(first posted 2/8/2017) The mid-1970s were a tumultuous time for domestic automakers, with tried-and-true buyer preferences for “longer, lower, wider” morphing into “smaller and more logical,” even for more upmarket cars. European brands like Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo were beginning to gain an unexpected foothold with affluent buyers, and the trend was exacerbated by the 1973 Oil Embargo, which made the merits of more efficient products even more apparent. Detroit finally had to respond, but how? Car and Driver took a look at the new “International-sized” premium segment in the May 1977 issue, comparing the new entrants from Lincoln, Chrysler and Dodge with the still-fresh, segment-leading Cadillac Seville.
As Detroit’s product planners, engineers and marketers plotted their strategy to appeal to buyers seeking upscale, smaller cars, they faced a significant strategic challenge: should they holistically develop functional products with sophisticated suspensions and more European handling characteristics, or just shrink the traditional big American car?
Detroit couldn’t quite come to grips with the reasons why an ever-growing subset of buyers in the premium market were snapping up pricey European imports. Motown was mystified by cars that were so “foreign,” designed around benefits that no American “should” want. For example, the premium German makers, all located in Southern Germany, prioritized maneuverability, handling and the capability for safe and comfortable high-speed travel. The cars were expected to perform well on the the high-speed German Autobahns, as well as winding mountain roads like the ones found in the nearby Black Forest region. These roads defined the everyday experiences for the teams in Stuttgart (Mercedes-Benz), Ingolstadt (Audi) and Munich (BMW). The cars simply reflected that reality, and were well-designed for their intended mission. Of course, these merits also played well on the American Interstate Highway system as well as the canyons of Bel Air, California.
In sharp contrast, life in Detroit centered around delivering isolation. Get out of the city, ignore the potholed roads, envelope yourself in a quiet cocoon—these were the desired benefits, made even better if the neighbors could tell that you’d spent a lot of money on a car. The epitome of the “good life” in the Motor City was embodied by places like Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a posh bedroom community of Detroit chockablock with senior-level auto industry executives (Lee Iacocca called it home). The most strenuous local drives consisted of hurtling as quickly as possible through the pockmarked streets of Detroit, moseying over to a nearby country club, or taking the relatively flat, speed-limited interstates to a Michigan lake house on weekends. As long as you had enough chrome-dipped, vinyl-topped “grandeur” so the hoi-polloi could see that you were “loaded,” then the domestic luxury car mission was accomplished.
Detroit’s notoriously cheap bean counters also loved this domestic approach to luxury, since humdrum cars could be tarted-up for premium market duty with minimal corporate outlay. No need for expensive, sophisticated suspensions or powertrains, just lots of low-cost sound-deadening materials and plenty of fake wood trim. If that approach worked on big cars, then why not small cars?
Cadillac fired the first shot with the Chevrolet Nova-based Seville, introduced in 1975. For a conservative division of GM with a conservative clientele, the small(ish), angular Seville was a rather radical departure from the norm, so Cadillac was careful to maintain the traditional brand benefits in a tidier package. In a genius marketing move, the “baby” Cadillac also carried the highest base price in the line-up (limousines excepted), reassuring Cadillac buyers that their neighbors would know that they had bought the “best.” It was also no coincidence that the price of a loaded Seville was near that of the ’75 Mercedes-Benz 280 ($15,057–$63,511 adjusted).
The American market was hungry for upscale cars with less-than-leviathan dimensions, so the Seville proved to be quite a success, with 16,355 sold in the shortened 1975 model year and 43,772 sold for 1976. While these sales were still well below those achieved by the volume DeVille series, they were ahead of the former top-of-the-line Fleetwood Brougham (43,255 combined for ’75 and ’76). Plus, with a base price of $12,479 ($52,637 adjusted), the nicest Nova money could buy also yielded an enormous profit for GM. The fact that the majority of Seville buyers were domestic luxury owners seeking a more maneuverable car did not matter one bit—it was still a Cadillac.
Obviously, this small car success at arch-rival Cadillac did not sit well over at Lincoln. Like GM, FoMoCo had also determined that a broader array of small cars would become increasingly important in the 1970s, and models like the ’74 Ford Mustang II, and ’75 Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch represented the Blue Oval’s push into more premium small cars. These products were vintage Lee Iacocca babies—plenty of schmaltz layered onto plebeian underpinnings. So when the Baby Cadillac proved to be a hit, Lido commanded a Baby Lincoln to compete, replete with Lincoln Mark styling flourishes front and rear.
However, unlike Cadillac, which actually spent some money modifying the Nova, the transformation of the Granada/Monarch into the Lincoln Versailles was mostly minor cosmetics. No wheelbase stretch, no major modifications to sheet metal (aside from minor nose and tail treatments), no unique engines. Even the Granada/Monarch dashboard was essentially unchanged. Rear disc brakes were the primary functional difference versus the cheaper Ford and Mercury. Oh yeah, there was also “better” paint. The Versailles’ price, however, was ambitious. Lincoln copied Cadillac by giving their smallest car the highest base price in the line—at $11,500 ($45,546 adjusted), the gussied-up Granada offered a dubious value proposition at best.
Over at Chrysler headquarters, the newly-introduced compact Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volaré were re-imagined as the more upmarket Chrysler LeBaron and Dodge Diplomat. Sharing the 112.5-inch wheelbase with the Aspen/Volaré sedans, Mopar’s upscale “International-sized” cars got unique front and rear sheet metal, modified dashboards and plusher interior trim. While Seville and Versailles only offered 4-door sedans, the LeBaron and Diplomat augmented the 4-doors with a 2-door coupe body style as well, featuring a unique roofline and differentiated rear-quarters. Wagons would also join the LeBaron/Diplomat lines for 1978.
However, unlike Cadillac and Lincoln, who presented their babies as top-of-the-line offerings, Chrysler positioned the LeBaron/Diplomat simply as upmarket American cars in a trimmer size. At ~$5,500, LeBaron/Diplomat base prices were comparable to the “basic” full-sized Chrysler Newport/Dodge Royal Monaco (not the more premium Chrysler New Yorker Brougham). Differences between the two divisional offerings were minimal—other than the LeBaron’s “upside down” headlamp/parking lamp treatment and busier grille, there was little else to allow buyers to tell one from the other.
So there was a whole lot of smaller scale traditional Americana newly on offer from Detroit for 1977, though not much to directly challenge anything being imported from across the Atlantic. No doubt perfect for Bloomfield Hills, but how about the rest of America?
The Car and Driver test drive took place in Los Angeles, where the Versailles and LeBaron/Diplomat were introduced. The editors could not resist poking fun at the shallowness of some appearance-obsessed Angelinos to highlight the superficial benefits that the new “International-sized” offerings represented: these were pretty ordinary American cars, no different than a Beverly Hills mini-diva with new rhinoplasty and leather accoutrements as compared to her un-retouched, cloth-clad counterpart from Van Nuys.
As for the specs, the cars were surprisingly closely matched in many ways. Cadillac had the clear advantage under-hood, with fuel injection and higher horsepower and torque ratings, though at $15,240 as-tested ($60,358 adjusted) it should have offered the best-of-everything. The Lincoln engine pure was Ford, while the premium Mopars also offered the same power trains as their cheaper compact cousins (and basically matched the Lincoln’s output despite smaller displacement). Price wise, however, the differences would have been huge. Though MSRPs on the new offerings were not available to C&D at the time of the test, based on a period price guide and the equipment shown on the pictured cars, I’d estimate the Versailles would have been $12,008 ($47,558 adjusted), the loaded LeBaron Medallion Coupe would have been $7,518 ($29,775 adjusted) while the more basic Diplomat Medallion Sedan would have been $7,069 ($27,997 adjusted). Badge snobbery and build quality aside, the clear price/value advantage went to Chrysler.
Car and Driver noted that the LeBaron/Diplomat really wasn’t in the luxury league—a fair assessment and in-line with Chrysler’s positioning. The cheaper “small luxury” approach naturally eclipsed the sales of the expensive Seville and Versailles for 1977: 54,851 LeBarons and 37,552 Diplomats were sold, compared with 45,060 Baby Cadillacs and 15,434 Baby Lincolns. Without a doubt, 152,897 sales of “International-sized” cars were a nice shot in the arm for Detroit. However, in the same price bands (or higher), Audi sold 35,849 cars, BMW sold 28,776 cars, Mercedes-Benz sold 53,818 cars and Volvo sold 46,790 cars. The dimensions of these cars may have all been considered “International” but the buyer motivations were vastly different. As C&D noted, none of the Detroit offerings came close to European standards of performance and practicality.
For Cadillac and Lincoln, that fact proved to be especially problematic. While the first generation Seville sold well (215,659 units over 5 model years), the Versailles barely made a ripple (50,156 units over 4 model years). Conceivably, if Detroit had been paying attention to buyer preferences among trend-setting, highly educated and affluent luxury buyers, the second generation Seville and Versailles would have been much more sophisticated offerings with a tasteful, uniquely American take on international standards of excellence.
Instead, both Cadillac and Lincoln decided to target Liberace. Unfortunately for GM and FoMoCo, however, baroque bustle-backs were the exact opposite of where the “International-sized” luxury market was heading as the 1980s unfolded.
The 1980 Seville saw sales drop by 26% to 39,344 compared to the tamer-looking 1979 model. Ironically, despite the throwback design, the chassis of the new Seville was pretty sophisticated by the standards of the day, with a fully independent rear-suspension. But with subpar engine choices and overwrought styling, the Seville simply could not appeal to buyers seeking refinement, high material quality and superior engineering. While domestic brand sales were down substantially in the recession-wracked 1980 model year, combined sales of Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo rose 2%. The shift in taste was clearly underway.
