They start at about $30,000.00 US, now correct me if I am wrong but if you are looking to gain market share you have to offer some advantage, like price?

GM is going to make a second effort at the BLS, if they ever get that far? They will switch platforms and the BLS will get a new platform. That platform is rumored to be a universal platform, it can be configured with both front and rear drives.

The next BLS will be rear-drive and priced to start at $34K, to high if you ask me. But that is in American, and what the base BMW starts for in the US. GM cannot compete head to head, they need to be comparable in quality and lower in price. The Saab 9-3 starts at 31K in the states, and that is reflected in the BLS asking price of 21,000 pounds in the UK.

If you are looking for an entry level luxury car, that being a fuel efficient good performing car like a BMW 3 then why would you even consider the Cadillac? GM can say that their cars are just as good, heck they can say anything they want they are car salesmen. But they really need to say is, it cost less, drive them both and you decide.

I do not think the writer ever drove the BLS or the a 9-3 turbo because if he did, then he may have written a different article…the BLS was priced to high to gain market share so is the Saab. Selling the 9-3 and the combi 9-3 as entry level Cadillac’s is one of those things that seems to make sense and it does actually. The pricing does not, the prices cannot be the same as the BMW they have to be less.

People that want the BMW will get it, they will not pay the same price and get a Cadillac or a Saab. But if the cars are a couple of thousand less they might take a look, if they drive them then they would buy one, the 9-3 2.0 liter turbo with 210hp they sell in the US is a very good car. The 19/28 MPG is also good, not great but good.

The BLS however, it’s badge engineered and blarblarblar but it is finally a EUROPEAN car.
stop comparing to american cars but start comparing it to a top end Peugot for example (do they have any?) and you will see it is an awsome car for it’s class. it is sold in the Netherlands as a mid-range car and that is exactly what it is but it is in the top of mid-range i might say.

Been test driving the BLS last week and i can assure you it will be ordered for me (via the company that is) because if i need to choose between Peugot or any other of that shit i rather go for the Caddy.

Been with BMW….. (525i Touring) it’s ok but not ’special’, it’s just an average car with some nice performance figures.
The BLS instead made work of the interiour and gives you at least the feel for value of money, BMW and Merc are just dull and boring. they make sure you have no distractions from the road in their cockpits.

Sorry to say but it is a very lame article you wrote, so lame that i actually took the effort to register on this site and respond to it. (says enough!!)

The temptation is always there, but it should always be resisted.

Well, it depends…If by downmarket you mean the BLS, I’d agree. But you can also offer luxury small cars. BMW 1-Series and Mercedes B-Class come to mind. Heck, the BLS was designed to compete against the Audi A4, Mercedes C-Class and the BMW 3-Series. Those cars are hardly downmarket.

The temptation is always there, but it should always be resisted.

I totally agree. Though the problem for Cadillac would be that they had no car to sell at all.

The temptation is always there, but it should always be resisted.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Almost all of the American cars I’ve ever seen in Europe were in England. Among those, it was almost all Jeep Wranglers, Chrysler 300, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Chrysler Town and Country (marketed as Voyager, IIRC).

All of them distinctly American in their own ways, but each offered with a Diesel and existing in a niche segment that doesn’t go head-to-head against the locals. DCX must be doing something right over there.

Some American companies have been making the finest products of their type for decades. I have a Weber barbecue. It rocks. Leatherman multi-tool. Ditto. Cisco router. Adobe software. Fender guitar amp.

But when the core business of a company gets subverted by marketroids and bureaucrats, it all goes south. Both marketroids and bureaucrats can come up with a thousand million plausible reasons why you should do things their way, and forget about the actual product you make for the people that actually buy it.

It’s easy these days to spin the illusion that clever marketing is a substitute for excellent product. And with enough practice you can convince yourself that the sub-standard product is what you spin it as.

The GM execs at the launch baldly said that the BLS competes with the C-Class and 3 Series.

