perceived as a strong company again, BECAUSE THEY WOULD BE ONE.
William C. Montgomery: Respectfully, the only thing I can agree with is that Ford couldn’t pull of a Lincoln pickup. Most pickup owners, especially contractors, are not well off (I know, I used to be one). But I don’t want to dwell on that.
Cadillac would be a stronger brand if it didn’t sell pickup trucks. GMC would be a stronger brand if Cadillac did not sell pickups. Chevy would be a stronger brand if Caddy did not sell pickups.
I’m not against GMC making more luxurious up-optioned trucks. In fact, GMC might be able to create some much needed brand distinction (from Chevy) if they were allowed to build a premium pickup. Cadillac should stay away from any vehicle with an open bed that can accommodate a quarter yard of cow manure. A large trunk stuffed full of bodies is okay, but please, not bovine feces. Get it?
In fairness, only Lincoln took a crack at a pickup, in the Mark LT. It also tried the Blackwood, but that was more in the vein of the EXT, which is actually an SUT, based off the Avalanche, to be technical. I won’t belabour this point more because both of us would get a headache. I will just say that any truck that can’t tow a 5th Wheel isn’t much of a pickup. I would’ve added to that a truck with rear coils, but Dodge may make me eat crow yet if I made that comment.
As per GMC/Chevrolet GMT-900s, I think GM is creating some confusion, or at least they are to me. GMC’s motto is “Professional Grade”, so to me GMC should go with the more capable line of pickups, maybe going with the heavy-half option as an example. However, GMC also has an image of being more upscale than the Chevrolet, in the vein of keeping Chevrolet trucks (and cars) at the entry-level of the market. Therefore we have the Sierra Denali.
I understand why this isn’t the case, because (especially in the U.S.) Chev outsells GMC 5-1 (approx.) so there is some hesitancy to upsetting the apple cart on one of their few successful products.
” … problems start when Cadillac takes German built 3.6 er”
The 3.0 liter V-6 used in the Saturn L-series, the Cadillac Catera and the first CTS was indeed a European GM engine as was the 3.2 liter version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_54-Degree_V6_engine#L81
The current 3.6 liter High Feature V-6 was designed by a GM joint project team led from Detroit and including Opel engineers. It is presently built in Canada and Australia for GM use while variants are also built by Alfa and Suzuki for their own purposes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_High_Feature_engine#2.8
In fact, it was also used in a negative sense to imply that something was too good, expensive, or luxurious for the job. “That’s the cadillac of hammers, sir. If you just need something for weekend chores, you might prefer this one.”
Or Maybe;
“Do you see that Chevy or Buick Hammer hanging on the wall over there. It is bascially the same hammer as the Cadillac hammer, it is made by the same company using the same metal and process yet it is priced considerably cheaper. Unless you must have a hammer with a Cadillac label these will do the job just as well for a lot less.”
Place any 1974 full sized Chevy, Buick, Olds, or Cadillac side by side today and you will see that there is basically no difference. OK, the Caddy had some better leather and a few more opera lights on the body.
Cadillac has no business making a pickup. None. Neither does Caddy have any business making a minivan or a comuter vehicle.
If they can’t say no to any vehicle type, then they simply cannot get focused.
My advice to Caddy-
Follow RF’s list of what a Caddy should be. Let Buick fill the gap that will be left when you price your cars where they should be.
Stop watching Mercedes. MB hasn’t got the slightest fricking idea what Brand Identity means. Not a fricking clue. Also, as others have mentioned, MB is alone in the world. GM has 7 other divisions that can make whatever it is that Caddy doesn’t make. (Pikups, minivans, Dump Trucks, Buses, Farm Tractors…)
Watch Lexus. Lexus is what Caddy always was. Big soft barges with plenty of power. Wafters, not Carvers. Lexus simply had the novel idea that luxury car owners might want the car to run, and hold together well after the last payment is made.
Don’t watch Lexus too closely becaue they are now in the process of diluting their brand identity with “F”.
Say no. Say it a lot. Say “It’s not our job, maybe Buick, Saturn, Pontiac, Chevy, GMC, Hummer or Saab could make that type of vehicle” .
Cadillac appears to be the only sign of life at GM outside of trucks and the Vette. They’ve got a ways to go, but at least they’re succeeding in improving quality and creating a unique design.
As for Caddy’s identity, why can’t American Sport Luxury be the identity? Hell, if Porsche can get away with selling the Cayenne in big numbers (effectively flipping off their identity by building that thing in the first place), there’s no reason Cadillac can’t. That is unless Rick and Bob stick their %*#$%& in it and screw it up.