By 1982 when the baroque Lincoln Continental arrived, the bustle-back style was even more stale (Chrysler’s Imperial had also introduced a variant of that look in 2-door form for 1981). Once again, the “Baby” Lincoln was based on the Ford Granada, this time using the Fairmont-derived Fox platform, hardly an example of cutting-edge engineering. The market responded with a shrug, and ’82 Continental sales amounted to 23,908 units (beating Seville’s ’82 total of 19,998). By contrast, that pesky premium quartet from Europe (Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo) sold a combined total of 236,685 cars in the U.S. for 1982. The market had spoken: for efficient, smaller luxury cars, the Europeans were the ones to beat.
Interestingly, Chrysler had success doubling down on the over-styled, old-school “American luxury” strategy by continuing to offer LeBaron-based product as a smaller alternative to traditional big cars. For 1982, in a classic Lee Iacocca flourish, Chrysler took the old LeBaron 4-door sedan, made a padded vinyl “formal” landau vinyl top and pillow-tufted seats standard, along with a name change to New Yorker. Suddenly the “International-sized” Chrysler of the late 1970s was the new “full-sized” Chrysler of the 1980s (the true full-sized Chrysler R-bodies were dropped after 1981). The move was magic: sales rose 17% for the “new” New Yorker compared to the 1981 LeBaron. In 1983, the New Yorker 5th Avenue (later simply called 5th Avenue) became the best selling Chrysler brand product, all the way through 1986. For a few years in the mid-1980s, the 5th Avenue was selling over 100,000 units per year. These sales were pure gold, and undoubtedly contributed mightily to Chrysler’s bottom line. The M-Body was fully amortized, and the glitzy trim cost next to nothing, yet the New Yorker/5th Avenue sold for ~50% more than the price of the mechanically identical Dodge Diplomat ($18,345 versus $11,995 in 1989, or $35,507 versus $23,217 adjusted). Lido was laughing all the way to the bank in Bloomfield Hills.
By 1989 when the M-Body was finally retired, Chrysler had cranked out 1,011,323 LeBaron/New Yorker/5th Avenue units and 411,543 Dodge Diplomats (mostly fleet sales after 1980). During that same 1977 to 1989 period, the “Baby” Cadillac and Lincoln had each served up 3 different platforms, switched from rear-wheel-drive to front-wheel-drive, and presented wild swings in styling direction. As for sales from 1977 to 1989, Cadillac moved 437,240 Sevilles (mostly 1st generation) while Lincoln sold 285,287 Versailles/Continentals (mostly 3rd generation). Before anyone argues that the high Cadillac and Lincoln price tags accounted for lower sales, keep in mind that Mercedes-Benz sold 928,204 units in America from ’77 to ’89 mostly at prices vastly higher than Seville and Versailles/Continental models. Luxury buyers seeking “International-sized” products were definitely willing to spend money for the right product, replete with understated styling and sophisticated engineering.
So with hindsight, who really hit the target? For many high-end buyers seeking efficiency with snob appeal, the premium imports were still the best choice. For Americans seeking old-school big car glitz in a smaller size at relatively affordable prices, the Chrysler division nailed it with the LeBaron (and later New Yorker/5th Avenue). Sophisticated luxury cars they weren’t, but then again Seville and Versailles were hardly paragons of cutting-edge product excellence. Cadillac and Lincoln priced too high and aimed too low from an engineering, design and material standpoint, thus sealing their fate as second-tier luxury brands by the close of the 20th Century. The new tastes in luxury among affluent target buyers was becoming clear by 1977, but Detroit wasn’t prepared to listen. After all, things were quite comfortable in Bloomfield Hills.
Well make fun of me all you want, but being a true blue Ford guy, I’d have to take the Versailles. Warts and all.
The Versailles is actually a tarted up Ford Falcon (same as the Granada/Monarch) and by far the worst of the lot.
Agree! I’ve always thought of the Lincoln as the ultimate Ford Falcon.
some 25 years later Cadillac is testing on the Nuerburgring.
Excellent article, GN!
The photo of the road is taken just West of Oberhoellsteig in the Hoellental (Hell’s Valley).
I’d love to have a square Seville…used to own both bustleback Seville and Continental and liked them both. The 302-powered Conti felt a lot faster than the HT4100-powered Seville but the Cadillac had better build quality overall. For that matter, a 5th Avenue wouldn’t be a bad car to own.
That poor little Versailles though…I just couldn’t be seen in that…yuck.
The high-end fully loaded LeBaron had an interior, particularly the optional leather seats, that put the car into Cadillac territory and was very nicely done. The LeBaron obviously inherited the former Imperial trim name, and the Imperial’s eagle logo as well.
I thought I had heard that at one time the LeBaron was briefly considered as being an expansion of the Imperial brand, but Imperial was just so dead by ’74-’75 that the idea died very quickly.
Does anybody else have any thoughts on this internet rumor that I may be creating?
I always thought that the LeBaron coupe with those road wheels was very good looking. But, in a coupe crazy era it didn’t sell terribly well. While the LeBaron sedan sold well enough for a Chrysler, I’ve always wondered if the “upside down” front end put off a number of buyers – particularly fashion conscious coupe buyers. That front was an acquired taste at the time, and I decided I liked the rest of the car enough that I could accept it.
I don’t remember the LeBaron being conceived as a new Imperial. However, with all the Cutlasses Oldsmobile was selling, Chrysler surely needed some of that action. I found the use of the LeBaron name (and the Imperial eagle as a logo) showed that the Imperial was dead and buried. The name still had some cachet, as shown by the way it consistently outsold the similar Diplomat.
Since the LeBaron sold at basically the same price as the Diplomat, I assume that the Diplomat sold mainly to Dodge loyalists. If you can “move up” for no more dough, Why not? I believe that’s what helped kill Oldsmobile in the 90s. “Why buy an Olds ( insert unheard of mid priced model name here) When I can get a Buick Century for the same price?”
And among Mopar buyers, Chrysler was always the nameplate that had the most appeal. Chrysler (the corporation) probably did as good a job as anyone avoiding name debasement by refusing to sell small and/or strippo Chryslers (the brand). You would see some pretty pathetic Buicks from time to time with blackwalls and poverty caps, but you almost never saw a Chrysler like that. I think this was part of why the Cordoba and LeBaron did so much better in the 70s than their Dodge counterparts. But by the mid 80s, I think that had been squandered.
As most cars debased themselves by the mid ’80s,any debasement of the Chrysler brand was so much meh, to me. The 300 helped pull up the ‘rep’ a bit though! As for strippo Chryslers, fortunately they had Plymouth in the showroom for the frugal set. Buick dealers would have to send them down to the Pontiac or Chevy guy unless they had a ‘Price Leader’. That’s why I never under stood the Plymouth VIP, Wouldn’t that hurt Newport sales? Oh well Mopar did often have schizophrenic marketing !
I considered the ‘upside down’ lights to be an homage to the chromed ‘brows’ of early 60s Imperials, The chrome bits above them on the 5th Ave.s more so. Of course I might be the only one!
You are not the only one I actually own a 1977 LeBaron 4DR model , and have driven both the 77 Seville and Versailles. And in my opinion the Lebaron in every category except horsepower blew away the other two and for half the price ! If you get the maxed out LeBaron in leather with all power options it puts the Seville to shame and leaves the Lincoln further in the dust again for almost half the price. If Chrysler threw in their 360 as they did in their Mexican versions it would have been lights out . The thing I really hate about the Seville is the dashboard is so close to the windshield its dangerous, The 77 -79 LeBarons were just classier rides in that segment .
Is this example less a matter of Detroit not being able to build cars competitive with the best in the world, than the Big Three thinking they knew what was best for North American buyers?
Like their resistance to addressing safety in the 60s, it seemed the domestic automakers didn’t like having to be so accountable to buyers or genuine competition. Rather, they would tell you through their slick marketing, what defined ‘quality’. I think it’s safe to say, they had to be dragged into making cars that offered a better experience for buyers.
Like ‘planned obsolescence’, I think the domestics were capable of building better cars much sooner, but not if it compromised their current business models.
“Is this example less a matter of Detroit not being able to build cars competitive with the best in the world, than the Big Three thinking they knew what was best for North American buyers?”
While you can’t entirely rule out that level of arrogance, it had to be very difficult for auto executives of the era to predict where things were going, and the pipeline for new product was long. The vehicles in this article represent thinking that mostly predated even the ’73 oil embargo, and were the products of executives that cut their teeth in the business in the ’50s and ’60s. The world changed fast at the time.
The Versailles was clearly a quickly conceived reaction to the Seville, not to the growing influence of foreign competition. Many would describe the Versailles as perhaps one of the most cynical cars of the seventies. A premium optioned and priced Granada. Which was a mini LTD in every traditional sense. Ford was thinking Lincoln Mark III all over again. When times, and competition, had changed dramatically.
Again, after the ’80 Seville went in the wrong direction, the ’81 Imperial and ’82 Continental paid homage to this even more traditional Seville. The domestics looking to the past for inspiration, rather than addressing the present.
I do think the domestics actively resisted change. While it was convenient to largely blame it on economic, engineering, and environmental issues at the time, their product planning and marketing showed a very slow acceptance to foreign competition.
Agree with your points completely! And this Motown mindset is awfully hard to kill. In fact, in springs back to life every time one of the Big Three gets away with gold-plated badge engineering. Witness the first Lincoln Navigator, derived from the Ford Expedition: in reality it was no better than the Versailles in terms of being differentiated from the Ford donor product. Yet this time, due to the phenomenal popularity of jumbo SUVs, buyers snapped them up. Cadillac hastily followed suit with the Chevrolet Tahoe-based Escalade. So Detroit’s fixation on cross-town rivals and mining old concepts for every last dime continues unabated, while genuine product leadership typically emerges elsewhere.
