My choice today. The Rolls Phaeton is the Cadillac that Cadillac should be building.

Thanks for the GREAT podcast.

i really doubt whether product manufacturers and/or service providers like apple or dell; citi or chase; panasonic or sony; saks or bloomingdale’s; porsche or pontiac; mcdonalds or burger king and walmart or costco – plus countless others – would agree with that assertion.

for savvy consumers, brand names eventually come to serve as some sort of reasonably efficient cultural shorthand for all of the qualities and promises their products and/or services provide.

Qwerty Said:
…used to think of Cadillac as ridiculously huge monstronsities.. they might lean fifty feet and what looked like ten tons of steel into your lane. … an overly large chrome grill screaming for attention …

Although they were never that much larger or longer than most other full size American Cars of their time, they are remembered as much larger in people’s minds, thats not my point…

I think Terry got my point:
Terry :
…is it possible that Cadillac’s problem is its association with GM?

I think that has been Cadillac’s problem since the mid Seventies. They should have looked to innovate, not turn a Nova into a Seville for a quick sales pop. It was down hill fast from there.

Branding is much more important in fashion business than in car business or any other complex technical endeavor. Despite there being numerous MBA programs about marketing and branding, branding, if it is anything, is art a lot more than it is science. Therefore branding is difficult to teach and to learn. Consequently branding exercises often lead to enormous waste of time and resources when these could be spent much more efficiently in design or engineering. Branding is fine for discussion like this one; it’s entertainment but in the real world I wouldn’t pay for the whole departments to sit around and contemplate their branding strategies. GM and Detroit in general need to get to the basics, the car design and engineering and the branding will sort itself out.

If you look at successful car companies in the past few decades I doubt any of them had their brands worked out (the plan of attack) before they started making cars. Sure once they achieved decent sale numbers and made some money they started to think about what they were doing from the branding perspective. But I don’t believe Toyota became the ‘reliable’ brand by deciding to make reliability their number #1 objective hoping to make it their most important brand attribute. I think they started making well engineered basic cars that proved to be very reliable and that’s how their brand image came about.

I grant that in luxury segment where Cadillac is, branding is a lot more important but I don’t believe it still trumps the design or engineering of the car.

Well into the 1960s, the GM divisions were allowed to make considerable changes to shared bodies. This was especially true of the high-line GM products (the big Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Cadillacs).

The divisions also had more control over the production – and thus, the quality control – of their products. Cadillacs, in particular, were built in plants devoted exclusively to building Cadillacs, and under the control of Cadillac’s management.

They may have shared bodies, but in those days, the divisions had considerably more control over the look, feel and quality of their products.

Jack Baruth: It’s not RWD. So what? A luxury car needn’t be rear-wheel-drive; ask Andre Citroen.

Exactly how many Citroens have been sold in the U.S.? That should tell you how successful Citroen was in selling its version of luxury to Americans.

Jack Baruth: I’m not sure there was any such thing as an “RWD American car fan”. The Eldorado and Seville sat effectively at the top of the Cadillac line regardless of drivetrain arrangements.

The original 1967 Eldorado was introduced when the front-wheel-drive layout was exotic to Americans.

Unlike the 1980s and 1990s Cadillacs, the engine was not mounted transversely, so the car could be styled with traditional proportions.

The long, pointed, prow-like hood that graced the 1967-70 Eldorados emphasized the front-wheel-drive layout while negating the space efficiency gains that came with eliminating the transmission hump.

The second-generation Seville used the same basic drivetrain layout, so it, too, had a long hood.

Cadillacs of the 1980s and 1990s, with their transverse-mounted engines, lost those proportions, and ended up looking like pedestrian front-wheel-drive family sedans with egg-crate grilles and vertical taillights.

Today, every family sedan and economy car boasts a front-wheel-drive layout. It’s no big deal anymore.

Jack Baruth: It doesn’t look like an Engel Continental, but it doesn’t look like anything else, either. It makes a visual impact.