Quasimondo–your mentioned brands have the same country origin. Dodge uses Cummins engines. Fine. Caterpillar uses Detroit Diesel. fine. Sikorsky uses Allison. Fine. Boeing uses GE. fine. But cadillac uses german platform, rebadges and derives opels as BLS and then plays out ` American card` . Lies.
So I take it that you’d have no problem if Cadillac were to sell a rebadged Malibu to the Europeans instead?
And if Infiniti uses nissan engines, it has nothing to do with rebadge.I It is a common practice. problems start when Cadillac takes German built 3.6 er and attributes it to her own engineering.
You miss my point that as bad as it was for Cadillac to throw a wreath-and-crest on a Cavalier, it is just as bad for Infiniti to put an unmodified econobox engine into one of their luxury models. Origin means nothing, really, unless you’re horrified at the thought of a Bugatti Veyron powered by Volkswagen.
And Accord is barely rebadged, because the acura TL they sell in US is sold as Honda Accord( still modified) in europe, while the european Accord is not sold in USA as Honda, there is a completely different Accord for usa, that shares no sheetmetal with US AcuraTL.
Perhaps you have it confused with the Acura TSX, which is very much an Accord elsewhere in the world.
And they are a step ahead, because their damn engines don`t break and door actuators don`t stop working after 70k.
Is this the tactic that you must resort to now? It’s a really cheap shot and it’s very disappointing that you would go this route.
no matter where you attack japanese cars, it is still goddamned japanese engineered contents. period. manufacturing origin doesn`t matter? then why put an american flag on the last usa -based and made popcorn packs? Every country adopts the manufacturing complexity level according to its abilites and organizational skills.
Manufacturing origin doesn’t matter. If U.S. manufacturing wasn’t up to the capabilities of the rest of the world, I doubt BMW would be churning Z4’s out of their South Carolina factory, and Mercedes-Benz wouldn’t be making ML- and R-Class vehicles from their Alabama plant.
WhatdoIknow,
My point exactly. By the eighties, it was cooked.
JKross,
Cadillac should NOT go sport. They will lose if they try it. Their final objective is a robotic limousine. Why take a side trip into sporty?
Because it’s not mutually exclusive from ride quality, and it’ll go back to being the official Final Car of Tasteless Middle America otherwise. Sport keeps the brand interesting to younger folks. That’s why Lexus is adding the F-Series (also a good idea)…they see that the average age of their buyer is getting higher each year. This keeps the brand fresh.
CarShark:
Sport keeps the brand interesting to younger folks. That’s why Lexus is adding the F-Series (also a good idea)…they see that the average age of their buyer is getting higher each year. This keeps the brand fresh.
Brands don’t need to be fresh. They need to be focused.
The problems I see are in the fact that they have no viable flagship model. My family rented a DTS when we were on vacation, and while it was big, comfortable and reasonably quick, the build quality, fit and finish were below par. The GM corporate radio and controls, 4 speed auto tranny, and front wheel drive only added insult to injury)
Cadillac needs a new flagship, the STS “import-fighter” isnt it, neither is the DTS. Hopefully Cadillac finally understands this and is merging these models.
Particularly depressing is the fact that GM recently canceled development of their next generation DOHC v8 Ultra engines. If you want to be “the standard of the world”, you need something at the very least on par with the competition (Lexus ls 4.6 v8 makes 380hp, while the most powerful Northstar 4.6l makes 320hp). Come to think of it, if Cadillac just took the LS and slapped their badge on it, it would be a fine job.
I think people here have already mentioned the qualities a quintessential Cadillac should have. Really, I love Cadillacs, I plan on buying a used 1970 Eldorado to compliment my GTI in the summer. All i can do is to wait and see i suppose.
SkiD666: The EXT is a sheet metal workover of a Chevy Avalanche. While the Avalanche looks like a pickup, in many ways it is closer to the Suburban, including coils in the multilink rear suspension. Cadillac ups that with a load-leveling suspension (air shocks I believe – I’ve never been under an EXT to look). You get a much better ride from it than you would with leafs IMHO. The Avalanche 2500 models did have leafs (as well as the 8.1L V8) in the rear for enhanced load carrying/towing ability.
