In May 1971, Motor Trend was deliberately provocative with an article comparing the best-selling product from General Motors’ prestige division with the prestige product from the company’s best selling division. It was an audacious challenge of the Luxury Segment status quo, calling into question the supremacy of America’s favorite luxury car. Little did MT know how prescient they would be.
First a bit of context is in order, since it has been so long since Cadillac has been viewed as a leading, desirable luxury brand. However, at the dawn of the 1970s, the world was a different place and Cadillac absolutely, unequivocally dominated the American luxury car market, gobbling up the vast majority of sales and certainly being top of mind for most Americans as the nation’s leading luxury car.
The closest modern equivalent I can think of is Tesla and that brand’s unmatched dominance of the EV market. Sure, there are more EV competitors than ever, but Tesla still gets all the attention, glory and sales in the segment. No one else today comes close to Tesla’s market leadership. You can argue that Tesla has genuine product superiority in ways that Cadillac never did even at the brand’s prime, but from an image standpoint, both brands command (or used to command in Caddy’s case) immense reputational value.
However, even the Tesla comparison fails to capture the power of the Cadillac brand at its peak. While Tesla Is dominant in California (~50% of Tesla’s U.S. sales in that one state) and strong in affluent, trendy urban markets across the country, the EV luxury brand has not been broadly embraced coast-to-coast. In contrast, Cadillac was known as THE luxury “statement” car from the skyscraper canyons of Manhattan to the sleepiest hamlet in Mississippi. Wherever you went in America in the early 1970s, there was no avoiding the fact that Cadillac was still viewed as the country’s preeminent luxury conveyance, the car for “rich people” whether they were actually wealthy or not.
Of course that didn’t mean that everyone loved Cadillac at the time. The brand was polarizing, to say the least (again like Tesla). By virtue of being big and brash, Cadillac was also portrayed as the epitome of wasteful gluttony. VW spoofed Cadillac in advertising, to the delight of the countercultural target audience. Many buff books were also not necessarily fans. Cadillac was antithetical to everything Road & Track represented. Car and Driver lampooned Cadillac cars—and Cadillac owners. But Motor Trend, that bastion of industry cheerleaders?
Yet it was none other than Motor Trend that brazenly broke the taboo on the Cadillac mystique. Of course many people already knew that Cadillac had plenty in common with Chevrolet, and for years Chevrolet had been aping Cadillac design. But to call it out directly, with the price spread and all? That was like ripping the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz and exposing the almighty image as something created via smoke and mirrors, with a rather pedestrian man (GM bean counter perhaps?) doing the manipulation.
For starters, to put the headline in context, that $3,500 in 1971 represents an inflation adjusted $22,466 today. That was quite a bit of coin! Plus, the Chevrolet was moving closer than ever to Cadillac in terms of styling and features. So the Cadillac had better build quality than Chevrolet (though not necessarily better than VW’s) and posher trim, but as Motor Trend would note, that seemed like a steep price to pay for superficial trappings.
Adjusting for inflation, the $5,550 Caprice would be $35,627 in today’s dollars, while the $9,081 DeVille would ring in at $58,291, an enormous 63% mark-up. Cadillac also charged a healthy premium for options coming straight from the GM parts bin. The margin-rich vinyl roof cost 30% more on the Cadillac, while cruise control was 32% higher than Chevrolet’s price. Even the tinted glass was 14% more expensive on the Caddy. Rich gravy is great when you can get it!
No surprise that the lighter Caprice turned-in faster 0-60 times than the Sedan DeVille. Otherwise they were comparable in terms of braking and general performance (the Chevy being a bit firmer, likely due to the test car carrying the optional heavy duty suspension). Neither car offered the sort of responsiveness or practical space utilization that was rapidly coming into fashion for the U.S. market in the early 1970s.
Most importantly, Mercedes-Benz was beginning to challenge Cadillac’s image supremacy in the U.S. By 1971 even Elvis had ditched Cadillac for a sedan from Stuttgart. But rather than understanding how the high end of the U.S. luxury market was evolving and then developing credible responses to the changing tastes of luxury customers, GM did the opposite and allowed its flagship brand to come ever closer to its volume offerings. Great for short-term profits, horrible for long-term brand health.
It’s been decades now since Cadillac has even known what it stands for or what it wants to be. About 20 years after the Germans (and later the Japanese) had thoroughly reshaped the American luxury market, Cadillac tried frantically to copy BMW cars, wasting billions of dollars in failed attempts to convince people to pick a pseudo-German luxury sport sedan from Detroit rather than a real one from Germany. All the while, the high-end market was shifting away from sports sedan performance and toward comfort-oriented luxury SUVs, an area where the Cadillac brand could have had a definitive lead. If Cadillac’s sports sedan development monies had instead gone to creating world-class SUVs to rival/beat the likes of Range Rover, BMW X5, Mercedes GL, Audi Q7 et al, the brand might find itself in a far different and better place today. But instead Cadillac once again copped out and rebranded a Chevy as its flagship product.
