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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: louiswei (Dec 28, 2007 7:07 am) You suggest that Cadillacs of the past were crap but then say you dont want to get into specific comparions vs older imports. In my eyes the list doesnt matter. Cars of that era were inferior to today's vehicles in every single way and nothing being done by luxury imports was light years ahead of Cadillac. Cadillac made a different type of car than the Germans back then. it was a car that was designed for American tastes and at that time it made sense becaue Cadillac was the top selling brand until Lincoln passed them in 1998 or 1999. Cadillac's werent "bad" cars they were just cars made for luxury cruising, not attacking curves on the Autobahn. Over time the press and the public began to feel that Euro luxury was the only true definition of luxury and large, soft riding American luxury cars began to lose popularity as people wanted smaller, better handling vehicles with more emphasis on driving dynamics than luxury isolation. Bottom line, I'm not pining for ANY car from the 80s regardless of who made it.
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I love those veiled insults in which people act like they are too upscale to drive an Escalade. I hate to break this to you but rappers probably make up 2% of Escalde owners. The rest are high income suburbanites of various races and backgrounds. And I suspect quite a few of these "high income suburbanites" drive their Escalades into the garages of their 6,000 s.f. brick front, vinyl sided box McMansions in tract housing subdivisions. And wouldn't know good architecture if Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater fell on them. It's not a matter of how much money one has, it's how much taste they exhibit in spending it. I'd rather have our 1996 Isuzu Trooper 5-speed manual transmission back than be given an Escalade. If the Escalade was a house, it would be an ostentatious McMansion. Just not my style. I accept that some people have different tastes than me. Some have no taste at all. But don't tell me that because I don't get giddy over a crome and bling crazed locomotive shaped escalade on 24" inch wheels with the driving dynamics of an oil tanker that somehow I must not "get it". There isn't a single one of those behemouths in my neighborhood. Nor is vinyl siding an acceptable architectural material. |
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what substance does the Escalade lack? 403hp? check. 6 speed auto? check. Great sound system and nav? check. Style? check. HID lights, automatic high beams, variable suspension, heated/cooled seats. check again. Is there anything in there you can't get on a Tahoe or a Yukon? Stuff you can't get on any Escalade: IRS, foldaway seats, diesel engines, hybrid transmission, etc. Things that actually improve the driving experience.
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Replying to: fintail (Dec 28, 2007 7:18 am) same applies to German cars. Lexus taught them otherwise. I'm pretty sure GM has known how to label buttons and switches in an intelligible manner for quite some time. German cars were also amongst the last to incorporate useful features like cup holders and steering wheel controls because they insisted buyers didnt need such gimmicks. "I've never bought the 'plain interior' argument either...some of us don't want button-tufted pillows to sit on as we drive. Many people could look inside an S-class built in 1980 and think it was 15 years newer. That's more significant. " German interiors in the 80s were dull, angular and dark. By today's standards they are sad looking. I would never think any MB from 1980 looked "futuristic" or modern. When I look at older Euro cars I often wonder why people thought they were worth a premium at the time. They dont look any better than the other dull designs offered by lower end manufacturers. The 70s and 80s were a low point for automotive design. "the SL has been a moving target Caddy has been eyeing - and missing - for over 20 years" caddy tried to compete twice last time I checked. Atlante was barely a GM car and didnt do well. The XLR is a credible challenger. Its cheaper, more distintive looking, fast and has state of the art technology. Seeing as though the XLR-V costs about the same as a compable SL550 I would say the XLR can hold it's own. BTW, when have Lexus, Audi or BMW been able to hit the SL target? Oh yeah, they havent even come as close as Cadillac. The SC430 has been a joke for some time and was beat by the XLR every time they were compared.
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Replying to: mrsyj (Dec 28, 2007 7:18 am) American tastes circa 1965, which is fine and good except that it wasn't 1965 anymore and the luxury buyer moved away to greener pastures, to be replaced by increasingly geriatric former Buick buyers.
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Replying to: onlygmmatters (Dec 27, 2007 1:15 pm) I agree. Of course the Cimmarron was an exception they will use to attack us with. When the Northstar V8 entered into the Seville and created the 300 hp. Cadillac Seville STS, that at that given momment was "The Standard of the World" for all luxury cars.  I believe the Seville STS was car of the year in a few magazines.  -Rocky |
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The Tahoe doesnt have 403hp, 6 speed, 4 year warranty, cooled seats, 9" DVD Nav screen, high end BOSE 5.1 sound system, HIDs, 22" wheels, intellibeam headlights and several other features. The Tahoe either has or is getting the 6.2 V8 any day now, and I think the Yukon already has that and all the other trinkets you mentioned. MB has a couple of diesel SUVs and BMW is building one next year. |
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Replying to: mrsyj (Dec 28, 2007 7:26 am)  "Intelligible" is opinion...funny how the non-specific switches etc mentioned are fine for the rest of the world, but always an issue in the US. Maybe the car isn't the problem... And 'sad looking'? There's nothing more sad than the pretentiousness of a bordello interior in a car that some will claim is competitive. The MB W126 is seen as one of the most significant cars of the past several decades. It was light years ahead of anything in production when it was introduced. In 1980, it was the future, there were no sedans that came close. I wonder how many people defected from Caddy and Lincoln to it - as it was a smash hit and sold over a million units in its long run many must have, and it was used as the basis for the first Lexus LS - a decade after introduction. That's proves enough for me. The vaunted high performance XLR-V is barely faster than a plain old SL550, the MB will have better resale, better materials, and as is important for many of its buyers - better image. It has aged very well, seeing as it is now 5 years old. Distinctive looks are not really something one can quantify...nor are they always positive. I wonder what someone with auto design background thinks of XLR vs SL. You won't see me defend the Lexus SC, it's a pretentious cushy boulevardier for trophy wives and retired dentists.
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Replying to: laurasdada (Dec 27, 2007 1:33 pm) Well you are defending the Hyundai Genesis, and while I agree it's a nice looking car and will do great BUT Hyundai, doesn't have a established track record yet for reliability either. Cadillac, has at least been pretty darn good for more than a decade now and currently ranks among the top. -Rocky |
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