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Automotive News & Views Can GM make Cadillac the standard of the world Again?
6098 messages, Last post on Aug 14, 2009 at 4:43 PM
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Replying to: sls002 (Jan 18, 2007 9:43 am) I don't get this, but it is interesting. The Allante was a 60K car with a non-power convertible top, it was FWD, it was underpowered and had very poor structural rigidty for a convertible. Even it had been RWD that would have fixed all the other problems it had. The car was typical GM of the day, half-baked and ill-conceived and put on sale way to early in its development. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the current XLR most certainly does compare to the SL, much more so than than Allante ever did during its day. I don't see how you could think otherwise. This class of car isn't about sales as much as the sedan classes are so why are you so hung up on that? The XLR doesn't sell any better for the same reason the Allante didn't, because it is overpriced. The 100K asking price for the XLR-V is really over the top for a "Cadillac", but it is easily the best car GM makes or any American brand for that matter. Cadillac tried to price the XLR like the Germans instead of taking a page out of Lexus' book. Lexus knew the SC430 couldn't compare to the SL so they priced it like a CLK550, not a SL550. Cadillac should have done the same, a 65K XLR and 85K XLR-V would have sold better than 78K XLR and 100K XLR-V do. To say that XLR cars don't compare to the SL and to imply that the Allante did is just way off-base. The XLR is way more "together" and competitive with the SL than the Allante ever was. Sure the Allante was "together" by 1993, but hadn't it been on sale since 1987? It took GM 6 years to get the car right? If so it deserved to flop. The Allante even looked the part and the name sounded elegant, but like so many GM cars they were out to lunch on the details and that is what killed it. That and the ridiculous assembly process must have come the most brain-dead folks at GM at the time. M
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I remember both the Allante and Merc and I don't know how they were even comparable? Pardon me if I am wrong, but wasn't the Allante FWD? And I don't recall the Benz being anything but a rear driver. So wouldn't this be a more logical comparison to the Caddy?  Both had about the same success from what I remember. |
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One of GM's problems in the 70's and 80's was the greatness of their 60's cars. The beautiful Caddy's of the 60's were still common on the streets in the 70's and 80's. They really made their replacements look sad, and the new cars ran poorly in comparison. Sure the old Caddy's were gas-guzzlers, but they were glorious cars. No one could feel anything but sheepish and embarrassed in his downsized FWD 80's caddy when he parked next to an old 60's queen of the highway. .jpg)  Fortunately for GM, Cadillac is like an aircraft carrier. It can sustain a lot of damage without being destroyed, but it takes a long, long time to just turn it around, and a long, long time to repair the damage. I will say that the 08 CTS looks more like a real Caddy than anything we've seen in a long time - perhaps since the Allante. However, we must wait with bated breath to see how the execution works in the real world. The Allante too looked good on paper, as did the Catera, and the XLR. Unfortunately they all had serious flaws. I really hope that Cadillac has sweated the details - this time.
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 19, 2007 1:26 am) For one, Cadillac charges you a nasty premium for the supercharger and apparently the performance upgrade you get is not even close to worth the $20K. It's a bit of a rip-off I think is the general critics' notion. Also the electric hardtop is supposed to be diabolically unfriendly and it seems likely that this going to get real annoying real fast for many otherwise happy owners. It's stuff like this that drives me nuts about Cadillac. They get to "almost" and then shoot themselves in the foot on TWO really really important items...the "promise" of performance vs. the reality, and the major component of the car's identity---the hardtop/convertible function. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jan 19, 2007 8:26 am) I think the price is the biggest problem, a 100K for a Cadillac is a tough sell to their traditional buyers and it is way to much too ask of a Euro buyer shopping in that price range. They'll simply say "may as well get the MB/BMW/Porsche/Jaguar" etc. etc. A M6 Cabrio, SL550 or a XLR-V? Cadillac isn't going to win that one too often. The Cadillac name itself just doesn't garner any respect or interest with people who spend 100K on a car, regardless as to whether or not the XLR-V itself is worthy or competitive with other 100K droptops. It's stuff like this that drives me nuts about Cadillac. They get to "almost" and then shoot themselves in the foot on TWO really really important items... This is GM's problem in general. Take the Kappa twins and the Saturn Aura for instance. They look the part on paper and even perform nicely, but their are lots of oversights and/or faulty details that keep them from greatness. Interior quality/fit/finish, transmission (on the Kappas) and other things that annoy. To GM's credit though they seem to be more eager to make changes right away instead of years down the line. At least in the case of the Sky/Solstice. M
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 19, 2007 1:11 am) The article was both an interview with a Cadillac spokesperson and a test of the 87 Allante. At the beginning of the article, the spokesperson said that GM's grand plan (note this is probably mid 1986) was to move Buick up market to replace Cadillac and to move Cadillac up market to compete with Mercedes. The rest of the article was on the Allante, and did not address the issue of where the Allante fit into the moving up scheme. My impression was that the Allante was not a final product in this grand scheme. The article stated that they were planning to build up to about 500 Allantes per month, but did not expect to sell that many, at least in the first year. That same issue of Motor Trend had a comparison test of the Corvette, Porsche and Mercedes 560SL. The Corvette was considered the run away best performer of the three. The skidpad performance was perhaps worth noting, the SL got 0.80, while the Allante was 0.81 in its separate test. Skidpad numbers are meaningless when it comes to actual performance on real highways, so how the two might have compared in actual handling is not clear, but in the Motor Trend test write up they seemed to think the Allante was much better than the rest of the production Cadillacs at that time. As far as GM's grand scheme of moving Buick and Cadillac up goes, in 1989 Buick had a Park Avenue Ultra model, with a much nicer interior. The Ultra was comparable to perhaps the Fleetwood Cadillac at that time. When the 1991 Buick Park Avenue (an all new body) came out, the Ultra Park Avenue was not the 1990 version, but was more like the old Park Avenue, while the standard Park Avenue was the Electra. So I think GM's grand plan was dead by the early 1990's. We are now more than 20 years past mid-1986 and I do not see that Buick has changed, or that Cadillac is any more Mercedes like that it ever was. Mercedes had a broad range of models in the 80's, so Cadillac could have aimed at the low end.
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 19, 2007 8:45 am) This "ultra-luxury GT" market is a tough one....over $100K I'd suspect most people want either a really razor-sharp performance car or a big-ass sedan with overwhelming presence and performance. They pretty much spit out that Lexus SC430 or whatever it was.....
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Replying to: sls002 (Jan 19, 2007 8:48 am) I don't get what you're reaching for here with the Allante. It never established itself as a SL competitor and it didn't do any damage to Mercedes' SL. Whether or not the Allante sold or not is irrelevant. That the Cadilac faithful bought so many of Caddy's 80s products tells you that Cadillac buyers didn't care or know what the "best" cars were during that time. M
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jan 19, 2007 8:50 am) This is true. The rumored 650hp Supercharged Corvette Blue Devil or "SS" is going to really rock the establishment, even more so than the Z06. It hard to ignore 911 Turbo/F430 level performance for 65K no matter what the badge is. Lexus knew the SC430 would be murdered by the SL so they ducked a direct confrontation. M |
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 19, 2007 8:53 am)
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