Sadly, the only approach that has really worked for Cadillac in recent decades was the one so clearly in view in 1971: building a premium Chevrolet and charging an obscene fortune for it. Not for a significantly better vehicle, mind you, just for the bragging rights of paying “the most,” which appeals to people wanting to trumpet that they have money to burn on frivolous trappings. The newly announced 2021 Tahoe and Escalade adhere strictly to the 50-year-old formula: better trim and a posher interior for the Cadillac, only now GM doesn’t even bother with meaningful exterior styling differentiation for its top-of-the-line offerings. If 2020 pricing is any indication, the base price difference between the two will be around $23,000, almost exactly the inflation adjusted price delta Motor Trend showcased in 1971. So the more things change the more they stay the same, and the reign of Chevrollac caries on, even though the once great Cadillac brand reputation is dead and gone.
Additional reading:
Curbside Classic: 1972 Cadillac Coupe DeVille – The First Curbside Classic, Ten Years Later by Paul Niedermeyer
Curbside Classic: 1972 Chevrolet Caprice – Cadillac Carbon Copy? by Tom Klockau
My Aunt never married until she was in her early 60’s. That was 1955 and the groom was older. They lived in NE Ohio and he had a standing order for the first new Cadillac of each model year. He always purchased a Coupe Deville in off white with alternating green or brown cloth interior. He never ordered a/c, but his house had 2 central units.
He was a self made man who owned several businesses, and to him a Cadillac was the definition of prestige.
He died in his late 1980’s in 1958. I always said the pictures of the 1959 Cadillac gave him a heart attack. The 1958 Cadillac sat until 1965, when my Aunt asked my Mother to teach her to drive. First she bought a new car; a 1965 Calais in off white with a brown cloth interior and no a/c.
Haha, your story is much like one of my own. My mother’s Aunt Alma was married to a successful doctor and they owned many Cadillacs. Mom’s Uncle Carl died in 1955 and the black 55 Fleetwood sedan in the garage sat there waiting for her son or my mother to drive her somewhere in it occasionally.
She decided at one point that it was looking awfully dated, so traded it on a new black 1963 Fleetwood. Despite the fact that she still did not drive. I eventually bought it for $400 in 1979 after her grandsons had beaten the tar out of it. But you could still feel the quality in the old thing.
1971 is when Cadillac jumped the shark. Chasing market share cost them one of the most important luxuries of all in the eyes of its intended market.
EXCLUSIVITY.
And that increasing commonality not only in sales but in appearance was itself enough to drive Caddy owners to Mercedes-Benz.
This dynamic MUST be kept in mind as the brand prepares for its evolution into a BEV leader. Having at least one top-on-line model bristling with innovation, striking styling and a semi-reasonable price for its class will be a start.
Packard made the same mistake:
https://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/packard-one-twenty/
Cadillacs days of leadership are sadly gone, EV’s will not help Cadillac. And before we start patting Mercedes on it’s back……………….they are headed down the same road with their entry level cars and commercial vans.
1971 was just another minor milestone of that trajectory. It started much sooner. One key milestone was 1967, when the interior of the Calais looked shockingly cheap, and the standard interior of the DeVille wasn’t so hot either. But the roots go back much further.
1959 was another key milestone, when Chevy and Cadillac shared the same basic body shell.
The problem that Cadillac is going to have is that nobody really wants BEVs except for a few gadget freaks and virtue signalers. The marketplace is not demanding them and today’s batteries leave a lot to be desired.
The cheapest Mitsubishi Mirage is overall a more useful vehicle than the most expensive Tesla. (I really don’t “get” the Tesla love phenomenon. I have no interest in the company or its products.)
I agree. While there is no doubt Tesla is the king of electric cars, we are talking about a segment that sold about 361k vehicles in 2018 out of 17M vehicles sold nationwide. Without massive subsidies at the national and state level, as well as federal tax credits, those numbers would been even more of lopsided. Tesla builds a nice product, but between the coasts they are not the least bit significant.
I just don’t get it.
For the money spent by GM in marketing Cadillac, do they really get a good ROI? And really, for GMC, or for Buick either? Are there that many sales coming in due to people willingly paying more for a model shared by the lesser brand? I guess there are, as GM has not pulled the plug on these brands, but the time is drawing closer. With the decline in desirability at Cadillac, even a shift to EV will not make the brand worth the premium GM wishes to charge for it.
Branding works, but not in the way GM still uses it. VW group seems to get it best. They have several brands, and use common platforms for several models across many brands, but those brands tend to be market specific and not not just badge engineered for the separate brands. A Skoda, a SEAT, an Audi, and a VW model may share a similar platform, but there seems to be more dissimilar in styling, appointments, features and options on those models, more akin to GM of the 1950s than GM of today. The VW group brands tend to have more autonomy, more like the GM brands did pre-1970s. Without that special touch added by each brand, it just becomes a marketing exercise to see how much they can charge people for the premium brand over the lessor.
What has happened with Cadillac is a shame as their timing recently has been horrible…Their sedans, ATS, CTS and CT6 were terrific cars….but no one wanted cars…They created “ultimate driving machines” when BMW even moved away from that focus to luxury vehicles. You are right if all of the engineering, money and marketing had gone to SUV/crossovers 10 years ago, Cadillac would be in a much better place.