Also interesting to note that this bustle-back Cadillac design concept was drawn by Wayne Kady… in 1967!!!! Detroit really was looking backwards…
Arrrggggg, GN. Horrible then and horrible fifty years later
Looks like a targa-top Gremlin with a “Lincoln lump” on the rear.
Fifty shades of ugly.
The thing that kills me about both GM and Ford during this period is that they DID have excellent products on offer at their European subsidiaries. For example, the Opel Diplomat, while not quite considered to be in the same league as Mercedes-Benz, was still a very well done product. Cadillac apparently considered–and rejected–this more European approach during the development of the original Seville. GM took the cheap and easy way out with the Nova-based Seville, though they did create a product that most Americans saw as unique and very premium (i.e. they got away with it the first time). The Gen1 Seville was certainly profitable, reinforcing the cynical “just make it good enough but don’t bother with great” mindset that was common among Big 3 leadership at the time.
In 1973, Road Test Magazine noted that Mercedes-Benz commanded a whopping 70% of all U.S. sales above $10,000 ($54,000 adjusted). THAT should have terrified GM, as it demonstrated clearly that the cream-of-the-crop buyers were no longer looking to Detroit for the priciest automotive status symbols. Had GM’s management and Board of Directors been doing their jobs properly in the 1970s, they would have unlocked the entire arsenal of global products at their disposal to push back against the image-erosion eating away at their flagship brand.
@GN
While today we accept global participation in car development as natural, it wouldn’t be so accepted back in the 70s. Especially, when it comes to the development of what are supposed to be Detroit’s specialty cars: large traditional luxury sedans. Knowing 70% of Cadillac’s latest premium model was developed in Germany, may not have gone over well in the mid to late seventies. Especially, given the economic uncertainties at the time.
Depending upon the amount of foreign content in a flagship Lincoln or Cadillac, it would likely be seen as a significant threat to the domestic industry by many. Including Big Three employees and buyers. Certainly many politicians and labor leaders would have held it against the automakers. Union employees may have felt threatened at the time. Everyone would be asking, “Where’s the American ingenuity?”. That a Cadillac is being largely sourced from German product development. I would see it being used as a political tool.
It doesn’t excuse the Big Three from dragging their feet on more assertive and progressive North American product development.
Good points. With my rose-colored glasses on and the benefit of hindsight, I’d argue that GM should have taken an approach like they did with the Chevette. Yes, I’m not kidding–the Chevette. It was an Americanized version of the global T-car platform (developed in Germany) that was made in America with mostly local content. When introduced, no one thought of the Chevette as “foreign” though it definitely was seen as more practical/pragmatic than the typical U.S. small car of the time. Likewise, Chrysler’s fwd L-Body (Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon) were Americanized and made-in-America versions of a European product developed by ChryCo subsidiary Simca. This “EuroAmerican” was by far the best Mopar (non-Mitsubishi) on offer during the dark days of the late 1970s, and once again most buyers (and Union officials) would have thought of the car as purely American.
I wish that same approach had been taken at the high-end of the market as well as the low-end–imagine an American-made Seville with the best suspension elements and packaging efficiency derived from Opel, but styled and trimmed to suit American tastes.
@GN
I view the Chevette differently, as workers and the American public wouldn’t have felt as threatened than if it was the bastion of what Americans did best… luxury cars. For many, Cadillac’s were icons of everything America did well in luxury cars.
I do think the political fallout could have been very risky for GM to undertake. I think it would have been a *very* hard sell. Many in the US would have felt threatened and concerned. What would be next? MB buying GM?
Personally, I think the slow response in domestic product development and overhauling North American operations to better reflect top foreign standards (with all of the domestic manufacturers) was the real problem that needed to be aggressively addressed.
The irony was when they finally took this approach with the Catera, it turned out to be a disaster.
Agreed. I still remember walking through the lot of the M-B dealer in Fort Wayne with my father, probably in 1974. The place was closed and we were just looking. The typical six cylinder sedans were in the $14K range and the high end stuff was around $20. My father just shook his head, and did not see how these were worth so much money when he could get a Lincoln Mark for less than a smaller, less powerful Mercedes.
Truth is that Dad (as an upper middle income guy) should not have been able to afford a legitimate luxury car, but was able to do so by leasing a Mark IV (which had very high resale value for the time). The fact that he was able to do so tells us that Lincoln was not high enough up the luxury spectrum.
This will always be one of Cadillac’s greatest cars. It marked the turning point to where Cadillac explored (true) sporty dynamics of a compact smaller car.
This car was created at the right time, for the right market, at the right perfect size. It’s very hard to match it with it’s Chevy Nova roots. Meaning the Seville was more than badge engineering!
Funny that, I look at the first generation Seville as the beginning of the end for Cadillac. The day that it decided to chase someone else’s luxury values, rather than building their own.
And, in the intervening forty years, Cadillac went from trying to be a Mercedes-wannabe to becoming a BMW-wannabe. And bet the farm on some really nice driver’s cars (well, there are advantages to seriously wanting to be BMW – the end product drives real well) just in time for the market to go whole hog on SUV’s and crossovers.
“Real” Cadillac’s may have been rolling down a dead end in the late 1970’s, but using being someone else as the alternative, in the long run, wasn’t any better an answer.
Syke
Not true, Cadillac was not able to keep kicking out land yachts, with a hood the length of a city block. If Cadillac did not try something new, it would be obsolete today. Especially with it’s core audience baby boomers expiring.
The goal was to smartly go after the new younger affluent customers that wanted luxury to be merged with solid sporting characteristics. This was not a negotiable. Look at Cadillac today with it’s supreme V-Series competition level cars that are blowing away the competition left and right. Cadillac is relevant today due to upper management recognizing that the tide was turning and old floaty luxury barges where going the way of the dodo bird, extinct!
The V-Series car in fact pretty amazing, but hardly selling. Cadillac’s ship sailed long ago; they might be more successful if they priced their cars in the Acura “premium” range to try to rebuild market. Head to head with MB, Audi and BMW…no one is looking at Cadillac.
Dave M.
Have you seen the MT “head to head competition just a few years ago. Where the Cadillac CTS-V-series beast out the Audi RS Turbo, M-Benz C-Class AMG, & the benchmark BMW M3.
Yeah pretty sure Cadillac has arrived!
You are wrong. This was the beginning of the end for Cadillac. As proof, no one important today would even consider buying a new Cadillac. GM has basically left the car market and now build SUV’s and pick up trucks. So sad, but, so true. The foreign brands will beat them there too. AND…last but not least…electric vehicles don’t sell for numerous good reasons and will financially break GM, Ford and what’s left of Chrysler. They will all be on the chopping block soon.
“ It marked the turning point to where Cadillac explored (true) sporty dynamics of a compact smaller car.”
Sporty dynamics? The Seville??
Or maybe you’re saying “from the Seville onward”: compact Cadillacs of the 80s/90s? Cimarron, Allante, Catera?
Depends on your definition of “sporty”, I guess.
Tatra87
Actually look up the driving reviews for the 1975-1979 Cadillac Seville. Read how the editors praised it’s refined “sporty like” handling, the cars nimbleness and fluid ride.
The editors, even compliment the Seville’s brakes as “sporty” and that the cars new compact size made it athletic beyond what they could have imagined from a Cadillac!
Everything is relative. The Seville was good compared to the big Cadillacs, but was not Mercedes, much less a BMW 5 series. From the point of view of style, it was, at the time, quite well done. The interior was done up nicely in Cadillac style, without being excessive (think Talisman).
Nice write up. Give me any of these domestics over the MB anyday. Now or then. I just am not willing to consider the premium of the buy-in, plus the expense of maintenance and such just to show I have the money to buy a Euro car. I live in a small town. Closest euro dealer is 45 minutes. That’s an expensive tow bill if it has to go to the dealer ’cause it’s broke. And it will break. They ALL break, Asian, American, Euro. Not usually tow truck broken, but I always look at the “what if”.
Of course, I’ve only ever had one new car in my 34 years of driving. I’m a cheapskate and Euro just doesn’t fit my budgeting for cars as much as I love cars.
The first die-hard Mercedes Benz owner I ever knew was the science fiction writer Jack Chalker (married to my ex-girlfriend) who bought his first sedan back around 1972. He drove them until the day he died, because he really believed they were the better car, and the performance they gave him supported that belief completely.
As Jack once mentioned to me when we were talking cars, “It’s buying the first one that’s the hard nut to crack. Resale value takes care of the trade in on the follow-up, and while the services may be more expensive than American cars, the dealer only has to service the car. He doesn’t have to rebuild it every time you bring it in.”
The resale aspect may have been true in the past, but it isn’t anymore.
The old ones were built to a standard, then market factors (ie Lexus) forced them to build to a price.
They (and other Euros) are so loaded with complex, expensive to repair electronics & gadgetry (of dubious robustness, I might add) that their values tend to plummet after the warranty ends. No biggie, these days people lease them instead of buy anyway. There’s a reason a 8-10 year old
BMW 7-Series is worth a fraction of it’s new price. Other brands (I’m looking at you VW-Audi) are even worse. Makes me wonder how they unload the lease returns, and how the people buying them make out in the end. I suspect I already know the answer.
The guy (or gal) buying an 8 yr old S class or 7 series does it BC its their way to status with little cash out lay. They just have to live with lights on in the dashboard and don’t get it fixed. I think its for this reason the Germans change body styles every 5 yes instead of 20 as it used to be. Ppl with money do not keep these cars longer than 5 yes. The car market is an ever changing one.
Yet there is nothing more obvious that you are just a wannabe baller than driving an old premium car like an S class or 7 series that has seen better days. Even sillier are the people who think they are some sort of yuppie or sophisticate (but really aren’t) in an old 3 or C. You can see through the pretense a mile away. I suppose it’s the same with the dirty old Devilles and Town Cars I see around here always with some minor damage and dragging ass from failing air suspensions. Sigh.