The MKS isn’t a bad-looking car, but it hardly stands out on the road.

It is, however, the very best Mercury ever built.

Dynamic88: It’s hard to immagine a car with more “presence” than a mid ’70s Eldo.

Those cars were awful. The engine produced a pitiful 150 horsepower from 500 cubic inches. The acceleration and fuel economy were lousy, the cars handled like a well-worn mattress and the build quality was mediocre at best. (The plastic rear-fender caps would quickly fade to a different color from the rest of the body, and then warp.)

If anything, Cadillac needs to run as fast as possible from its post-1970 cars, as that is when it really began sliding downhill.

argentla: The 50s and 60s Caddys have a certain luster as the products of an era before we were born, this imagined golden age, rather than necessarily having a lot of sense of intrinsic worth or gravitas.

In the 1950s, Cadillac truly was still the Standard of the World.

Its V-8 was reliable, fast and relatively economical (given its size and the car’s considerable heft). The Hydramatic transmission was smooth and reliable at a time when the Europeans were still figuring out how to make an automatic.

Cadillacs offered effective air conditioning and power assists for the windows and seats when Chevrolets and Fords were considered well equipped if they had a radio, heater and automatic transmission.

The 1960s Cadillacs didn’t stand apart as much from their cheaper domestic cousins – by 1969, you could option a Chevrolet Caprice to be almost as luxurious and well-equipped as a Sedan DeVille. But the cars were still well-built, reliable, supremely comfortable and sported distinctive styling. The performance was also better than one would think, given their enormous proportions.

Cadillac really began sliding downhill after 1970. It never responded to the big-engined Mercedes models; the build quality of its products declined; and GM began chasing volume at the expense of everything else – in particular, the division’s air of exclusivity and prestige.

When I think of Cadillac, I think of four traits that “make the brand:”

1. Technical innovation: Cadillac pioneered interchangeable parts; the self-starter; made the V-8 engine feasible for closed cars by eliminating the engine’s inherent vibration at about 35-40 mph; introduced syncromesh transmission to America; pioneered independent front suspension among American marques; perfected the overhead-valve, high-compression V-8 engine; and introduced climate control for automobiles to the world.

The problem is that five of those innovations debuted prior to World War II. GM got lazy in the 1960s, and Cadillac began lagging behind even its domestic competitors. (Lincoln, for example, offered front disc brakes as standard equipment in 1965, and Imperial followed suit for 1967. Cadillac didn’t get them until 1969.).

2. Styling – The 1927 LaSalle was the first “styled” mass production automobile. Cadillac was much more aggressive about keeping its cars up-to-date in the 1930s and 1940s than Packard and even Rolls Royce. The 1948 models, with their tailfins and egg-crate grilles, were very handsome, and made a Cadillac instantly recognizable as a Cadillac. After things got out of hand with the 1959 models, Cadillac returned to rationality, and produced the very clean and handsome post-1960 models, and followed it up with the 1967 Eldorado, which still looks good today.

The problem is that by the mid-1970s, Cadillacs looked like caricatures of themselves, and when downsizing hit, the smaller models robbed the cars of whatever presence they had. The 1975 Seville hinted at a promising new direction, but Cadillac never effectively followed up on that car’s potential.

3. Quality. Cadillacs were better built and more reliable than other cars. Unfortunately, Cadillac quality began declining in the early 1970s, hit the depths in the 1980s, and even today I hear stories of Northstars dying at 100,000 miles, and numerous electrical gremlins popping up before then.

4. Comfort. Cadillacs rode better than other cars, and offered effective air conditioning and top-quality upholstery and carpeting when other cars were making do with rubber floor mats. Today, it is much harder for any car to stand out in this area, as even lowly Civics and Focuses are designed with ergonomics in mind, and offer a full array of power assists and standard air conditioning.