Indeed, ponder this ‘what if’ scenario: GM had put their R&D money into a full-electric, big, luxury (Cadillac) SUV with a range and performance to match the Tesla Model S.
But, then, they’re going to hit that brick wall of not having the Supercharger network that Tesla invested heavily in. That’s the real lesson of Tesla: go ahead and build a high-tech ‘standard of the world’ EV, but go all the way and have the infrastructure in place to charge the damn things on a cross-country trip.
Does even the Escalade have an image anymore other than “Ooo, someone called a *fancy* Uber”?
Funny you say that. A few months ago, I saw some people in the neighborhood getting out of a black Escalade with out of state plates (in a state where I don’t think they have too many Uber black cars) and my first thought was “everything’s going to think they’re their driver…”
Very interesting reading, both MT’s article and GN’s post. And I think the Tesla analogy is very insightful, though one key difference is that Cadillac built up the brand for decades, contrasted with Tesla’s quick rise. Though perhaps that’s just a reflection of today’s pace of life.
I was a bit surprised about the Tesla analogy, as I see Tesla as the Mercedes of 1971, disrupting the existing luxury market (i.e. Cadillac).
Tesla is interesting because it is also a very successful disruptor brand, having sliced through the existing U.S. luxury market much like Mercedes did back in the 1970s. So I agree with you there.
But Tesla’s utter dominance in EVs–no one else even comes close–is what I was driving at for the Cadillac analogy, harking back to the days when GM’s flagship beat everyone else in the luxury market hands down year after year.
Tesla is pretty unique in being an undisputed segment owner (EVs) as well as a major segment disruptor (luxury segment).
I understand. It’s the first time I’ve seen that analogy, and it works, within limitations. The main limitation is this: Tesla is competing against the existing IC cars, an not really against other EVs, which are mostly either cheaper or just not competitive. So its effective domination of the EV market is almost incidental; folks want a Tesla, period. It’s not that they want an EV and then consider the various EVs and decide the Tesla is best. At least that’s the case much of the time, if not always.
But then I guess you could say the same about a Cadillac in 1962.
We’ll soon see what GM’s going to do for a Cadillac electric.
I’m cautiously optimistic. Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar and Porsche have all turnout their first electrics. And they’re all disappointing – primarily because of extremely lousy range – which I attribute to these being those companies’ first electrics. They just don’t have experience in electrics.
GM, on the other hand, has been building electrics for quite a while – remember the ’65 Electro-Vair? The Impact? And now a decade of Volts, and several years of Bolts. I think GM may, just may, be well ahead of the competition and is probably the only company (save possibly Nissan) with the experience to turn out an electric that will actually compete with Tesla.
About twenty years ago I was offered a decent 71 Coupe Deville, cheap. It was a solid original runner, but was a zero option car. I was surprised how little content a base Cadillac has over a Chevy. Nylon fabric on the front of the otherwise -vinyl seats. Power windows, 2 way power seat and that was it. No radio, no cruise, no AC, no….. the list goes on. It was a simple straightforward GM car in the shape of a Cadillac. Perhaps back then, common features on this car, like a V8, auto trans and carpets were considered luxuries , but most Chevies were comparably equipped when sold. So definitely this MT article correctly points out the obvious
Wow that acceleration gap is quite noticeable, 8.2 vs 10.1 to 60 is a big deal. Looking at specs, the obvious difference is 500lb in curb weight behind the Caddy, but could that really cause a whole 2 second difference (increasing to 3 by 75mph)? The Caddy has the shorter gearing (slightly), gives up 10hp but has a nontrivial advantage in low end torque on paper. Is there more to the 472 vs 454 than meets the eye? 454 more willing to rev?
We should note that every Cadillac got a 472. How many Chevrolets came with the 454? Put a 350 or a 400 in the Chevy and let’s try another test.
A 400 small block was standard in the Caprice that year, while the lowly Biscayne _could_ be bought with a 250 Six. I suspect all but an absolute skinflint who wanted a new full size at the cheapest price possible added the 350 2bbl for an extra $121.
Said skinflint would have been happier with a cheaper Chevelle and more options!
They’d probably be about equally fast then. 🙂
Which doesn’t exactly do much for justifying the price differential any better, especially since the gap would then have shrunk by $215.
First off, that slight differential in axle gearing is offset by the Caddy’s bigger tires. Yes, the 396/427/454 was designed from the get–go as a performance engine, although it could of course be tuned mild too. But as the stats show, the 454 made its power higher up the rpm band. The Cadillac 472 was designed specifically to make its power low down, as that’s realistically where Cadillac owners were going to use it. It was not designed for optimal breathing, but for max torque low down. And yes, 500 extra lbs makes a big difference. And then there’s just the factor of production line variability: this might have been a “slow” version vs. a “fast” version.
Also, those gross hp numbers are not to be taken too literally. I would not be surprised if the 454’s hp gap vs the 472 was more than 10.
The net ratings are available. The Chevy 454 came with dual exhaust and was rated at 285 net @4000. Cadillac’s 472 was rated at 220@4000 and I think is a single exhaust.
That’s not at all surprising. And yes, Caddy’s had single exhausts, which would clearly reduce the net rating from the gross rating (open exhausts, etc.) disproportionately more than the duals on the Chevy.