It’s one thing if you appreciate an older car for what it is and keep it up because you like it, though.
For a lot of people, yes, it’s about the status. Not for everyone though. The first car I financed, at age 24, was an 8 year old Lincoln Mark VIII. Immaculate shape, everything worked, no warning lights. One of the cars I had admired from the moment I first saw one, and one I picked over several more “respectable” options. It wasn’t about the badge (everyone my age thought Lincoln was an old person’s car anyway) it was about the styling inside and out, the ambience (the Mark series used real wood rather than the plastic variety, for one example), and the power.
Does that make me a tacky wannabe baller? Was it a trashy choice? Maybe. I personally don’t think so and I don’t regret my choice. But I agree that there are a lot of people who buy the Benz/Audi/BMW at full depreciation, thinking it’s a ticket to class on a budget, and end up with big repair bills and more cash outlay than if they had just leased a loaded Camry or Fusion.
(This may be personal bias showing, but if I see a 7 series or S class with big tacky chrome rims, that’s almost always a dead giveaway of “third owner from a dubious BHPH lot”. Not always but close.)
I have nothing against owning an old luxury car, there are some qualities about them that I prefer to new luxury cars. . I’m talking about that last sort you mentioned.
@ Chris M:
And likely from a Rent A Rim store right next to Title Max.
Yes, I’m judging. Not the people, just the waste of money. It’s tragic to me.
Agreed. The complexity is spooky, especially for a do it yourself hobbyist like me.
I had a 79 BMW 733i, that really was mechanically fairly simple and as easily repaired as an American car of the day. But it had higher quality materials and better road manners, all around a great combination.
Frankly I don’t think anyone offers a comparable car in recent years, a quality car where simplicity is a virtue.
OntarioMike
It’s true, you can feel the quality of a car for sure. I rode in a 1985 BMW 735i many years ago. I was so impressed at how wide and roomy the car felt inside. Unlike American cars, it did not need a long hood the length of a city block.
the buttons, the materials used all felt super rock solid and heavy duty. I was impressed.
Pure ignorance of how reliable Euro cars can be is keeping Detroit alive I guess, I currently drive something far more complicated electronically than anything Detroit has offered bought well used and driven 160,000kms since then and almost everything still works as it did new, the suspension computer which monitors sensors at each wheel multiple times per second to keep the car level and tuned for the road surface its on and the speed its travelling just does its job, the lighting and wiper control systems just do that when required, the engine runs fine the clutch works but I actually know how to drive a manual trans and NEVER slip the clutch to get moving,
one day it will break down irretrievably and since the car has zero value on the market will not be fixed it I cant do it so it will be replaced by another, but Ive had far more trouble with lower mileage Japanese and Australian cars than the last two French ones.
My great uncle during the late 60’s and mid 70’s owned mid size Mercedes sedans up to about 1980. He got so sick of the cost of ownership and upkeep when those cars were out of warranty that he totally changed course and went with a 1981 Buick Century Limited with the not so common suspension upgrade and the basic 231 V6. He loved the Buick! Surprise, other than routine maintenance and an inexpensive choke pull off being replaced at about 85K miles it never gave him trouble in the 9 years he owned it. Sadly he developed Dimentia by that point and had to give up driving by the late 80’s but I do remember him telling me that he would buy another Buick in a heartbeat. Not everybody got a hard on over the Euro cars.
Especially back then, for a good chunk of those cars you were paying very premium prices for vinyl festooned German taxis. Some were pretty premium (I’m thinking some of the MB from the 50s and 60s) but many were just rather utilitarian, slow though well screwed together. I don’t really care if they can make it to 300k miles and beyond, I’d have wanted a different car well before then.
Well, my parents leased a loaded LeBaron Coupe in 1978 and it was junk with a capital J. In Canada, we only got the Medallion version, the top trim. The Diplomats, conversely, were only available in base trim. It was a silver 2 door with red leather guts and stayed nice for about 2 weeks.
It was delivered with missing emblems, loose bolts, etc and it got worse from there. Even the drivers side
sun visor was too long to fit into the clip! It was a 318 with a 2.45 gear and it was beyond sluggish, it struggled to move because the Lean Burn wasn’t functioning properly. Said Lean Burn also failed repeatedly, leaving you stalled out without warning at random times. Sometimes it would fire up again again sitting, sometimes not. It went back to the dealer numerous times for things I can’t even remember. After 2 years, a 50 cent piece sized flake of paint departed the quarter panel, leaving scabby rust. The wiring in the tilt wheel shorted out, leaving us with no cruise or horn. The pin that held the shift lever departed, causing it come off in my dads hand. In the fall of ’80, a wheel bearing failed, causing the front wheel to part company with the rest of the heap. The skimpy 7 1/4″ rear end wore out prematurely.
After the lease went up, he ended up buying it and driving it for 2 more years before buying an ’82 Audi 5000, itself a whole ‘nother story. But you know, a funny thing happened. Between the warranty work, the money we put into it after (including paint touch-up and a great deal on an 8 3/4″ Sure Grip off a wrecked ’80 Volare Road Runner with 3000 miles on it, it actually became a decently running reliable car. My brother took it over, and when he sold it in the fall of ’83 it was in better shape at 5 years old than when it was brand new!.
Addendum: The Audi turned out to be an unreliable, expensive to maintain POS too, so in fall ’87 was traded for an Accord EXi that outlasted my parents.
Only last year my brother had to let it go because the body was literally breaking apart from rust. Still ran fine.
Proof that the best Mopars of the 70s were usually purchased used. 🙂
I remember as a car addicted kid hearing similar stories to yours with the 70’s Mopar products like the 77 LeBaron/Diplomat and worse the 76-77 Volare and Aspens. And I kind of liked the new for 77 mid size personal luxury coupes from Chrysler when I first saw them. I also remember seeing 3-4 year old examples driving around with holes in the front fenders and even a few very disgruntled owners driving around with signs affixed to there roof proclaiming to not but this car as it’s a lemon. Oh the memories!
This conforms to that Mopar legend……. excellent design with terrible execution.
Holy crap..those cars I bought when they were 30 years old weren’t that troublesome…of course the fact they survived that long is probably why…any issues were taken care of by previous owners.
If you wait 30 years to buy, the bad ones tend to have been long since weeded out and are now razor blades and soup cans, having lived second lives as Chinese refrigerators in the interim.
Indeed.
“In Canada, we only got the Medallion version, the top trim. The Diplomats, conversely, were only available in base trim.”
The explanation for this is that in Canada, Dodge dealers also sold Chryslers (unlike the U.S., where at the time the two brands were handled through two completely different dealer networks). In the U.S., there was some price overlap between the upper end of the Diplomat range and the lower end of the LeBaron range, and Chrysler Canada didn’t want Dodge-Chrysler dealers to be selling similar cars from each brand that competed with each other. To avoid this overlap, they offered only the lower-line Diplomats and only the higher-line LeBarons.
This created another problem, however. In both countries, dealers who sold Plymouths also sold Chryslers. To avoid the type of conflict discussed in the previous paragraph, there was no Plymouth version of the M-body in the U.S. Chrysler Canada’s decision to offer only the higher-line LeBarons meant that, assuming Canada otherwise mirrored the U.S. lineup, Chrysler-Plymouth dealers wouldn’t have any lower-line M-bodies available. To fix this, Plymouth dealers in Canada were given a Plymouth-badged M-body that paralleled the Dodge Diplomat as it existed in Canada (low-line trim only), called the Plymouth Caravelle.
Not true, Plymouth sold the Grand Fury all the way through 1989. They were rarely seen outside of fleets and virtually extinct today.
True, but there wasn’t a dressy version of the M-body like the Diplomats/LeBarons of this generation or like the Diplomat SE of the 80’s.
My previous post described the M-body lineup that was in place at the time of its introduction in 1977, and I don’t think there’s anything in it that’s “Not true”. The original U.S. M-body lineup did not include a Plymouth version, and none was added at any time during the period when the M-bodies continued to serve their original purpose.
The M-body Gran Fury wasn’t introduced until the 1982 model year, when Chrysler repurposed the M-bodies as full-size cars, replacing the discontinued R-bodies. There had been an R-body full-size Gran Fury in Plymouth’s lineup in 1980-81. When the M-bodes took over as Chrysler’s full-size line for 1982, the Gran Fury name was moved to the M-body.
Incidentally, just as Dodge kept the Diplomat name through the M-bodies’ promotion to full-size status, Chrysler Canada did not adopt the Gran Fury name for its Plymouth M-body, but kept the existing Caravelle name, which it continued to use down to the end of M-body production in 1989. There was never an M-body badged as a Gran Fury in Canada.
The Caravelle nameplate was used in the US as the Plymouth stretched ‘K’ (‘E’) body. confusing,with CaraVAN being a Dodge and CaraVELLE being a Plymouth.
This explains how the Diplomat became a police/taxi fleet queen, at least in the USA.
“The Caravelle nameplate was used in the US as the Plymouth stretched ‘K’ (‘E’) body. confusing,with CaraVAN being a Dodge and CaraVELLE being a Plymouth.”
To make things even more confusing, in Canada Plymouth used the Caravelle name simultaneously on both the E-body (same car as the Caravelle in the U.S.) and the M-body (same car as the Gran Fury in the U.S.). The M-body was distinguished by calling it the “Caravelle Salon”.
Well, I guess that’s no worse then Oldsmobile calling everything “Cutlass ______”. 😉
Forgive my brevity, I should have used quotes. I was specifically referring to this statement:
“…there was no Plymouth version of the M-body in the U.S.”
It wasn’t clear that you were referring only to the early M-body.
Caravelle began on a Renault, obviously upcycled by Chrysler.