This was true in the first gen models (I owned a ’02 Avy at one point), and believe that it is true in the GMT900 models.
quasimondo- I agree, I mixed up that TSX abbreviature. My bad. When I mentioned,that Sikorsky , for example, uses Allison engines, I meant that the origin of the Allison is still US based, meaning the manufacturing expertize stays within the country. There is nothing bad with outsourcing if it stays within that country, meaning the added value and ability stays tied to the country. Your mentioned trick of rebadging Malibu gives a false diversity, because rebadging basically is selling the same item under pretense of being something else,and gives an illussion of a sufficient product diversity or range. Using Allison engines has nothing to do with it.
Yoy said that origin means nothing. Then why does Daewoo gets sold as chevrolet? Isn`t it a pretense of looking american? Why don`t you sell opels as opels in America, but as Saturns? Because saturn is imagined as an american car, but Opel, a german one. So they are trying to play out an `american card`. If origin doesn`t matter, why Chrysler doesn`t brag about building their cars on Mercedes floorpans and platforms? Why Ford doesn`t proudly state in adds, that `our gearboxes don`t break, because they are japanese Aisin`? Why Gm doesn`t announce `rethink german` when selling their pontiac g5 or whatever they make? Why is Philips sold in america as Norelco? because it sounds american! magnavox? RCA? Why do they hide their non-amrican engineering contents? When could you last time buy a General Electric refrigerator that would have been engineered in the United States?
Why hinting to Cadillac`s quality issues, you take it as a cheap shot? Is quality an irrelevant issue?You see it is quite simple. The rich people tend to be the educated ones. The educated ones tend to be more choosy or picky. So the educated ones will rather buy the expensive vehicles, including luxury vehicles. So Cadillacs will rather be bought by choosy people- meaning the ones who are nitpicking about fit and finish, quality and texture.That`s why for luxury divisions quality is an issue number one. That`s why you can sell zillions of trucks with leaf springs, because they are tended for audiences with less income, less education, less nitpicking.
Talking about the US capabilities. Why does lexus imports all Lexuses from japan, but doesn`t make them in States?And And Z4 churned out from South carolina has little to do with US engineering or stamping. It is a German engineered vehicle being stamped in USa by japanese industrial robots, where american workers put bolts together or push `on` button on a korean LCD. Welcome to reality!
` We should have a strong president, a strong enough president to resist the temptation to use power that is not allowed by the Constitution` It was said by Ron Paul. God bless him! I would like to paraphrase him.
Detroit 3 should have a strong CEO, strong enough CEO to resist the tempatation to outsource foreign platforms and cars , that are not allowed by national long term interests of the company, or country!` if Detroit listened more to me, they would already be top of the World!
CarShark:
Sport keeps the brand interesting to younger folks. That’s why Lexus is adding the F-Series (also a good idea)…they see that the average age of their buyer is getting higher each year. This keeps the brand fresh.
Robert Farago:
Brands don’t need to be fresh. They need to be focused.
I understand where you are coming from RF but you can’t be so focused in following your brand ID that it takes you right over a cliff. If your clientel is dying of old age you need to do something or you will follow them into extinction.
whatdoiknow1: Place any 1974 full sized Chevy, Buick, Olds, or Cadillac side by side today and you will see that there is basically no difference. OK, the Caddy had some better leather and a few more opera lights on the body.
Your example is a few years too early.
In 1974, all of the GM divisions were still using their own V-8s for their full-size cars. The build quality of the Cadillacs was also considerably above that of the Chevrolet Bel Air/Impala/Caprice.
The real blurring of divisional lines began with the 1977 downsizing of the full-size cars. With that generation, build quality was pretty much the same for all of the divisions. In 1979, Cadillac began using the Oldsmobile Diesel, and thus was tarred with that disaster.
With the new front-wheel-drive DeVilles and Fleetwoods of late 1984, Cadillac was selling cars that were arguably WORSE in every way than a comparable Chevrolet Caprice. That is when the division really fell off the cliff.
jurisB,
Origin doesn’t matter. The MINI Cooper waves the Union Jack at every opportunity, but it’s parent company is German, and the earlier MINI’s used a Chrysler engine, while the later ones used a Peugeot engine. But nobody really cares about that because to them, it’s as British as tea time and fish & chips.
Rich buyers may be more ‘educated’ but they’re just as bound to image and perception as anyone else. BMW and Mercedes-Benz have been beset by electrical gremlins for years and most German enthusiats feel that the engineering of todays vehicles are nowhere near the rock-solid engineering of yesterday’s vehicles, yet people continue to flock to them. Everybody like to use CR’s reliability reports when it suits them, so go ahead and see that CR rated the E-Class and 5-series as ‘poor’ and ask yourself why rich educated buyers still flock to these cars when they’re quite unreliable?