Wow I hadn’t considered that angle, that makes a ton of sense.
Over the years I have read articles and posts, both on CC and elsewhere, suggesting it was (at least in part) because dealers demanded that manufacturers create cars/models/options on certain products.
Allpar suggests that in the early 60s Dodge dealers demanded a car to compete with Plymouth dealers, so the Dart name was moved from an intermediate to (nearly) a clone of the Valiant.
Can’t quote a source, but I believe I remember reading that Pontiac dealers demanded cars to compete with Chevrolet, and so the T1000, and later the G3, were created.
I wonder if some of the “Brougham-ification” of what were formerly low-end brands (Plymouth, Ford, Chevrolet) was caused by demand from dealers. It seems that in the 60s and 70s dealers had a fairly large say in what manufacturers built.
It depended on the scenario.
Ford got the Brougham movement started with the 1965 Galaxie LTD, which was a way of capturing more of the medium-price market while undermining GM’s brand ladder. This move also undermined Mercury, but within the Glass House, the Ford brand ruled the roost.
That move, however, wasn’t demanded by the dealers. That strategy was hatched in Dearborn, from what I’ve read.
Once it proved to be successful, no doubt the howls of Chevrolet and Chrysler-Plymouth dealers led to the introduction of the Caprice and VIP, respectively. But in GM’s case, top management was determined to keep Chevrolet as “USA #1,” so it wasn’t going to allow Chevrolet to fall behind Ford, even if it meant Chevrolet was invading the turf of Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac.
The first Dodge Dart was introduced because Chrysler restructured its dealer force by taking away the Plymouth franchise from Dodge dealers. Prior to the 1960 model year, all Chrysler Corporation dealers had a Plymouth franchise. Chrysler took away the Plymouth franchise from Dodge dealers, but to placate them, gave them the full-size Dart, which was priced squarely in the low-price field. So for 1960 and 1961, Dodge dealers had two full-size cars – the low-price Dart, and the larger, medium-price Dodge.
So the Dart was introduced in response to dealer demand, but the dealers were making the demand in response to a very specific action by the corporation. The dealers weren’t making the demand in response to a competitive move by GM or Ford.
Thanks for the insight, Geeber!
You’re welcome!
Mercury’s sales numbers in the early 60’s were up and down. Buick’s sales for 1960 were 250,000 and had increased to 600,000 by 1965. The LTD may have been a way to bring back the Edsel without calling it a new make.
From what I’ve heard, cross-shopping was a lot less prevalent in the pre-Internet days, so it could have been enough to just show a Dodge buyer, who obviously went to the Dodge dealer first, that Dodge had a compact to have that person buy the car.
The 1960-1961 Dart was a full-size car, not a compact.
I think I said it was an intermediate. My fault.
I was responding MrAnnyoingDude, not you, which is why my comment/reply is directly under his comment.
Part of the Cadillac aura was that they built their own factory limousines. They were bought by the super rich and by resorts or businesses that had a need for them. They weren’t seen often and they did turn heads. The image started to shatter when every new bride had to be picked up in a rented limo. The image went into a free fall when every high school kid rented a limo for prom night. Now you don’t even assume that a limo is anything but rented when you see one.
This article and your well-documented facts in earlier posts on this subject bring to mind what I read many decades ago in Consumer Reports (I found a copy of the 1953 annual auto issue in the basement when I was 13 in the mid 60s). CR said that in practical, functional terms, buying a Cadillac over a Chevy provided only more rear-seat leg room and better quality upholstery, not better reliability, build quality, or roadability.
This may be taking it a little far, because the Chevy at the time offered only a 6-cylinder engine and the 2-speed Powerglide as the only automatic, while Cadillac had a standard, modern V8 and the 4-speed Hydramatic.
That wasn’t necessarily a fair assessment in 1953. By then Cadillac was offering power windows, power steering and power brakes, and Hydramatic was standard across the line-up.
A Chevrolet was lucky to have a radio and a heater, and a fair number of Chevys were undoubtedly bought with the standard transmission. And the basic Chevrolet engine had been in production for well over a decade.
There were more power features to break on the Cadillac, and in those days a standard manual transmission was still more reliable than the best automatic (and most likely cheaper to repair if something did go wrong).
Plus, get both of those cars out on the open road, and the Cadillac’s greater performance capabilities would shine through. There were still valid reasons to buy a Cadillac instead of a Chevrolet in 1953, provided you had the money. Now, by 1973…
I don’t think it was a stretch, even in 1953. You, as most here, are an enthusiasts, and as such, we notice a heck of a lot more about cars than the normies ever do. In practical terms, CR was spot on. A car is a car is a car to most people.
Do you think the average housewife in 1953 could tell that her Chevy had a six versus the Cadillac’s eight? Did she care? Wasn’t an automatic, whether powerglide or hydramatic, considered “fancy”? The difference was more in how the salesman would shame you into buying the option on the Cadillac or sweet talk to coax you into adding it on the base Chevy. There is a huge difference in doing without versus adding something extra when making a purchase. And in the public’s view, the thrifty Cadillac buyer was being cheap, while the loaded Chevy buyer was going overboard.
