From a recent AdAdge.com article about the recently launched Cadillac XT5:
“Chief Marketing Officer Uwe Ellinghaus said the goal is to gain the attention of fashionistas, rather than cater to car buffs and auto journalists. Because in his view, younger customers are less interested in the technical details of cars, and don’t read car magazines as often as they used to”
There you have it. You, car enthusiasts, car lovers, you are not important to the recently recreated Cadillac brand. And that is a shame, too, as some of the new Cadillacs seem pretty amazing. For instance: the ATS-V comes with a 464hp engine and a manual transmission, the CTS-V has a 640hp supercharged V8, and then there is the whole Pirelli World Challenge GT race team.
On a personal note, I think this is sad because I have a little bit of history with Cadillac. When the new CTS-v was introduced in 2009, Bob Lutz put up a challenge to all the journalists to race against him in a comparable sedan. I stepped up to this challenge, and a good friend of mine, who just happened to own a new BMW M5, actually kind of raced against Bob Lutz. And if the whole thing wasn’t a rigged GM publicity event, he may have won, too.
What’s important here is that at the time, the M5-killing CTS-v, became the halo car for Cadillac. Cadillac, amazingly, offered it in three body styles; sedan, coupe, and the much coveted but seldom sold, sport wagon. Even if the CTS-v itself did not sell well, it pushed the model line to sell about as many CTSs as the previous generation, despite the ongoing recession at the time.
But here we are now, with the supposedly overhauled Cadillac brand, now headquartered in glamorous New York City. It is one of the big four fashion capitals of the world and often, erroneously, thought of as city which hates cars. Can Carrie Bradshaw-inspired fashionistas sell more Cadillacs than Bob Lutz and his team of enthusiasts by making Caddy a lifestyle brand? I guess we will find out soon enough.
Perhaps another question should be directed at Cadillac products themselves. I have given it a lot of thought, and I recall only one acquaintance of mine who has actually owned a new Caddy, and it was a CTS-v, to boot. On the other hand, I know more new BMW owners then I can count. AMGs, sure, at least three people. Heck, I know people with Porsches, Ferraris, GT-Rs, Ariel Atoms, and a ton of other exotic hardware, yet I can’t think of anyone who would actually consider buying a Cadillac. Perhaps if these guys were just able to read about them in buff magazines, they would consider buying them?
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