I don’t know why every Lexus (except for the RX) is produced in Japan, but if Toyota seems content with designing and assembling the Camry in the US along with going to great lengths to demonstrate how involved they are with the U.S. economy by sticking a huge poster on the back of a Tundra showing assembly plants in 34 states where they either manufacture cars or parts, I’d have to think that they see something in America’s manufacturing capabilities.
With the new front-wheel-drive DeVilles and Fleetwoods of late 1984, Cadillac was selling cars that were arguably WORSE in every way than a comparable Chevrolet Caprice. That is when the division really fell off the cliff.
In my view, since 1996 Cadillac has yet to replace its flagship. The K/G-Body Deville/DTS is a poor substitute.
“Everybody like to use CR’s reliability reports when it suits them, so go ahead and see that CR rated the E-Class and 5-series as ‘poor’ and ask yourself why rich educated buyers still flock to these cars when they’re quite unreliable?”
I said it earlier in the thread. People in this segment are not all about reliability. They will accept less reliability if they can get the other things they want like style, technology, performance, fit, and finish. After all, they get a current model year BMW loaner when they take their BMW in for service. My wife was once given a cheap BMW loaner car, and that could have been her last BMW. (We noticed that idea got reversed rather quickly).
These people can afford the repairs. If the car does not strand them, they are more happy with these problems than with having a less satisfactory car ALL THE TIME.
I suppose the bottom line is value, and knowing what your customers value.
At the risk of repeating, I think Cadillac customers want a car that has style inside and out. They want it to be comfortable and cushy. The performance they really want is for it to feel powerful (torque). A BMW is about getting there in luxury while enoying the ride. A Cadillac should be about arriving. You should arrive relaxed, and ready to impress.
To me, Cadillac will always be just a fancy Chevy.
Escalade – pimped-out Suburban
EXT – pimped-out Sierra
Cars – pimped-out Impalas/whatever…
Quasimondo- origin doesn`t matter? sure for brits doesn`t matter. look, where it`s got british car industry. to nowhere. It is almost finished. Just the ultra expensive cars which you can sell to rich aristocrats sons ,who haven`t worked a single day in their life, thus having no taste in salt of earning real cash. And they easily overpay. Brits would brag even if you put a bentley emblem on a messerschmidt. They are desperate. And Mini is amateur(designwise). Couldn` tell that about nissan micra. looks like origin doesn`t matter only for the countries that lack abilites to build competetive products themselves. And by the way, people buy mercedes because under every friggin` mercedes stands only goddamned german engine, pure goddamned german platform and pure goddamned german gearbox, and their cars have excellent fit and finish and excellent goddamned material texture. Period. Reliability? you can hide that from your friends, but not cheesy plastics or huge panel gaps. And by the way, quality issues started when they opened gates to turkish workers in their factories. I am not racist, I am fact driven. Plus problems started with the first US designed ML SUV assembled in Alabama.By the way your mint of US Treasury last week printed 52bn dollars- out of thin air. I guess that doesn`t matter. the same like car origin. What do I know. I am quite stupid anyway.
And what, pray tell, is that? “To me, Cadillac is about desirability and drama,” Caldwell answered, once again releasing the PR vapors. “Yes, a Cadillac is flamboyant,” Dean added. In other words, it’s like porn; you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it.”
I laughed out loud at that one…. these PR guys are such superb BSers that they are hilarious.
JohnB :
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
To me, Cadillac will always be just a fancy Chevy.
Escalade – pimped-out Suburban Pretty much
EXT – pimped-out Sierra not really
Cars – pimped-out Impalas/whatever…” Pure BS. How many RWD Chevies are there?
I like the CTS and STS well enough but I agree with I’m sure some people that they’re not really Cadillacs. They might as well be Saturns. To me a Cadillac should be somewhere between the LS/7 series/S-Class and the Rolls Royce Phantom. Closer to the Jag XJ and the Bentleys. It should be something that the majority of people could not afford until it had over 100K miles on it and was running on 7 cylinders and had a busted transmission.
Love the Slade though and we need the Eldorado back.
Okay…
EXT – pimped-out Avalanche
Cars – you got me there, years ago I had an Impala which was RWD, forgot they are FWD today.