This is the opposite of buying a house. The general thought is that you buy the worst house in the best neighborhood, not the best house in the worst neighborhood, if you want a good deal. With a car, you buy the best car from the cheapest line if you want the best deal. You may not get the social value of having the premium brand, but you will have all the comforts and features along with a lower price. The loaded Chevy is nicer and cheaper than the stripper Cadillac, as long as you don’t care that you are NOT in a Cadillac.
The Chevrolet only offered the old Stovebolt six in 1953, which wasn’t well-suited to “Turnpike speeds.” The 1953 Cadillac already had a modern ohv V-8, which was suited to highway driving, and offered surprisingly decent fuel economy for such a large, powerful car with automatic transmission.
A drive in both will quickly show the differences between the two, even around town, and even to the “average housewife.”
And, yes, there was also a noticeable difference between Powerglide and Hydramatic in 1953.
As for the best deal – check the depreciation of a 1950s Cadillac.
I would beg to differ with you, on most/many of your points.
The 1953 Bel Air sedan cost exactly one-half of what a Series 61 sedan cost in 1953. Of course the PG was optional. But the endless disparaging of the PG vs the Hydramatic is not really valid. The HM needed 4 gears, as it lacked a torque converter (only had a fluid coupling), and all those shifts came fast and furious. The Dynaflow and PG were much smoother in the real world, and its torqu converter more than covered the same effective gear ratios of the HM. They were two different approaches but I wouldn’t say one is better than the other; it’s more a matter of preference.
And I think you disparage the 235 six a bit too much. Although its roots go back some, it was constantly improved, especially so in 1953, when it got full pressure lubrication. The PG version of the 235 is what was in the Corvette, with a different cam and three carbs. But otherwise internally it was the same engine. It was quite suitable to “turnpike
speeds”. This is not some ancient flathead. The OHV 235 was still seen as a quite contemporary engine then, and not an obsolete design. It was of course used for a whole decade yet, through 1962. Although hardly what one would choose for being the terror of the freeways, for the times it was utterly suitable and gave excellent service during its many years and millions made, including a lot of high speed work in the Corvette and as the basis of many hot rods up until the mid ’50s or even later.
I think CR was pretty much right on the money. Of course the twice-as-expensive Cadillac was going to be a better car in most ways. But what CR was really pointing is this: the performance/handling/quality and all-round utility of America’s low-cost cars was a lot better than many gave them credit for. Which explains in part why Chevrolet sedans were such popular imports in Europe, where they were seen as very capable and luxurious cars.
And of course this all explains the inevitable demise of the prestige value of Cadillac. Yes, in the 1920s and early ’30s, when the Sloan ladder was truly effective and functional still, a Cadillac was a drastically different car than a Chevy, but then it cost several times as much. All that changed by the late ’30s and ’40s, and Cadillac really did just start to become a slightly bigger and somewhat nicer Chevy.
Chevrolet made incredible leaps in almost every metric from 1961-1971 where Cadillac improved only incrementally.
A good friend had a 62 Bel Air 6/PG not long after I owned a 63 Cadillac 390/HM. Trust me, there was a difference in almost everything between the two cars, from power to handling to the feel of the body and OMG, especially the seats. By 1971 there was still a difference, but not nearly so much as before.
If ever an automotive brand misread its strength, it was Cadillac. If Cadillac could be brutally honest with itself (here, let me help) its one consistent strength was swaggar. Cadillac’s core customer was the guy who wanted to let everyone know he had made it. Why buy a 12 Cylinder Packard when you could get a 16 cylinder Cadillac? Cadillac was always Luxury For Extroverts. And, of course, the cars were good enough that nobody took Mr. Extrovert for a chump.
So during the Decade of Greed (80s) and the ensuing decades of prosperity that may not yet have gotten names, here is Cadillac without something to let the neighbors see what you spent without giggling about it. Except for maybe the Escalade, which is the most cynical Cadillac ever.
I have to agree that 1971 was the year this storm really got going.
Saying the current Escalade/Tahoe is like today’s version of the 1971 DeVille/Caprice is spot-on.
To go a bit further, it took GM exactly six years to accomplish Iacocca’s origin of the brougham epoc in 1965 with the LTD. IOW, 1971 was peak Chevy brougham, and the real beginning of the long (but steady) downward slide of GM’s premier marque.
Oddly, Ford managed to do a much better job of keeping the LTD from eating into Continental sales.
I’m going to disagree (surprise!) 🙂
By the ’80s, the Cadillac brand was already ravaged, precisely because of the situation shown in this article. As incomes rose, Cadillacs became ever more affordable to more middle/working class folks, and their sales boomed during the 60s and 70s. But this totally debased its prestige value.
The really affluent saw this coming already in the late 50s and early 60s, when they bought Jaguars and then Mercedes. Once Mercedes was seen as the true prestige brand, the demand increased hugely, and in trend-setter markets like CA, you saw massive numbers trading in their Cadillacs and big Buicks and Olds and Lincolns for any Mercedes, even a 240D if that’s all they could afford. Because in CA in 1978 or 1980 or 1984 had vastly more prestige value than a new Cadillac. Period.