Sajeev Mehta: Can’t vouch for it in person, but C/D and Motor Trend seemed to prefer the Continental Mark III and Mark IV over their FWD Caddy counterpart. Anyone who wanted a personal luxury coupe back in the day obviously wanted some type of commanding feel while driving, and FWD didn’t give it. I’m sure the car rags had more candid comparo tests back then, and they didn’t just like the Lincolns because Frank Cannon said so.

From 1970-74, Motor Trend conducted an annual comparison test between the Lincoln Mark and the Cadillac Eldorado titled “King of the Hill.”

Generally, the Eldorado handled better, but the Lincoln had better build quality and a nicer, more luxurious interior. The Eldorado’s interior was too much like lesser GM cars. Braking was pretty much a draw. The editors also liked the Mark’s exterior styling better.

I got the impression that the editors liked the Mark III better than the comparable Eldorado (especially the 1971 Eldorado), and weren’t wild about either the post-1970 Eldorado, or the Mark IV.

The 1971 and later Eldorados, and the 1972 and later Marks, got bigger without getting better.

You don’t need an MBA to learn that branding is more than a history lesson. Its about learning from what you did right and wrong, as to not make the mistake of taking whatever platform you have in your corporate portfolio and trying to badge engineer it to the needs of your customer base. (pointing to the Cadillacs of the 1980s, and any American Ford with a Volvo chassis)

You could say branding is a plan of attack: and as Detroit has shown, their plans have been pretty much terrible.

Again, its the RWD chassis and the inherent luxurious presence that comes with its North/South engine layout, long hood and short deck. And yes, the FWD Eldo from the 70s has that look, mostly because its Toronado forefather was designed to be a FWD luxo-beast like a Cord…not a cost-engineered Taurus/Cavalier/Camry with more style.

BIG difference.

With that in mind, you can make the case that premium GM’s need a unique chassis made just for luxury. Since the Toronado and Riv are dead, that just leaves Caddy.

I tend to think that people with gas in their viens overestimate how much people care about FWD vs RWD.

Can’t vouch for it in person, but C/D and Motor Trend seemed to prefer the Continental Mark III and Mark IV over their FWD Caddy counterpart. Anyone who wanted a personal luxury coupe back in the day obviously wanted some type of commanding feel while driving, and FWD didn’t give it. I’m sure the car rags had more candid comparo tests back then, and they didn’t just like the Lincolns because Frank Cannon said so.

If you’re point is strictly about performance, you may have something – maybe. A Caddy should have seemingly endless supplies of torque. At any speed stepping on the go pedal should make you feel the seat in your back – at least a little.

Its not all about performance, but you see where this is going. The motor (no the entire powertrain) should make a sound that makes you feel like you’re the King of the World. Which usually requires a V8 with a respectable cam (or four) and much more intake resonance than the Lexus LS. And torque steer? Not a chance.

First, I’d position Cadillac as a premium brand rather than limit it as a luxury brand. This way, you put the name on a variety of car types as long as they lead their class by every metric for that particular car type.

Next, they have to eliminate the gray area zombie sibling brands. Just Chevy and Cadillac should. remain. Make it black and white for the buyers.

Along with the zombie brands, the GM name needs to disappear as well. Use the Cadillac name as the company name instead. The Cadillac Motor Company or something to that effect. Under this scenario, Chevrolet becomes a value priced brand of Cadillac – the Chevrolet division of Cadillac Motors. Never position your premium vehicles as deluxe versions of your value brand. Instead, position the value brand as a lower cost version of the premium brand.

This is just one possible direction for GM to take, but given their position and image, this is something that could work for them. It’s radical and might not be perfect, but I think it’s the right direction to take and has the best chance of bringing them back.

Do you really think so?

I think KnightRT summed things up pretty well. Most luxury car owners don’t really care about driving dynamics – though they may pretend that they do.

It’s hard to immagine a car with more “presence” than a mid ’70s Eldo.