Let’s just face facts — the average European luxury sedan buyer wants absolutely, positively nothing to do with owning an American car. The few consumers in Europe who do like American cars like them because they are decidedly not European — they are bigger and brasher than anything on offer in the Old World.

If you are going to market an American car in Europe, then the best way to do it would be to leverage some of the stereotypes already held about American vehicles, but then dial in enough finesse, build quality and handling to the mix that the American aspects can be accentuated in such a way that Europeans might like them. (Of course, a quality turbodiesel is essential in the European market.)

The 300, Mustang and Corvette are examples of American cars that, with proper marketing and improvements in build quality, could develop strong niche appeal in Europe. They all have in common the fact that they are each distinctly American, and not similar to the many other cars that Europeans have to choose them. The European market is even more competitive than is the US, why anyone would think that this is a cherry worth picking is well beyond reason.

1. They have not bought cadillac.se.

2. When you go to the webpage, http://www.cadillacsverige.se/, you get a broken link when you try to read about the car!

I mean, if this was 1995, perhaps it could have been acceptable. But really, being 2006, when was the last time you saw a broken link?

This is just GM pandering to the upmarket buyers, sliding a near-luxury model under a once-exclusive badge. It’s a Catch22 -every BLS sold in Europe will chip away at the brand’s cachet. This car needs to be a class leader in every respect, with a price so high that you’ll only find them on drives paved in gold brick -then it’s a Caddy for the global market. The fact that it isn’t proves that GM doesn’t have the know how or guts to produce Caddies that rival the Bentleys, Rolls Royces, and MBs in the world.

Still, it seems like both Cadillac and Lincoln have squandered much of their past cachet, and at the same time, been a little screwed over by the changing automotive market. Part of the reason they were so prestigous was because they were able to do something better than anyone else. They built huge comfortable land yachts, something that couldn’t quite fly in the European market where gas prices made such big engines prohibitively expensive for anyone local to build them. But then the gas crisis rolled around, and Cadillac had to downsize (while the Europeans were able to use their engineering to build bigger and bigger cars). Couple that with the yuppies in the 80’s, who didn’t want their father’s rolling sofa, and the domestics immediately lost years worth of prestige.

They’ve made the concepts to show they could build world-class cars again (the Sixteen and the Continental), it’s just a matter of building them, and more importanty, if anyone’s willing to pay that much for an American car.

B-grade, indeed…

The first time they screw up they will get a parachute, but after that…well, I don’t think we’d have to worry about that.

The problem is every time I read a review of the BLS I can’t stop thinking about how BLS is just one letter away from BS.

Well it certainly does have the blahs. Almost as exciting as my Camry. But I do have quality with that one.

Time was when a luxury car meant quality. Not so today it would appear. It’s seems you almost have to go to pre-war to remember the the quality US marques, the Packards, Hudsons and Studebakers. Yep I am almost that old.

While these fine pieces were expiring in the late 50’s (and yes they were ugly and ill-buillt by that time) the remainder in Detroit were busily engaged in perfecting badge engineering and kissing butt to the UAW, which if the truth be known has been the biggest contributer to the downfall of American quality.

Save for the original TBird, the Corvette and perhaps the DMX 300 styling went out the window too.

How can a company build quality while trying to hold prices in their niche, give a modicum of
quality and pay off 1200 bucks per unit to the UAW pensioners and still expect to be profitable. Something has to give in that equation and it starts with quality.

Does it appear to be momentum? I think so. But what concerns me is what the 2.5 typically do with whatever little piece of momentum that they achieve. Rarely IMHO it seems is it sustained or evolved or taken to the next level. Yes there will aways be stinkers in every successful stable of vehicles, but a company committed to best of breed excellence and customer loyalty will advance, and those that are not will wither and die.

I still really don’t like this car on its looks alone. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder then methinks I need to behold something else.