I saw this happening in real time. Cadillac’s inevitable decline started a long time further back, well before its decline in sales. That’s how luxury goods work.
Can I sell you a 1980s Seiko watch? 🙂
There’s absolutely nothing Cadillac could have done in the ’80s to reverse that inevitable slide. I know that’s not a popular opinion, but the trend setters set the trends, and trends are extremely powerful, most of all among the affluent, especially the recently affluent. And the lower taxes and general greed-vibe that started back then made this an unstoppable tsunami.
And of course, it’s happening again…which is why I keep saying that Tesla is the Mercedes (and BMW) of the current era. Good luck to Cadillac peddling their future EVs.
“As incomes rose, Cadillacs became ever more affordable to more middle/working class folks, and their sales boomed during the 60s and 70s. But this totally debased its prestige value.”
It wasn’t just rising incomes. Cadillac’s price -premium over a Chevy was decreasing , as it had been for decades. In the 1920’s and 30’s, Cadillac was far more expensive than a Chevy. As the years rolled by, Cadillac moved downmarket in price and appeal, cutting features, quality and exclusivity in search of lower prices and ever-greater sales.
Other auto makers have done the same thing with similar results, Packard with their 110 and Clipper models, Lincoln with their price-cut ’66 line. Greater sales are gained, but at the expense of brand appeal.
The end results have been similar – Cadillac ends up with the Cimarron, an economy car no one wants, and Lincolns end up being taxicabs. (Call it an airport limo all you want, it’s a taxicab). Few premium buyers wanted to buy economy cars or taxicabs.
Oh, I agree that Cadillac was in horrible shape in the 80s. But I still think its all about the product. Look at the Mustang. Nobody took it seriously as a performance car in 1978. By 1985 that had changed dramatically. The right product can have an effect on fashion or style. But nothing Cadillac made was that product.
The question is whether anyone at Cadillac (or at GM) then could have understood what a Cadillac really was and built one. I am not sure that Cadillac has built a real Cadillac since maybe 1966 or so. Lexus figured it out but Cadillac certainly didn’t.
The trouble with that example is the Mustang had a much broader demographic than just the performance side, and in reality few cars, save for 350/400ci F bodies were credible in 1978, and they’d still be outrun by pre-smog predecessors. Once performance came back, those buyers came back. Performance isn’t a difficult to define metric, the goalpost moves but the trajectory is linear
Cadillac was in an inverse situation, it appealed to a laser focused side of the market, and that luxury standard had morphed and diverged drastically, with Cadillac’s imposing presence and plushy interior on one side and Mercedes overengineered quality and foreign intrigue on the other. Cadillac was just too synonymous with the latter in peoples minds, and still is today despite almost two decades of a BMW fighter lineup. Executives and product planners can’t change it.
You beat me to it with the Mustang. It’s not a car bought primarily for prestige/status. Apples and oranges.
The key point you missed here Jim is that Cadillac was making a better car in almost every parameter for American buyers. A late ’70s early ’80s B/C Body GM car had it all over almost any Benz, most of all a 240D. That’s why it was funny watching folks trade in their nice low mileage big GM cars for a 240D and then complain about the harsh ride, noise, noperformance and stiff seats! It’s the wrong car for you, dummies! A Cadillac even in the ’80s (with a few exceptions) was objectively superior in most metrics that counted for American luxury car drivers. But it didn’t have a star on the hood and look like a Mercedes.
Mercedes Mania was not about buying an objectively better car; it was all about…mania.
It’s what Justy said about that 280E yesterday: in most metrics, they sucked. Now if you’re bombing down a dark and stormy night on a strange and rough road at 90 mph, I can assure the qualities of that 280E would suddenly reveal themselves to be well worth it, at least in the right hands. But for 99 % of American drivers, it bordered on being a penalty box. And yet Americans snapped them up.
I guess my point was broader – styles and what is “cool” changes, and in cars, those changes are often influenced by what is being built. And, (obviously) are not changed by what is not being built.
Theoretically, there is no reason why Cadillac could not have built a “Lexus with attitude” in the late 80s and had a hit on their hands, if it was the right car and properly executed. But “Real World Cadillac” was part of Real World GM of the late 80s, and there was very little that they were building that was the right car and/or properly executed.
The performance stats of that Chevy are very disappointing considering that it’s motivated by a 454 V-8. A top speed of 108 mph? The rear-end gearing may not have helped much but it still should have enough torque and hp to hit 120. The only thing that feels just about right is the MPG! The 2bbl 400 SBC that was standard in the ’71 had 255 hp while the 396 4bbl option (a $69 option) was rated at 300.
The 108 mph is NOT the top speed, it is the speed at the noted RPM. Take a close look at the asterisk.
Why do you think Lincoln SUVs are selling like hotcakes. Even though they share many basic components with their Ford brothers, Lincoln had the gumption to assure the styling, green houses, and interiors were true upgrades.
A good example is the Corsair vs the Escape. The Escape looks like a 4 door fastback guppy with a 3 pot engine. The Corsair has only 4 cylinder engines, a boxy greenhouse, a well controlled (but not wallowing) ride, and a far superior interior. Also, Lincoln read the writing on the wall and dropped the stupid alphabet soup.
