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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
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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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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Replying to: sls002 (Jan 19, 2007 8:56 am) So what. Guy, the Allante flopped. Everyone remembers that and Cadillac would like for you to forget it. Again, you act as though the correct numbers gave the Allante some type of advantage. Your continued harping on that is just ridiculous. The car was still underpowered and had far less hp then the SL of the day. It is matterles! You can keep bringing that up forever, it won't change a thing. The SL has been around since the 50's continusouly, while Cadillac has flopped in the segment before and according to some here now. That XLR isn't competitive I really don't agree with. M
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Replying to: laurasdada (Jan 18, 2007 8:04 pm) Any chance we can drop the Allante conversation for awhile? It's really tedious, and has nothing to do with the future of Cadillac. |
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 19, 2007 9:01 am) The SL would be a better handling car and would have more torsional rigidity. Also, as any CEO will tell you, being first out of the gate is a huge advantage for a product.
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 19, 2007 9:01 am) "As far as the Allante is concerned, I think that it was overpriced, due in part to the extravagant manufacturing process. But more than anything, the FWD simply was not going to work in something that Cadillac expected to sell to Mercedes SL roadster buyers. Cadillac was able to flim-flam some people with the Seville Turing Sedan (STS) and they experimented with the computer controled suspension. However, as was the case with the 60's era Toronado and Eldorado, FWD has very serious limits with respect to handling on dry pavement. On slippery roads FWD is an other matter." |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jan 19, 2007 8:26 am) But: I got to drive an XLR at a Lexus event, and it made me crazy. As sexy as the design was, the moment I slid into the driver's seat I was frustrated. The interior felt huge and empty and...cheap. It reminded me of my friend's old Z-28. I knew about the exotic Zebra wood, but in the bright sunlight, it looked more like a polycoated piece of plywood from a kit car than a megabuck piece of forbidden rain forest. The car was a nice driver - tight and flat on the smooth roads of the event course, but I didn't feel pampered or cosseted like I did in the Jag's, BMW's and Lexus at the same event. This review from Forbes pretty well summarizes my feelings: while the interior of the XLR might be a shade more luxurious than the Corvette's, it is not even in the same class as a Lexus or Jag. Despite all the lip service being paid to Cadillac's new exterior design cues, it is frustrating to see how much its interiors still lag behind. The dashboard and console wouldn't be let out of the factory in Germany, Japan or England. While there are some nice wooden touches--such as on the steering wheel--the entire passenger side dash is one big swatch of vinyl. Would it have killed them to add a nice wooden strip to class it up a little? While environmentalists might appreciate the gesture, to most anyone else it seems like Cadillac is cheap, or clueless, or both. Similarly, the side control panels are covered in some kind of pseudo-industrial plastic stripping that is just embarrassing. Cadillac has made much of the fact that the gauges were designed by the Italian-luxury jewelry and watch firm Bulgari, and even emblazoned the name 'Bulgari' ostentatiously on the speedometer. While easy enough to read, it doesn't look particularly stylish or special. All of that to say that this is why I'm so hesitant to praise the new CTS in advance. The XLR looked pretty good in the magazine centerfolds, but in real life it was a different woman. We won't even go into the trunk lid (top-cover?) design that dumps rain water in the trunk when you try to put the top down after the rain ends.
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