Yes, I remember seeing a Plymouth Caravelle in Canada in 1979, and it really threw me for a minute. These early M bodies were rare enough that I noticed them, and I recall that there were some unique details that made me read the nameplate.
Typical late 70’s experience. My nightmare was a 1979 Cordoba.
My Great Uncle always drove Oldsmobiles, but was driving by the local Dodge dealer one day and saw a black 1978 Aspen Coupe that caught his eye. It was the higher end Special Edition model, too. It was in the middle of the winter – January of 1979 to be exact – and that will have much relevance in a minute or so. He went in, drove it, liked it, and traded in his old Delta 88 for it. He said he always had some doubts in his mind about it being as good a car as his Olds but wanted to try something different. Well, the warm weather came and Uncle said he was getting a weird smell from his car. It was getting worse and worse as time went on. After several trips to the dealership he was so fed up that he made them call corporate to look at the car. They sent in all kinds of “experts” to try and solve the issue. They even accused him of having too sensitive a nose! He was also having trouble with the driver’s window not closing properly, so one day he brought the car in, pretty much at his wit’s end with that car. When the techs took apart the driver’s door panel, lo and behold – what did they see? A paper lunch bag! Inside that paper lunch bag was a rotting sandwich and old banana full of mold and the most disgusting smell you could imagine! Even with them removing the old food the smell never seemed to leave that car. Uncle was so upset about that he took the Dodge to the local Olds dealer and traded it immediately in for another Delta 88 that he drove until his death in the late 80’s. He always talked about that “little Dodge” and what a mistake it was buying that car.
I don’t remember if it’s you or not, I heard another Aspen with sandwitch too before.
Germany had the Autobahn and we had the national 55 mph speed limit. I am less clear about the differences in emissions regulation in the two countries, but we got the cars that our conditions (natural and legal) encouraged. CAFE (and the US companies’ responses to it) only made the situation worse later.
The 70s was an awful decade for lovers of domestics. The stuff we were good at (larger cars) suffered from cost cuts and dismal performance. And then there were our small cars – yuck.
European countries were behind the U.S. (and Japan) in regulating tailpipe emissions. During the 1980s, there was a market for “gray market” European cars in this country – meaning, cars that weren’t legal for sale here because they didn’t meet U.S. emissions standards, and thus offered better performance than the versions sold legally in North America.
The UK didn’t adopt unleaded gas until long after the US began the phase out and eliminating it’s use in new cars as well, Geeber.
The first emission rules happened in 1970 in Europe, but it was nothing compared to the american standards. Nothing really happened until 1992 and a cathalytic converter became mandatory to reduce the CO. In Norway we didn’t even had unleaded fuel before 1986 (?), and all new american cars sold in Norway had their cathalytic converter removed from 1974-1986 when they came to the country.
Ausatralia didnt have unleaded fuel untill around 87 local built cars were mostly imported so would run on unleaded GMH fitted a lower hp and lower torque engine from Nissan into their Commodore and Ford had a cylinder head redesigned in Japan, but leaded fuel wasnt banned until 2000
If I had to buy one it wudda been the 5th avenue. That car matured well and Chrysler didn’t pretend it to be something it wasn’t.
True enough, While Cadillac may have wanted to gain the import shopper, The Seville (and equally important, Granada) proved that there was a market for smaller but purely American premium cars. The Lebaron was as “Euro” as Baseball and Coca-cola. The 5th Ave M body gave the same product that the actual Seville BUYER (if not Target buyer) wanted at lower cost . And the dang thing sold all through the 80s. Considering the development costs, I assume that the LeBaron/5th Ave made more profit than Seville or Versailles combined.
It was also 75-79 Seville like it’s it’s styling as well. Something it lost by 80. That may have won it some sales.
Bustleback Seville or top of the line 5th ? I know what my choice would have been.
In actuality, years later, Toyota hit the mark/ the bullseye with engineering sophistication, production quality, dealership experience reimagining and delivery, and pricing in 1989 with the Lexus LS400. A corporate home run which in actuality forced MB and BMW to change their products and marketing to attempt to remain competitive with Lexus especially in the North American market.
A similar chain of events , caused at about the same time in 1990 by the Honda/Acura NSX forced Ferrari to undertake massive corporate change to produce competitive, front line performance products .
On the domestic side GM and Ford, let alone poor Chrysler, didn’t have the corporate vision to even attempt/undertake a project like Toyota’s Lexus LS400 and to take such a project to completion.
As the late Brock Yates described it so well years ago, the disease was “Grosse Pointe Myopia”.
Because of that inability to adequately visualize the direction of the developing market, the domestic manufacturers were cursed, likely from their chronic, short term profit thinking. Additionally, coupled with no true viable long term strategic thought and planning, i.e. Roger Smith think, bean counter think, the.resulting meager products like the ones described, would be ultimately doomed in the market place, failing to adequately compete with the likes of MB, and BMW, in the domestic market of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
GM, Ford, MB, BMW, and Audi, all failed to anticipate the automotive tsunami of Lexus coming from Toyota in 1989, which was a veritable game changer.
In retrospect, we can all say that if GM had been still like Sloan’s GM, that it is possible that it would have had the vision to understand that the 1976-1979, and later 1980’s Seville and it’s ilk would be ultimately be inadequate for the changing and evolving luxury market. Whether GM could have ever mounted a program like the Lexus program even under a modern day Sloan is debatable, but that is why we are CC’ers, eager for opinion and debate. In reality a commitment for a GM program similar to the Lexus luxury car program never happened.
The first Lexus LS400 was an enormous game changer and was exactly what one of the domestics should have had the vision to deliver. When you think about the product benefits of the LS400, it actually blended European and American elements. The size and understated quality were European-inspired, but the interior was cushier and plusher than was typical from the Germans at the time–rather American, in a way. The Lexus brand emphasis was on delivering an easy, trouble-free ownership experience–once again an advantage that had been the purview of Americans (Cadillac’s marketing once bragged “you don’t pamper a Cadillac, it pampers YOU!”) It is ironic to me that the Japanese were the first ones to truly deliver on the promise of combining the best of American and European attributes into one product.
Also, the 1988 Lincoln Continental was a painful reminder of how close Detroit could come to hitting that elusive American/International target, but still miss the mark. The ’88 Continental was the right size, and had aero-American styling that felt contemporary… but it was saddled with an underpowered engine and front-wheel-drive, fake wood trim, flashy digital instruments and too soft seats, etc.
Not to mention that Taurus-Contis were reliability nightmares.
+100
The reliability is just bad. The car itself can look pretty nice sometimes. And it’s as international as the current one.
Indeed they were. Remembers seeing so many of these cars during the 90’s sitting behind dealerships with pulled transaxles, failed instrument clusters and of course 3.8 issues. They were not reliable at all.
But now, Lexus is known for their RX CUV’s and the LS is a blip on the radar of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.
The Escalade and Navigator were true “game changers” in luxury market. Can go on and on about 30-40 years ago, but buyers now couldn’t care less.
The Escalade and Navigator were game changers for sure. The Escalade has elevated to celebrity status.
the Escalade is literally a celebrity in it’s own right!
Both Cadillac and Lincoln were hung up on volume in the later 60s and 70s. Lincoln never seemed to look beyond dethroning Cadillac, and made some headway in volume in the 70s. Cadillac likely saw Lincoln making some inroads and vowed to keep the lead. Both of them failed to take the broader view, which was that the legitimate high end of the American market had been abandoned since probably the 1950s with the Mark II and the Eldo Brougham. Mercedes may have won over some early adopters and engineers with what their cars were, but most of their gains in the 70s was because of image – an image that Cadillac and Lincoln abandoned.
By the 1970s, both Cad and Lincoln were selling vehicles that should have been marketed by Buick and Mercury.
You’re right. Cadillac going for volume was a killer. In the end the DeVille was an Electra (in some years the Electra was the ‘nicer’ car.) To me by the early 70s, most non Mark Lincolns were somewhere between Electra/New Yorker and a DeVille /Imperial level. Lincoln and Cadillac (it would be too much to wish for Imperial to stick around). should have aimed strictly for the top end. They didn’t have to go totally “Euro” just retain high quality.
Back then, Olds/Buick/Cadillac as well as Mercury and Lincoln and even Chrysler and Imperial were stepping on each other’s toes way too much.
Cadillac should never have been “competing” with their own sister companies with things like the Callais or low end Devilles. Buick and Olds had some business making loaded 98s and Electras for those who wanted “understated” luxury instead of flashy Cadillac luxury, but then they also had no business of marketing small crapboxes that should have been purely Chevy territory.
I think a good part of it was the way dealers were set up. All of them seemed to want in son every bit of action there was instead of focusing on the kind of business they should have been cultivating.
Agree completely. GM got confused between quantity and quality. Management myopia did not help: GM placed executives who had excelled at volume sales in all the wrong places. For example, Bob Lund, who was Chevrolet’s General Sales Manager in the late 1960s and early 1970s, had pushed the bowtie division to break sales records by doing anything/everything just to sell more volume. He was then named to be the General Manager of Cadillac (!!!). So a guy whose career was built around moving the metal at all costs was put in charge of GM’s flagship division. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and to a volume sales guy, more sales are all that matters, product excellence be damned. Lund was in charge when the Gen1 Seville was under development, so it was no wonder that he thought a Nova was just fine as the basis for a flagship–as long as it would sell in high quantities!
That mentality was the accepted one in Detroit at that time. It would have been virtually impossible to find a senior executive who didn’t view more sales as the ultimate goal. The entire system of mass production was based on those objectives.
And it’s not limited to Detroit. The Germans appear to have bought into it, as well. I see quite a few brand-new Benzs and BMWs in my neighborhood, and we sure aren’t among the economic or social elite.