Cadillac needs to read the Lincoln brief if it wants to become relevant in the luxury market. If not, only the Chinese will be driving Cadillacs.
Chevrolet AM/FM tape stereo: $372.85
Adjusted for inflation: $2,381.43
A 1967 Car Life road test asked the question, is a Chevrolet worth $5000? It was a 427 Impala SS coupe, well equipped, for $4903, plus freight. A similarly equipped Caprice wagon would certainly be more. The 1967 Cadillac Calais Coupe listed for $5040. That sure blew the middle out of the Sloan ladder. To me, 1964 was the last year Cadillac was significantly different than Chevy.
“To me, 1964 was the last year Cadillac was significantly different than Chevy.”
To me, I’m thinking ’56, maybe ’57.
By ’58 Chevy could pretty well knock heads with Cadillac, by ’59 – ’60, easily.
The ’59-’60 were a low point, but that was the body commonality, and by ’61 they dug themselves out of that. I was thinking more under the skin. ’65 was the year that all GM big cars got the perimeter frame and all coil suspension setup. ’65 was also the first year for the TH400 Hydramatic from Chevy all the way to Cadillac.
Inside, FM Stereo became available on all brands as well. Caprice was also introduced as a new Chevy model above Impala, with upholstery at a level with the new Calais series.
Cadillac should have ditched the slot occupied by the Calais, preceded by the 62, preceded by the 61 (which was actually sold on a 122 inch wheelbase for a couple of years in he early ’50s) much earlier. Those cars were bigger Chevies hiding behind Cadillac faces and they didn’t even sell very well in most years. Making a C-body Chevy for buyers who needed the space but not the luxury might have made sense (Ford sold a few stretched LTDs and later Crown Vics to cab services), but if the Devilles were too close in equipment and capabilities to their cheaper siblings to maintain Cadillac’s luxury image, the Calais was even more of a lead weight. It was actually a blessing for Cadillac that those cars were as obscure and rare as they were.
I have to say, this article is the kind of journalism I’d identify more with Car and Driver than Motor Trend. Later in the seventies I bought both, before dropping MT as forgettable.
At least the styling of the two cars was quite distinct, even though the Caddy still had a semblance of fins – a look which was traditional Caddy but so passe by then.
It’s stunning to read how much more Cadillac charged for the same option than Chevrolet. And what the Cadillac didn’t have which we would nowadays expect in a luxury vehicle. AM/FM tape stereo an option? And then there’s the “Dual comfort seat”, power seat, and “driver’s comfort seat”? Sounds like a bit of redundancy there, but they’re all separate options. Hmm…
And I love the typo which gave the Caddy a really-slow revving V8 which developed it’s peak power at 440 rpm!
I’ll have to go back and read the pictured Motor Trend article and the comments in detail, but simply ran out of time yesterday. As per usual here at CC, it looks like a great discussion above.
Motor Trend it would seem is still asking this question, as recently as June of 2018….
They did comparison testing between luxury brands, and similarly equipped pedestrian cars for us commoners, and it was a pretty good read.
Having purchased a mere Civic a couple of years earlier, I had to agree. Is luxury really worth it when you can get many of those ‘luxury’ features in much less expensive cars?
Having owned, ridden in, or driven many ’71-’76 GM B-C body cars, I can appreciate the premise of the article – any well-equipped version fulfilled the mission of a large, comfortable highway cruiser, and the price differentials could lack tangibility. And, GM charging MORE THAN double for the same GM tilt wheel column in the Cadillac is eye opening. GM made its money back on the investment in the Cadillac’s lower volume unique parts.
Both in the showroom and over the years, the Chevy had inferior finish and durability. The Chevy dash was awful. For at least ’71 and ’72 the driver’s cockpit was always black, never color keyed, the plastic pieces snapped together terribly, the dash pad was crack prone and the knob on the transmission selector was usually on the floor under the front seat. The straight Chevy bench seat with no armrest was primitive.
The premium charged for the Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac versions usually paid back with better interior materials, and frankly sometimes beat the Cadillac at its game. Olds seemed to be the value play, to me anyway.
There are problems with Motor Trend’s article. First, using a coupe and a sedan just seems lazy. Kind of like they found themselves in possession of a few late in the model year press fleet cars and decided to go for it.
This obviously skewed the performance numbers. Sources I have indicate the base Caprice coupe to be lighter than the Caprice sedan. And, the Cadillac simply has options the Caprice does not. Ordering two sedans, comparably equipped, would have made the article more thorough and interesting, and cut the weight spread considerably.
The $3,500 price differential in the article headline borders on analog clickbait. Yes, you could buy the well-equipped Chevy for less than the base price of the Cadillac, and the base Cadillac was sorely lacking. In 1971, a car without AC, tilt, cruise and stereo was not a luxury car. Cadillac may have been better off in the long term making more features standard and advertising a higher base price. It would have made the car seem more exclusive and have increased manufacturing efficiency.
However, you have to adjust $888.40 ($5674.31 adjusted) out of the Cadillac’s option list to make the cars comparable. In 1971, a headline for a $2,600 price differential would not have seemed as dramatic. Overstating the differential by 34% is math deficiency.