I tend to think that people with gas in their viens overestimate how much people care about FWD vs RWD. It’s popular for enthusiasts to call FWD, Wrong Wheel Drive, but most people know two things – in the summer, they can barely tell the difference, and in the winter, FWD doesn’t fishtail in the snow as much as RWD.

If you’re point is strictly about performance, you may have something – maybe. A Caddy should have seemingly endless supplies of torque. At any speed stepping on the go pedal should make you feel the seat in your back – at least a little.

I had an ‘80 Eldo. Great car in the snow – at least for the time. It wasn’t like having a 4×4, but it was a damn site better than RWD.

10 years ago I was into sport sedans like the WRX, Lancer Evolution, or 5-series, and 20 years ago I would have taken a 928S4 or Trans Am, but my tastes changed (and let that be a warning for those who swear they’ll never buy a minivan or domestic).

Personally, the DTS is the spiritual successor of yesterday’s Cadillac, and I find it wanting compared to what’s available from more technologically laden flagships from Audi, Lexus, BMW, and MB. I think they need to get rid of the STS and focus on a true flagship like the Sixteen, as per npbheights standards.

How can a brand ever move forward if its always looking back?

Because a brand is the sum of it’s history and it’s promise.

I think Cadillac’s current problem is that the Baby Boomers never really did buy Cadillacs in a big way. The kids who grew up driving Volkswagens and Mustangs and turning their noses up at big Detroit iron bought BMWs, Mercedes, and later Lexus. Meanwhile, after cheapening itself in the quest for greater sales volume in the seventies (a Cadillac exec notoriously said of Cadillac’s all-time best year — 1979, when they sold more than 383,000 units — “We didn’t sell 300,000 Cadillacs…we sold 300,000 Buicks”), Cadillac struggled with trying to cautiously modernize while clinging to its existing audience and demographic, even as that demographic aged and died off.

The dilemma now is that they need to sell Cadillacs to people my age, when the Cadillacs of yore are primarily our grandparents’ cars. The 50s and 60s Caddys have a certain luster as the products of an era before we were born, this imagined golden age, rather than necessarily having a lot of sense of intrinsic worth or gravitas.

Luxury car buyers are not primarily concerned with driving dynamics or even style; they’re looking for snob appeal, and Cadillac squandered its snob appeal 25 years ago. The same thing is likely to eventually happen to BMW and Mercedes, particularly in Europe, where they’ve gone after the middle market in a big way. How snobbish can a Bimmer be when every shopgirl and druggist owns one?

The way I read the history of that statement is that while most cars were more or less hand-made, with a wide variance of tolerances, Cadillacs were built with parts that were “standardized” in sizes and tolerances, so as to aid interchangeability.
2 or more Cadillacs were disassembled completely, the parts mingled, and complete cars were then built with the parts, hence the term “Standard”.
Back on topic…is it possible that Cadillac’s problem is its association with GM?

It was his way of complaining that not one of the current super-luxury cars drives like he remembers from his 50s Cadillacs.

Needless to say VW/Bentley weren’t very pleased…..

I remember the write-up from a few years ago but can’t find a web version at the moment.

I’m not convinced that was a target GM should have aimed for. The people who write this stuff have petrol for blood, so the sportiest car that can maintain an iota of ride comfort always wins. It doesn’t matter whether they’re comparing minivans or exotics, the criteria is always whether or not the vehicle can handle. It’s hardly surprising that BMW always comes out on top.

The problem is, people don’t give a damn about actual sport, only the idea of it. We live in America, the land of endless highways and traffic. This canyon-carving nonsense is a fantasy for almost everyone. In the real world, floaty land barges aren’t just acceptable, they’re downright desirable. But even though magazines don’t live in this world, their value judgments from test-track land can still sting, and GM’s taken the criticism to heart.