If I had to choese one of these as a daily driver it would probably be the Lincoln which was the simplest of the bunch and probably had decent build quality. The mechanicals were easily overcome too by ditching the troublesome VV carb and instead hopping up the 302 or 351 engine. It already had upgraded rear disk brakes and suspension upgrades were not hard or expensive to come by. A Seville with the Rocket 350/400 THM trans with a proper Quadrajet carb would be a close second.
Except for a couple ‘more practical’ Chevy wagons during the ’60s, my dad owned several Mercedes. But those were mostly smaller-bodied Mercedes. By the mid ’70s, the Mercedes S-class had become pretty boat-like – especially with the humongous 5-mile bumpers.
As for the Seville, if only they had combined the first-gen body with the second gen roof….
Oh wait…. that describes the down-sized ’77 Chevys
As for the Versailles, I’ll take a Monarch or Granada.
Happy Motoring, Mark
Wasn’t the Diplomat the only one available with a stick ? And a four speed overdrive at that.
My first choice would have to be the Seville – For the time, styling aside, Cadillac hit big. Even the rear door glass rolled down, which I did research at the time! Sorry, but this was a very big deal for me back then, and one of the reasons among several why I hated GM beginning about that time, and lasted for the next 23 years.
Maybe the Seville was based on the Nova platform, but you’d never know it, as Cadillac pulled it off better than the others. No other car comes close. The Lincolns? Obvious Granada. Chrysler? You have got to be kidding! Aspen/Volare all the way – although I liked those 5th Avenue models in the early 1980s because by then they became pretty good cars and quite durable if I recall correctly.
Seville being related to Nova isn’t a bad thing, It’s also related to the Camaro/Firebird through that common bloodline!
I worked at a Canadian Chrysler dealer early 80’s and 5th Ave’s flew off the lot compared to FWD New Yorkers–they just seemed to appeal to customers who wanted a traditional RWD car and wasn’t ready for the future. Of course this was a small town and the only import dealer was a Volkswagen.
Not to mention that by then the “bugs” were well worked out. The lesser M bodies being beat on as Police Cars had to have an effect on perceived durability.(and with reason, I see 10 M-body 5th Ave. for every 1 K-Body New Yorker today).
I agree with many. The Lexus 400 was, and probably still is, the “ultimate Cadillac”. Complete with V8.
This road test exhibits much of the worst of the US auto industry, particularly from Ford and Chrysler….ersatz luxury. The Seville was a little better.
But by 1978, GM’s full-size cars were worlds ahead of the Seville and credible cars. Consumers Report rated the Caprice on par with Mercedes.
So, as a kid, when my dad’s best friend traded his 76 Buick Electra 225, a car that epitomized American excess, but that I liked anyway (it had PRESENCE, or STATURE, lol), for a 1979 Versailles, I felt bad for him. I doubted the warmed over Granada would burn less gas as it traversed the traffic in Queens, but there was no doubt it was a clown car next to that fine Buick….
Even smart people do stupid things, lol
I give Chrysler some credit here. It didn’t price the Diplomat and LeBaron above a New Yorker Brougham, and never pitched them as an alternative to the luxury imports. As an alternative to the traditional American land yacht, they were successful, and sold well (particularly the LeBaron). The main problem with the two Mopar entries was quality control (or lack of it).
It’s too bad that the bustle-back Seville (basically a 4-door Eldorado/Riviera/Toronado) wasn’t shared with the other divisions. As a Buick or Olds, it would’ve had a non-weird appearance combined with a robust V8–a winning combo. And with fwd, it would’ve been a huge hit in the Northeast–nothing from Europe could’ve touched it at the time.
Great read! I’ve always been curious to hear a contemporary review of the Seville vs Versailles. The M-body component was a bonus!
Popular Science tested the Versailles, Seville, and LeBaron sometime in 77. You can find it in Google Books.
Motor Trend tested 77 Seville and Versailles, and liked both of them, and the article read like sales brochures.
Did no one at Ford ever consider that the Lincoln Versailles would share showroom floorspace with the Mercury Monarch at Lincoln Mercury dealers everywhere? The Doublemint Twins only look like twins when you see them together.
Carmine may disagree, regarding the 1976 Seville as a harbinger of Cadillac’s ultimate “wrong turn”.
My family tended to buy and hold cars for a longer time, and I learned the same from my parents. My father owned a delightfully trouble free, virtually flawless 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado that we all loved. It was a great highway car used for many family winter ski trips. A great car!
My mother wanted and then she and my father bought a 1976 Cadillac Seville, their first Cadillac. The difference in the quality of the interior was remarkable and disappointing with the cheapness of the plastics and the switchgear compared to the Toronado. I remember my father being appalled at the cheapness of the switchgear and plastics compared to his Toro.
Shortly after her purchase, the problems began. The electronic fuel injection was especially problematic, HaHa, very painful laughs. The seating surface leather stitching failed and split, needing multiple seam repairs. By the beginning of the third year, despite rustproofing, the Seville had widespread rust issues, and all the while the Toronado looked great and ran flawlessly despite being here in the rustbelt. Both of my parents came to hate the Seville and its frequent trips to the Cadillac dealer for repairs.
My Dad would repeatedly grumble, “Another trip to the Cadillac dealer, another $500.” The only thing funnier to him were my trips to the VW dealer for my disastrous VW Rabbit, but that’s another story.
My mother then abandoned the unloved 1976 Seville for an unlikely choice, she found a 1975 Porsche 911S that she then drove for years saying that it was her “big VW bug” reminding her of her earlier 1961 Bug. The Seville was then dumped ASAP.
The difference in quality of construction was like night and day between the Cadillac and the Porsche. 1975 911’s were only partially galvanized, but it remained surprisingly rust free. ( full body 911 galvanization began in 1976). It was like a solid bank vault compared to the Seville, and she drove that 911 as a daily, essentially rust free driver for years finally replacing it with 1991 Lexus LS400. The LS 400 had superb build quality and reliability, and she drove for then next near flawless 9 years then replacing it with her final car another LS400.
Our family had favored GM products, but the 1976 Seville was the start of a definite turning point. For my Father, his doomed and fatally flawed 1987 HT4100 V8 powered Cadillac DeVille caused him to buy a 1992 Lexus LS400, and he never looked back at GM, his love of GM finally dissipated.
GM’s shortsightedness, punctuated by individual car by car failures, drove its loyal customer base, like my parents, to seek other manufacturers, and in my parents’ case to Lexus, finding for themselves with Lexus the perfect blend of flawless reliability, durability, with, as GN said, American comfort.
In short, as Paul has said in the past, the Cadillac Seville, a deadly sin, that Ford and Chrysler replicated. No doubt about it, GROSSE POINTE MYOPIA was the cause of the deadly sins.
Same here GeeLong. 69 Chevy C10 from 69-81 and my mom drove her 74 Montego from new until she retired in 2000. She currently drives the 97 F150 they bought new.
I still have to shake my head at how little effort went into the Versailles. Stringent quality control–ok, I’ll take their word for it. Rich, lustrous paint–sure, that says luxury. But anyone with eyes can see it’s a Granada with a continental hump and a stand-up grille. Really? Couldn’t do better than that, Ford? I mean just come ON. The Seville may have started life as a Nova platform with a 350, but at least it *looked* different. It *looked* premium. It didn’t *look* like a Nova with a nose job and a tumor. The roofline extension it got a couple years in helped, sort of, but it still seemed like half-assed execution.
The bustleback was also a mistake. Now I like it, but I’m one of those oddballs who also likes the 2nd-gen Seville. And perhaps they should have realized that the market was big enough for only one car that looked like that, and gone a different direction. Also a mistake, in my opinion, not to do a Continental LSC like they did for the Mark VII. That car got a lot of good press, and was seen (at least by most) as a genuine American GT car that had its sights set on the E24 6er and the Benz coupes. It may not have quite achieved that level, but it was a well-respected car. The Continental was on the same freakin’ platform! Why not create a sporting version? Total missed opportunity, even if the people who would buy a bustleback styled car and the people who want sports sedan handling don’t overlap much.
I don’t think Cadillac started out to make the Nova based Cadillac a “Fleetwood” class car, not that they actually still had a Fleetwood class car. A real Fleetwood would not have fake wood trim. But as the refinement of the Nova ended up with basically a new body requiring new tooling (I am guessing at that), the cost put the Seville into the “Fleetwood class”.
At the time Cadillac had not idea as to how it would sell, either as a lower priced Cadillac or as a high priced one. I would say that it was an experiment of sorts, that turned out reasonably well. I am not sure how profitable the first Seville might have been, but I doubt that it lost money. I think could have taken the Opel design, and built it in the US, without making it seem European. This would have been more expensive in the short run, but if they had then refined this platform for the second generation Seville, they might have gotten a much better long term result.
GM did not try to make a Mercedes class body until the 1995 Aurora/Riviera bodies. This was well after Toyota’s Lexus LS, and probably the LS is what made GM see that they needed to get serious.
40 some years later, the idea of luxury is a CUV/SUV, far from the ‘efficient, good handling’ import cars of the past.
GM is making $ hand over fist with Escalades, which are same as Chevy Tahoe underneath, and buyers could not care less. Lexus #1 seller is the RX ute, and BMW, the “Ultimate Driving Machine” is selling more and more X series ‘people movers’, while the 3 series is losing sales.
Who knew back then?