Still, I just see Cadillac as the same old GM crap. In fact, not long ago, a friend’s relative showed up at a party with a new CTS. I sat inside and really, it just had that same old el-cheapo Chevy look to it… Step on the gas to get that really cool fart-can sound, etc…
Oh well…
I have brand new DTS as a work car. I was skeptical to say the least. I like large cars but i prefer to own small cars. I want to say that the DTS is a great car. It will not carve the curves as well as my Golf. But the seats are magestic. Its large and wonderful, as silent as a monastery. Can hold four in a close embrace of leather and heated seats. The sound system is teriffic.
I am suprised to like this car as much as i do. It even gets OK milage, about 18 mpg average. The engine is amazing. I wish this car fit into my life, i would buy one immediately. Its supercheap as a 1 or 2 year old used car too, because they are unpopular. I live in the city, so I need a smallllll car so i can park it – but i will tell ya, i’d love these wheels full time.
It would make a stunning convertable.
A brand is an emotional proposition, not a rational one, so its elasticity in serving as umbrella for a range of products depends upon the vendor’s ability to infuse those products with the central emotion of the brand. If they can do that, then even ridiculous as it is, a Porsche Cayenne is indeed embraced as a Porsche and a pickup truck can be embraced as a Cadillac, IF the central emotion of Cadillac is present in the vehicle in question. The difficulty is in GM, or its Cadillac division managers, reaching a point of insight and clarity about that central emotion, and sustaining it. No question GM lost any semblance of grounding emotion in all of its divisional brands between roughly 1975 – 1995, with predictable and disastrous results. Another ten years were spent blindly feeling their way back to identifiable propositions and now we have varying levels of clarity and murkiness about the emotional existentialism of Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Saab. Forget about the rest of the world for a moment because the brand confusion is most acute here in North America.
No one can exclusively own “safest” or “most advanced” in automobiles. Mercedes and Volvo both claim the former, and BMW, Audi and Mercedes all make bloated claims for the latter. In the average consumer’s mind there is now even a brand emotion attached to German, Japanese, Korean, Italian, British and American in automobiles that complicates the brands’ ability to venture outside that unintentional structure even if they wanted to. It will be very difficult for any American manufacturer to build brand perception of premier reliability now owned by “Japanese.” Difficult for Japanese manufacturers to drive brand perception on performance now owned by the Germans. Difficult for the Germans to create brand perception for flair now owned by the Italians, and so forth. But to have any chance of maneuvering out of these cultural straight-jackets, clarity of defining existential emotion for a given brand is paramount.
Mercedes’ emotion is success. BMW’s emotion is driver involvement. Maserati’s emotions are beauty and passion. Lexus’ are restrained, responsible luxury and lack of worry. Cadillac’s emotion has to be drama. The living large mentality that defines American optimism has to infuse every Cadillac, but this is not strictly a size dictate. To support this, Cadillacs must be visually dramatic, the most comfortable luxury cars for extended travel, technically advanced not for the singularities of the Germans’ performance bent but for the total balance of performance, comfort, usability, technology integration, safety. These cars must be supremely competent but also serene in motion. Cadillacs designed to this rubric can be desired in big countries like China, Russia, India, Australia, Canada, the US of course, Saudi Arabia. These are places that, like the US did, have to build large road networks quickly. They are not going to have the handcrafted, elf-sanded roads of Germany, nor the Swiss Alps in their transit path to entertain them. German cars will not be the masters of luxury in these markets, though they could create perception they are. There’s a reason the cars that set handling standards originate within a couple hundred miles of the Alps, but why none of them are really comfortable for extended travel and why all but the Italians lack any sense of heart-stopping beauty.