Black and cracked, just the way Chevy liked them….
Hmm, this article could have been titled “More Motor Trend Math Massacres Merrily Materialize.” The Standard Catalog of American Cars shows a $53 higher price for the Caprice sedan over the Caprice coupe. So, the price differential shrinks to $2,558.60, leaving the price differential overstatement at just under 37%.
The Caprice’s dash crack was often mocked as the “GM Mark of Excellence.” And yes the ’71-72 models did have black steering wheels and columns as did all Chevrolets of those years – the 1973 Caprice and Monte Carlo did at least go back to color-keyed columns and wheels. For not much more money than that loaded Caprice tested against the Cadillac in that Motor Trend, one could have gone to a Pontiac, Oldsmobile or Buick and purchased a Grand Ville Custom, Ninety-Eight or Electra 225, each of which came standard with most of the items that were optional on the Caprice, plus the power windows and seat, A/C, etc. Even the Ford LTD Brougham was superior to the ’71 Caprice in interior trim and details for roughly the same price, comparably equipped. To some degree, the 1971 Caprice was a bit cheapened in many ways such as the black trim on dash and steering wheel/column, plain rubber pedals from a Biscayne and greater use of plastics compared to the original 1965-66 Caprice.
Probably the reason for a Caprice coupe against a Sedan De Ville was the timing of the road test – about 3 months before publication. In early 1971, GM was just getting back into full production following the 67-day corporate-wide strike and Chevrolet couldn’t provide a Caprice sedan to the automotive press so a coupe was substituted. Orignally a ’71 Caprice was to be tested in the November, 1970 issue of M/T against full-sized cars of other low-priced nameplates such as the Ford LTD Brougham, AMC Ambassador SST and Plymouth Sport Fury Brougham but the Chevy didn’t make it due to the strike so the Caprice was tested against the Cadillac a few months later.
I’m glad you pointed out that the cars should have been closer to comparable levels of equipment. If they had been able to find a less lavishly equipped Sedan Deville, skipping items like the self-leveling rear suspension, which, while a worthwhile feature, drove the cars further apart, then optioned up a 4-door Caprice to get as close as possible to the Caddy, it would have highlighted just what one sacrifices when giving up the Cadillac brand. The silence, extra 3″ of legroom (which may make a huge difference to some and almost none to others), better quality finishes and features like electronic climate control which was the only AC available on the Cadillac and not available at any price on the Caprice (and, for which GM’s vacuum-driven “automatic” AC $50 upgrade was a very poor substitute, though I noticed that the manual AC on the Caprice had one feature, GM’s “crotch coolers”, a poor-man’s substitute for ventilated seats, that was not available on any Cadillac) could be weighed against the still substantial price difference.
PS: As for the difference in the prices of the tilt-wheels, are you sure that the one on the Cadillac was actually a tilt-wheel, rather than a tilt-telescope-wheel? That would have justified most of the extra money for that option. Speaking of options, I was shocked to see that any full-sized Chevy was available this late without power steering, let alone the “most luxurious” one. My father’s Malibu was almost undriveable with its 7-turn manual steering; this thing would have been a nightmare.
The Cadillac’s performance is really disappointing. I highly recommend ‘Trigger’s Retro Road Tests’ on flickr. There you can find a 1964 test of a Coupe De Ville that ran a 17 second quarter mile on its way to a top speed of 121.5 mph.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/14167156272/in/album-72157644226707618/
Emission controls and lower compression ratio to enable GM’s mandate that all 1971 engines run on low-octane regular leaded or unleaded gasoline had a lot to do with the performance of the ’71 Cadillac 472 cid V8 compared to a ’64 model with the 429.
Nonetheless, a 10% increase in displacement paired with a 2.6% increase in curb weight should have allowed the car to keep pace with the 1964 when combined with seven years of development, unless one were resting on their laurels.
The 1964 Cadillac was the best car in the world. Its only concessions to Rolls Royce or Grosser Benz were in the amount of hand work in its finish. Which isn’t to say that the Europeans cars were better finished, merely finished in a more time-consuming manner. If one were to go back a further four model years, Cadillac made the Series 70 Eldorado Brougham from 1957-1960. That model conceded absolutely nothing to any car made anywhere for any price. It was a victim of Cadillac’s success. There simply wasn’t time to worry about hand built cars when there was demand for six-figure production of cars that could coddle passengers while announcing success and eating up miles at any rate advisable. A decade later Cadillac was a fat housecat surrounded by mountain lions.
So what we’re saying is the only way to segregate Cadillac from plebish Chevrolet (nevermind the other marks on the Sloane ladder) would have been to resist ultimate sales numbers temptation and produce something more akin to a Rolls Royce or MB 600 – which was considered briefly (with the V16 concept) and rejected. Hmmm…
I always wondered why in ’71 only, when you bought a big Chevy and got A/C, the vents on the right half of the dash were smaller than the openings in the trim piece there. It looked absolutely dorkish. That was fixed for ’72.
What has this fake vegan car tesla has to do with anything, those are not real cars and nothing luxurious about them (I don’t think car that you have to save battery on a/c or heater is very luxurious).