It’s easy to scoff at Detroit for being so completely freekin’ [pick one or more: clueless, out of touch, out to lunch, cynical, craven, ignorant, arrogant…] as to straightfacedly market these kinds of cars as worthy competitors to the likes of Mercedes, BMW, and Audi. The reasons they did it are many: those who make and sell counterfeit Louis Vuitton (or whatever) bags make a fortune, even though everyone who sees the product knows it’s a fake; Ford and GM figured this effect out in a hurry. And there were still a lot of American carbuyers who did go for the tacky glitz and gingerbread—whether they actually really liked it or were merely obeying their indoctrination is kind of irrelevant; either way, they bought the cars. And as the article describes, fripperous phony-wood appliqué, padded vinyl roofs, tufted velour pillowtop seats, opera windows, and fake spare-tire trunk bulges were a whole lot cheaper than engineering, specifying, and building really superior quality into the cars. And beyond that, the automakers had kind of painted themselves into a corner on that strategy; abandoning it would mean pissing off their well-trained customers by saying “No, we’re not going to sell you another one of those, and actually we were fibbing when we told you that was luxury worth striving for and showing off”.
But none of that would have held as much sway as it did, for as long as it did, if not for the Detroit funhouse effect: the view out the window of any American auto executive was of an ocean of American cars. The streets were rivers of American cars. The parkades were lakes of American cars. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Irv. Take a look out that window. How many foreign cars do you see? Me either, so let’s not have any more of this nonsense about independent suspensions and skidpad figures.”
It wasn’t over in the ’80s, either; I moved to Michigan in 1996 and was amazed at the overwhelming majority of domestic-brand cars on the roads. The funhouse mirrors sometimes had to be propped up; by the time the Pontiac Aztek came along GM practically gave them away en masse to GM employees to put them out there on the roads and create (they hoped) the illusion of market acceptance of that turd. But even still today, there remains this delusional certitude that of course everybody in the world wants an American car.
As to the four-but-they’re-really-only-three cars in the comparison test: yes, the Seville’s performance was best on account of its fuel injection system: a shamelessly counterfeited knockoff of Bosch D-Jetronic. Fuel economy was laughable, though. The Versailles was yet another of Ford’s Better Ideas™ (and Ford shill Bill Cosby was a respectable guy): Oops, guess not on both counts. The LeBaron’s upside-down headlamp/turn signal treatment looks wrong to me on the first-year ’77 and the last-year ’89 alike. Don’t know why, but to my eyes if the park/turn lamps are going to be a horizontal strip, and the headlamps are going to be horizontally arrayed like that, the parkers belong below.
Bosch actually used Bendix technology on their jetronic system.
There’s no such thing as “Bosch’s Jetronic system”. The Jetronic name was used on a variety of very different Bosch fuel injection systems. Analogue electronic speed/density ones (D-Jetronic), mechanical ones (K-Jetronic), digital electronically-controlled mechanical ones (KE-Jetronic), digital electronic mass airflow ones (L-Jetronic), and others.
As for Bosch having used Bendix technology: Kinda sorta maybe or not, depending on how you define things. Surely Bosch used some basic fuel injection principles that had also earlier been used in Bendix’s precocious but ill-fated Electrojector system were surely incorporated, but calling that Bosch use of Bendix technology strikes me a little like saying GM used Benz technology in the 1983 Chev Caprice because Karl Benz is widely credited with having built the first automobile with a 4-stroke internal combustion engine.
http://members.rennlist.com/pbanders/djetfund.htm
I suppose the difference that matters in this present discussion is that Bosch licensed the patents they wanted to use, rather than just doing a ripoff job as GM did.
The Seville’s fuel injection was a Bendix design, similar to the D-jetronic, which was a Bendix design to start with.
@Daniel Stern
You’re rationalizing, but not really justifying this behavior by GM and others. Sounds like the too big to fail attitude that plagues and empowers the banking industry, and was probably a too common attitude in Detroit at the time. Chrysler seemed to learn their lesson first.
Er…no, of course I’m not justifying it; I didn’t set out to do anything of the sort. There were only three justifications that mattered to them: last quarter’s results, this quarter’s results, and next quarter’s results.
I know, but clearly so corporately irresponsible and ethically challenged to buyers, employees, shareholders and taxpayers.
There’s a Popular Mechanics Chevy Citation Owners Report article at Google Books that starts by saying that corporately GM is not ponderous at all. Calling GM ‘extremely agile’, ‘responding to world changes with amazing speed’… ‘often several years ahead of competitors’…
So far from the truth. Those PM owner’s reports were like sales literature. Perhaps if everyone was fooled at the time, GM management thought they could be forgiven?
Well, the one and only purpose of a magazine—any magazine, whether it’s Mopar Action or National Geographic or Boys’ Life or Bear or People or Newsweek or Playboy or Popular Mechanics or MacWorld or Motor Trend or Better Gnomes and Gardens—is to put primed eyes in front of advertisements. The articles are the bait; they’re written to put the people with those eyes in a spending mood; the ads are the hook. The mags will generally find something good to say about whatever product is made by a company that does or might spend advertising dollars with their publisher. It is often difficult to tell the difference, because often there’s none, between advertising and content (some of which is true, some’s false, and you get to guess which is which or spend your money and find out for yourself).
The degree varies a little—Motor Trend’s “Car of the Year” award is widely considered to have been flagrantly for open sale in the 1970s and early ’80s, for example—but this is how the industry works.
True. Popular Mechanics ‘Owner’s Reports’ were a popular feature for years, lending the magazine a Consumer Reports-like credibility, when the reports never covered vital long term reliability. Any 1,000 new cars surveyed for 1,000 miles should provide glowing reviews.
In a 1982 comparison between the Citation and Dodge Aries, PM never addressed the Citation’s already alarming recall issues and dropping sales.
Too many parties part of the coverup, rather than addressing what needed to be fixed.
Keep in mind that, when the Owners Reports were in their heyday, very few people bought a brand-new car with the idea of keeping it for 10 years or 100,000+ miles.
Lots of people traded their cars every 2-3 years, so “long-term reliability” meant, “until the loan is paid off and I can trade it for something newer.” There was no status or prestige in driving around in a 7-10 year-old vehicle. If anything, your neighbors thought you were a bit odd for doing so.
Also remember that quality control standards were much more lax during that era…if you bought a brand-new car and didn’t have to take it back to the dealer for several “fixes” within the first 1,000 miles, and all of the trim and body panels looked like they had been installed by reasonably competent adults, it WAS a big deal.
Popular Mechanic’s was not a “car” magazine. I remember the owners reports. One useful bit of information was the average MPG’s that the owners reported.
Yes, Daniel. COTY was busted by Auto Week in the late 80s. I have never taken MT seriously since
Y’know, I never really knew the details of how Motor Trend got busted. Got a link?
[Reply]
@ Geeber
I do feel the Owner’s Reports were intended to impress readers, while being misleading. As they regularly showed in their subtitles, the total accumulated mileage of all of the collective surveyed cars. Often showing impressive totals like ‘1,200,000 owner driven miles’. When it represents 1,000 cars driven 1,000 miles. A car isn’t even broken in at that point. And doesn’t even hint at reliability/durability. Or recalls. Which has to be measured to be credible measure of a car’s value. Including resale value. The 5,000 mile tests at the primary buff magazines would be more useful for genuine reporting on the virtues of a test car.
By your justification of PM’s surveys they gave glowing reviews of the first year Citation, and the first year Aspen/Volare. Encouraging people to buy these cars. Now how can any magazine consider themselves credible when these ‘surveys’ lend the impression these cars with dubious reputations when production started, are encouraged good purchases? When clearly the resale value and long term values of the first year Citation and Aspen/Volare would suffer due to the dubious reputations they earned. As there was a decent chance you were buying a beta test lemon. Further, the Citation and Aspen/Volare were the cars with the highest recalls totals in history to that point among US cars.
PM gave the Aspen/Volare and Citation both glowing surveys after being on the market a few months. The Citation survey didn’t even encompass winter driving as it was conducted between April and August 1979. Encouraging more buyers to think they were buying a very safe choice, when in fact these had an excellent chance of being problematic lemons.
If a publication wants to lend the impression it is primarily helping consumers with their purchase, when they are really helping new car sales with very preliminary information on a car to determine its value, I feel it should be called out as misleading.
Daniel M,
The Popular Mechanics surveys were not intended to be a gauge of long-term reliability, and no one read them to gain that sort of information. Then, as now, if you wanted long-term reliability results, you bought the Consumer Reports Annual Auto issue.
Although it’s worth noting that, a few decades later, the Consumer Reports surveys didn’t immediately initially catch the automatic transmissions prone to catastrophic failure in 1999-2004 Hondas and Acuras equipped with V-6 engines. The magazine was still recommending those vehicles before the failures became known. (And I remember that the magazine continued to recommend at least one Acura as a good used car buy even after that model had scored a black mark in transmission reliability.)
The surveys were specifically designed to garner the first impressions of people who actually put down hard-earned money to buy a particular type of brand-new car. And it wasn’t Popular Mechanics that gave the X-cars and the Aspen/Volare “glowing reviews.” It was the people who responded to the surveys. The magazine simply reported their responses. The bottom line is that most purchasers were initially happy with their purchase.
And it’s inaccurate to say that these cars had “dubious reputations when production started.” They did not have bad reputations right out of the gate. The problems surfaced later.
The surveys were published soon after the introduction of the cars because their projected reliability wasn’t the only concern among buyers and potential buyers. These cars were new, and, in the case of the X-cars, a radical change from anything offered by a domestic manufacturer before that point. Many of these buyers were trading in traditional domestic vehicles. (The first X-car I saw on the road was the Citation five-door hatchback bought by our high-school principal in May 1979. He traded in a 1975 Chevrolet Kingswood Estate Wagon on it! So, yes, I would have been very curious to hear his thoughts on the Citation after such a radical change.)
Readers were curious as to what buyers thought of a radically new vehicle, and whether there was anything about the performance, comfort and handling that people did not like. The magazine therefore had to strike while the iron was hot – or, in this case, while the cars were still fairly new to the market.
