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GM Officially Confirms Flagship Caddy


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It's like rebuilding a 30 year old car with a tired engine, bad suspension and iffy brakes by putting on shiny new $3K wheels. I can't drive it anywhere but it sure looks good sitting in the driveway.

 

I understand the engineers wanting to do all this, but where is the fiscal oversight? Is nobody asking how they're going to make a profit?

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“What we do there has got to be a symbol of excellence...,” Reuss told reporters following an event in Detroit honoring GM Student Corps interns. “This is a car that Cadillac needs that will define this brand in terms of innovation and excellence.”

 

 

"I think the definition (of flagship) is kind of changing," says Matt VanDyke, global head of marketing, sales and service for Lincoln. " I don't think it is as easy today to say that a flagship is a [spacious] sedan, costing $100,000 that sets the tone for the rest of the product line. It is not as simple as it maybe was a decade or two ago."

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A big challenge is the dealer body. Based on what I see around here, Cadillac dealers are not prepared to meet the expectations of people who can afford to purchase $100,000+ sedans.

 

And then there is the fact that the market for this type of car simply isn't that large. Mercedes-Benz owns a large part of it, just as BMW owns a large part of the market for rear-wheel-drive sport sedans/coupes. People buying these vehicles buy the badge as much as they buy the vehicle.

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It's like rebuilding a 30 year old car with a tired engine, bad suspension and iffy brakes by putting on shiny new $3K wheels. I can't drive it anywhere but it sure looks good sitting in the driveway.

 

 

This isn't about the XTS......

 

Again all the fwd miracle vehicles they put out over 30 years haven't proved fruitful at all but lost market share and quality. They can put out a few more CUVs but still be at square one on the carfront. I do agree on why is a sub ATS (regardless of drivewheels) is being added?.

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This isn't about the XTS......

 

Again all the fwd miracle vehicles they put out over 30 years haven't proved fruitful at all but lost market share and quality. They can put out a few more CUVs but still be at square one on the carfront. I do agree on why is a sub ATS (regardless of drivewheels) is being added?.

 

This isn't about FWD vs. RWD. It's about creating expensive NEW platforms for small volume vehicles in stagnant or shrinking markets while at the same time ignoring the dealership experience, not making more use of existing platforms to keep costs down and ignoring higher volume market segments like smaller CUVs and hybrids.

 

If people are balking at a $60K CTS why are they going to buy a $100K flagship?

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This isn't about FWD vs. RWD. It's about creating expensive NEW platforms for small volume vehicles in stagnant or shrinking markets while at the same time ignoring the dealership experience, not making more use of existing platforms to keep costs down and ignoring higher volume market segments like smaller CUVs and hybrids.

 

If people are balking at a $60K CTS why are they going to buy a $100K flagship?

I believe the Omega is a highly redone lwb Zeta ( which how the platform was quickly developed and assuming lower cost). Also the Buick flagship is it's platform mate. The Caprice PPV replacement and possibly a retail Caprice may be on this platform as well.

 

For the dealer experience never thought Cadillac had a bad dealer network. I've seen several Chevy dealers improve greatly which is important for the bread n butter bottom line. Then again that may been a result of dealers adding GMC and Buick to it's portfolio.

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Here's a question for you: How will competitive RWD vehicles solve GM's inability to make competitive FWD vehicles?

Hmmm that is a good question. Ask Ford the same also.

I do know GM have better luck with the rear drives in the same period.

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I believe the Omega is a highly redone lwb Zeta ( which how the platform was quickly developed and assuming lower cost). Also the Buick flagship is it's platform mate. The Caprice PPV replacement and possibly a retail Caprice may be on this platform as well.

Brilliant! Find as many niches as you can, spend as much as you can, sell as few as you can! You are not on GM's board, are you?

 

CUVs are just a passing fad.

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For the dealer experience never thought Cadillac had a bad dealer network.

 

It's not bad but it's not what someone spending $100K on a vehicle is going to expect especially compared to what you get with Lexus, BMW or Mercedes.

 

GM is carpet bombing - putting out dozens of models and hoping that one or two of them hit the mark. Ford is making surgical strikes with a few perfectly placed laser guided bombs.

 

At this pace, Lincoln will be easily outpacing Cadillac in both sales and profits in just a few years. And it has absolutely nothing to do with which wheels get driven.

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Hmmm that is a good question. Ask Ford the same also.

I do know GM have better luck with the rear drives in the same period.

 

Ford is already making competitive FWD and AWD vehicles and they're doing it on a budget with lots of platform sharing. The same recipe will result in competitive RWD vehicles should they decide to go that way.

 

GM has too many brands and too many vehicles and they're spending too much money developing vehicles that either don't sell at all or sell in low volume while they ignore the dealership experience and higher volume market segments and price points.

 

It has nothing to do with whether they are RWD or FWD except where that limits platform sharing and results in higher development costs that can't be recouped.

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It was the dealer experience that let Lexus outflank the Germans in the 90s. I remember looking at MB, BMW, and Porsche with my Dad back when he bought his only MB, their dealerships were all dumps. The dealer was part of the reason for his next car he went back to Lexus and hasn't considered going elsewhere since.

 

Existing manufacturers only have so much control over the dealership experience, which was an advantage since they were new. Tesla has a similar (yet different) advantage.

 

How many would jump at the chance to buy their Focus the same way you buy a ModelS?

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I believe the Omega is a highly redone lwb Zeta ( which how the platform was quickly developed and assuming lower cost). Also the Buick flagship is it's platform mate. The Caprice PPV replacement and possibly a retail Caprice may be on this platform as well.

 

For the dealer experience never thought Cadillac had a bad dealer network. I've seen several Chevy dealers improve greatly which is important for the bread n butter bottom line. Then again that may been a result of dealers adding GMC and Buick to it's portfolio.

That doesn't sound like a sound basis for a vehicle that will successfully compete with the new S-Class. I can't see how a platform that is inexpensive enough to support a $40-50,000 Chevrolet Caprice is going to compete with $100,000+ Benzes riding on a platform that was designed from day one to be the very best. Flexibility can be a good thing when developing a platform, but it has its limits. Unless GM thinks it can sell $80,000 Chevrolet sedans, which will make the ATS look like a stroke of genius in comparison.

 

Cadillac dealers may impress people who don't know any better, or have bought Chevrolets, but that is generally not the type of customer shopping for a vehicle in this class.

Edited by grbeck
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