I’m convinced the rise in Cadillac’s stature in the last few years has been the result of build quality improvements, not the addition of the Nurburgring handling balance. I was driven around in a circa-2007 Audi A6 recently and came away three overwhelming impressions: 1) the interior was beautiful, with high-grade materials, color-matching, and excellent fit in finish; 2) the exterior was the definition of class; 3) the ride was busy, harsh, and inferior to my Camry. The last really detracted from the feeling of luxury.

If I were in Wagoner’s shoes, I’d give every Cadillac a best-in-class interior and make the suspension even smoother than the LS430. If he’s still chasing BMW, he needs to stop. I can’t imagine the people who care about that stuff comprise more than the smallest minority of luxury buyers.

Although Caddy’s fit well in rap videos as their neuvo riche former pimps brag about their hos and their AKs, there is something pitiful about middle aged suburban honkies rollin’ phat with an overly large chrome grill screaming for attention and way too large wheels shining with way too bright chrome announcing to the world that the driver was dumb enough to pay five big ones for a set of wheels. Cars dripping in chrome may have been popular in the 50s, but so were fins, bras shaped like dunce caps, and toupees.

Nowadays men have the guts to simply shave their heads when they are going bald. I am tempted to say that modern Cadillacs are the automotive equivalent of a combover, but it is worse than that. They are the equivalent of the forty year old who tries to recapture his youth with the haircut and clothing of a twenty year old slacker. You cannot go back, and you look pathetic if you try. That is what Caddys are today: A sad attempt to relive the past.

When hardware speaks like that, you know the car wrapped around it is one serious luxo-machine.

It sounds like either of us could sell the piss out of a proper American luxury car…if they still existed. (obviously the Town Car doesn’t count)

And +1 to everyone who mentioned the Cadillac Sixteen. I will also add the 2002 Continental Concept since we diverged onto the MKS discussion.

I hate to break it to you all, but all Caddies since the late thirties shared the same “C” body with the “senior” Buicks (Electra) and Olds (98). The only differences was the exterior skin; underneath that, they shared the same body/frame. Yes, the engines were different, but who could tell the difference of one GM big block from another?

Never said they didn’t, I am saying they shouldn’t. It was ok back then, but today the “top of the line” sedan, the DTS is very closely related to the Buick Lucerne, and it’s a truly pathetic platform indeed. I also said that today’s Cadillacs should make the old stuff pale in comparison, not the other way around.

Also, the Cadillac engines back in the day were special, simply because they were exclusively Cadillac engines. A Caddy had a 472 or a 500, which was way better than having some Super Rocket whatever even if it really wasn’t better.

Someone said that the Cadillac Sixteen should have been made, and I totally agree. It was so simple and so do-able. GM could have made a couple of hundred hand made examples at a loss (what car don’t they make at a loss) and it should have had a V16, that was the whole point. They already did it (a V16) and it was during the Great Depression. Why not now.

It was said that I was dreaming… I want to thank Farago for the assignment. It’s apparent that GM in its current form cannot/will not make Cadillac what it should be. One can only hope that Cadillac will rise up out of the ashes of GM’s eventual demise and become the car company its founder Henry Leland intended it to be: The Standard of the World”

If you haven’t flown down the highway at NSFW speeds in a big bore Caddy, Lincoln or the 6.9L Benz, aiming the hood ornament at lesser vehicles, we’ll never see eye to eye. Waftable torque and effortless power delivery at any speed is the TRUE definition of a luxury car’s powertrain.

Truth be told, I don’t fly down the highway much any more; I’m getting old. I do have wheel time in the 300SEL 6.3 and 450SEL 6.9. Loved ‘em both. I also ran a supercharged CL55 for a year.

We also have some common background: I know you’ve run a bunch of Marks. My second car was a red-with-white-top 1980 Marquis Brougham coupe. Of course, that variable-venturi 302 didn’t have much of anything!

I will admit to putting one of my Phaetons up the bumper of a 350Z or two at 130+mph on the back straight at VIR, just for the sake of being vicious. :)