The XLR/XLR-V has the visual drama and the superior technology integration with good execution on balance of factors, but it’s a first gen car developed with financial caution on an existing sports car platform and so hasn’t evolved to its rightful point of comfort and serenity yet. However, it makes the right impression *right now*. STS feels like a Cadillac, especially STS-V, but is short of the visual drama and the interior opulence needed to fully support the brand emotion. The new CTS, being a second-generation iteration of Art & Science, comes closest to supporting the total brand emotion for Cadillac and continuing refinement and year-over-year continuous improvement can push it to the forefront. Its guideposts now must be quickly applied to its stablemates. XLR is not a sports car. Corvette is for that. XLR is a sporting GT with a retractable hardtop. It needs a slight platform enlargement or re-engineering of the hardtop to carve out more passenger space, and of course people will expect interior upgrades to beyond CTS execution. CTS Coupe should be built for mouth-watering desirability, not for price accessibility. STS can undergo the CTS evolution and meet the large car requirement all by itself. SRX has CTS as its lighthouse. So what about trucks? The Escalade can carry Cadillac’s central emotion of drama and the current vehicle is a vast upgrade over its predecessor in ability to do this. But it’s too primitive. It should have IRS, perhaps lightweight material wheels to reduce unsprung weight, more cues to separate it from GMC. Sacrifice some mule capabilities in favor of luxury. The work crowd can buy a perfectly nice GMC. Give the Escalade an engine exclusive to Cadillac. The EXT needs the same refinements plus a little more visual drama and a far less awkward bed cover. Dump the goofy flying buttresses outback. Cadillacs should have pushbutton or telepathic functionality for the pedestrian bits of a prestige 4 place pickup engineered for occasional utility, if they have it at all.
On balance, if I were starting from scratch with Cadillac, I’d not opt to build a pickup and maybe not even the SUV. But both were launched at a time when an overriding emotional logic for Cadillac was not present. The brand was grappling for traction and found it in the Escalade which has since become iconic, earning its place in the Cadillac firmament as the brand emotion becomes succinct. The EXT hasn’t won the Escalade’s iconic role so it is expendable, but I do agree that it can be made “Cadillac-consistent” for the real estate developer demo, as long as such a niche rationale exists.
America is an idea even more than the country that is the United States. There are “Americans” all over the world who may never opt to live here, but they will respond to the cultural cues that define the brash, declarative, go-for-it American culture. It’s entirely appropriate for Cadillac to debut GM’s greenest technologies. But it cannot nor should not ever be a brand that can sell a homely, cramped car just because weenies who have never been in a mouse-fur, rubber-matted, rattling 5 series cab in Europe remain convinced the ugly can in front of them is an “ultimate driving machine.” Nor should Cadillac build a “green” car with no advantages. No. Cadillacs must wear their emotion and meet the promise of that visual drama once the driver and passenger climb inside. How they adapt to efficiency and resource regulations is relevant but not compelling. Without drama, the car — however good — is always going to be something else. Sharpening Cadillac will bring clarity to Buick and Pontiac, too.
Phil
CTS = 3-Series competitor.
STS = 5-Series competitor.
Phil,
Your 1718 of 24 Jan ought to be a separate editorial all of its own.
@LamborghiniZ
the 2008 BMW 335 sedan is: 178.2″ long, 71.5″ wide and 3594 lbs.
the 2008 Cadillac CTS sedan is: 191.6″ long, 72.5″ wide and 3861 lbs.
the 2008 BMW 550 sedan is: 191.1″ long, 72.7″ wide, and 3946 lbs.
the 2008 Cadillac STS sedan is: 196.7″ long, 72.6″ wide, and 3995 lbs.
the 2008 BMW 750i sedan is: 198.4″ long, 74.9″ wide and 4486 lbs.
so as far as size the CTS is BMW 5 series fighter, but for a lot cheaper and with a lot less power.
the STS is stuck half way between the 5 series and the 7 series.
@ KGrGunMan:
I’m aware that size wise it makes sense to put the CTS against the 5-Series, but in terms of performance, price, and most importantly of all, real world competition, the CTS is most DEFINITELY a 3-Series competitor, w/ the STS taking on the 5-Series. That is to say, people looking at an A6, a 5-Series, and an E-Class, if turning to check out Cadillac, would inspect an STS, not a CTS, as it isn’t the equivalent in terms of price, performance, or anything else other than size.
Cadillac needs to revamp the STS as the new CTS basically switches shit up by being a better car.
re: “So how does Cadillac sell itself as a strong and concise brand when it spans so many prices and genres…well, the same could be said of BMW, or Mercedes…”.
sightline: January 21st, 2008 at 8:44 pm
and porsche, too. after a lifetime spent driving a 356, a 911, a boxster and now a cayman, i finally got my hands on a cayenne a couple of weeks ago – and while it may have been a pretty nice ‘truck,’ it was, in my opinion, still a ‘truck.’
and i realize its made all sorts of good things possible for porsche in the short-term, but it has also most-definitely diluted the brand – at least so far as my perceptions are concerned.
porsches used to small, nimble, highly-efficient and certainly effective sportscars [and race cars with similar attributes]. but now, with the inclusion of their large and excessively luxurious cayennes, they have become something else. and soon, with the arrival of the panamera, they will become something else again.