@ Geeber
Thank you for your reply, and I understand your argument. As I asserted, a survey after 1,000 miles is quite assured to be reliably ‘glowing’ as they are consistently generally very positive for the subject car the vast amount of the time. As it’s a brand new car after all! Especially so, when the car generally reflects the buyer’s tastes and desires in a new car. Of course the vast majority of buyers are going to mostly be happy with their purchase. Unless there is some defect they encounter. Or they didn’t do their homework when shopping. PM Survey after PM Survey are consistently by and large very favorable to the cars they review. They are ‘glowing’ by default. As most buyers are going to typically be pleased with a purchase when it is brand new, that reflects their tastes, and it’s less than 1,000 miles on the odometer. Most cars will consistently look very very good in these surveys. The most consistent complaints appear to be defects related to their specific car.
This is why I assert these ‘survey’s’ are a greater sales tool to the manufacturers, than a shopping aide to buyers. As 90% of cars should look very good in these early surveys. When most buyers are still pleased having a brand new car. Long term reliability and quality of construction are integral to the value and status of all cars. And the editorial value of PM Surveys is limited.
Why not just buy Consumer Reports instead? Or watch for the long term 5,000 mile tests in the primary automotive magazines. As PM Surveys have no means to detect cars that develop dubious reputations later. That is what I was implying.
PM Survey’s had no detection method to identify cars like the first year Aspen/Volare that *later* had dubious reputations. Given that the vast majority of surveys are generally consistently very positive for the cars involved by default, it is a ultimately sales aid for the manufacturers.
The faults in most cars surveyed are consistently largely and reliably outnumbered by the positives when it’s brand new car that has been lived with for less than 1,000 miles.
The first Cadillac anyone in my family ever bought was a Seville diesel, ugh! It was the pride and joy of my uncle who was a retired Chevron executive. His previous ride was a Chevy wagon, so this was a jump to the top of the GM latter, skipping the BOP brands.
The only thought I have from all of this is, ‘ignore a changing world at your own peril’. True then, true now.
That LeBaron would have been the perfect car me for all the reasons C&D claimed it failed for them as a Euro intender.
I thought the styling refresh to the New Yorker/5th Ave was retrograde, the original far more interesting.
However in the mid 80s I lusted for one of them, in spite of my disappointment in the design overhaul.
Great article, GN! The early LeBaron seems to be relatively forgotten but that’s perhaps because it didn’t have such grand aspirations.
Oh, the Seville. I think GM did an excellent job of differentiating it from the X-Body from whence it came, but I don’t think they thought about what the Germans offered beyond size and price. One wonders how an Americanized Opel Diplomat would have been received…
The Versailles? Well, I find them perversely interesting today, although I loathe the later models and their stuffier roofline. But these were lazy and cynical exercises in badge-engineering and they would be justly pilloried today were it not for the Cimarron that came so soon after. At least the Cimarron was closer to the mark in terms of what people were buying in compact European sport sedans. Not to defend it though, it was lazy and cynical as well. Again though, I find them perversely interesting today.
The 1980s is where things went off the rails. The Imperial was beautiful but its reliability issues and Chrysler’s image doomed it. The Seville bustleback completely missed the mark and, like I said in my article, took the Seville in entirely the wrong direction. Although I do think they look cool! Nobody seems to talk much about the Continental and yet people won’t stop talking about the Town Car. I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts on the ’82 Continental… I find it intriguing.
Oh and finally, the Fifth Avenue. There’s a car that outstayed its welcome. All the fuel economy of a Caprice with the raw power of a Caravelle! Know why it was so profitable? Chrysler didn’t bloody do anything to it! Mid-sized but with full-size fuel economy thanks mostly to an old three-speed automatic. I can understand why enthusiasts today buy 80s Grand Marquis and Caprices and the like: their size and presence is striking today. But the Fifth Avenue? I’ll pass, even if it wasn’t a bad looker.
Iacocca’s last dolled-up M-Body LeBaron/New Yorker/5th Avenue were a hit indeed. Its a car I still associate with a certain generation. They were aging/aged folks who were pleased with the grandly luxurious trapping of the old school American-style luxury, all while not appearing to ‘uppity’ or pretentious, just signifying to their contemporaries that they had ‘arrived’. As a value proposition, they seemed satisfied with an affordable ‘luxury’ car, something less true for the Seville and Versailles owners I met. The latter bought the greater pretense but found it wanting especially in the Versailles case. Someone noted the Versailles was the most cynical car of the late-’70’s, I’d second that notion. Ford didn’t waste much effort on that one!
I disagree with the Versailles comment it was a very well made and stylish car just an upscaled Mercury Monarch interior and some cosmetics on the exterior . The same could be said of the Seville really . The best of the bunch was the Lebaron in equal trim and for half the cost you had the best looking and roomier and by far the best trunk space .
Besides the rear disk brakes, IIRC, the Lincoln Versailles was the first car in the US to offer halogen sealed beam headlamps.
Seville’s front door and especially the front door windows looked really undersized, was there any egress issues?
The “Supermodel Swivel” method of putting your back pockets down on the seat, then pulling your legs inside of the car, was prolly useful on the Seville and and other undersized front door cars.
The windshield was also right in your face due to the ridiculously short dash to windshield length this was a Cadillac styling problem in the mid 70s but much more so in the Seville.
I’d love to find a mint condition Chrysler LeBaron 2 door coupe, equipped as the one is in this road test, add on an easily installed “Lean Burn” defeat kit, and wallow in the good feelings of the fine 318/Torqueflite powertrain and it’s quiet interior. I’ve always found this coupe attractive, restrained and classy looking. In my mind, this LeBaron is the ultimate Mopar compact car.
At 206 inches it is not that compact ! Maybe for a Mopar it is . I would love to find that maxed out in trim 2 door Lebaron also I own the 4 door currently . It was the by far the best of the three in the test !
This road test article is a fine example of why “Car & Driver”, guided by the steady hand of David E. Davis, was my “go to” magazine from the 1960’s thru the new millennium.
Today’s “C&D”, as well as “Road & Track” are Shallow Shells of what they used to be. When my current subscriptions expire; I will NOT renew either one of these magazines.
“… from the 1960’s thru the new millennium.”
D.E.D. left C&D in 1986 to form Automobile magazine.
If I were faced with the choice of one of these three cars from 40 years ago, I think I would buy the LeBaron and use the money saved for those trips to the dealer.
OTOH, I had a buddy in HS who got a new 1978 Diplomat Coupe for a graduation present. Typical of an 18 year old kid who’s parents “fixed” everything for him, he beat the snot out of that car. It took the punishment for two years, until it ended up on it’s roof. I remember being amazed with how much disdain he had for that Slant Six coupe, with it’s air conditioning, power steering, brakes and windows, nice velour interior, top of the line AM/FM cassette radio, etc. etc. I wished I would have had it as bad back then. My first car was 11 years old and didn’t have that stuff…
I said this in the other Seville post and I think it bears repeating… The Seville set the style standard for all of GM for the remainder of the 70’s and into the mid-80’s. Someone further up noted that the Seville made it possible for American luxury cars to be small. I might have given that accolade to the Cordoba, but it seems legit for the Caddy.
And as much as everyone complains about the cynical moves that GM makes/made, even the Cimarron is nowhere near as cynical as the Versailles.
As much as I like the LeBaron and Dippy of that period, I guess what turned me off with the 5th Avenue was the fact that it looks too much like the Versailles recipe for luxury. Yes, I know that it appealed to a certain demographic, but I guess Iaccoca’s influence was strong and it *did* sell.
The Cimarron is by far the worst decision Cadillac or for that matter any automaker ever made . The Versailles gets to much criticism in my opinion it was a great looking and nicely done car , just an upscale Mercury Monarch. Now the Cimarron , don’t even get me started on that joke foisted on the public as a luxury car. The LeBaron was by far the best of the bunch in equal trim .
The LeBaron in maxed out trim blew away the Seville . The Lebaron interior in Leather plus the interior and dash styling were much more sophisticated than the Seville and the Versailles. The Seville had that awful super short dash to windshield which was like having your face pressed against the windshield. The only advantage the Seville had was and still not by much the 350 FI engine vs the 318 2BBL in the LeBaron but still not by much. The LeBaron was still almost half the price even in top trim and was roomier and had more trunk space by far than the Seville and comparable MPGs and performance ! I happen to own a 1977 LeBaron and love it !
[Customer tastes] “longer, lower, wider” morphing into “smaller and more logical,”
Those same customers moved up into “higher and bigger” SUV’s. With brands dropping “smaller and more logical,” products, for more profits. Who would have thought?
Something interesting to think about here, Lincoln went this route back in 1961 with the smaller Continental with great success. So, what happened with the Versailles? The Versailles should have followed the route of the ’61 Continental being upscale in a smaller package with individual timeless styling in and out. Versailles totally missed the mark. (no pun intended). Glamming up a Granada/Monarch was not the way to go. First, the wheelbase should have been longer by 3-4 inches. The whole body should have had the Lincoln look and the interior should have been similar to the Continental town car. The longer wheelbase would allow better Lincoln styling. Let’s look at the Seville. Cadillac did an excellent job making a Nova look like a Cadillac so people would not mind paying the higher price. Everything about the Seville said “Cadillac” all in a trim small package. Over at Chrysler, the LeBaron was a good start which later evolved into its own as Fifth Avenue. The small Chrysler suddenly became the big Chrysler. Styling initially didn’t sway too far from the Volare that donated the body. Later Fifth Ave’s at lease made the rear roof so different that you forgot its Volare/ Aspen origins. Again, like Lincoln with the Versailles, Chrysler slapped on a thick vinyl padded roof and luxed up the interior. In summary, Cadillac made the Seville totally different from the Nova then went in another direction in 1980. Chrysler made the LeBaron and Diplomat somewhat different from the donor vehicles initially but then evolved the design further over the years. Lincoln just went the easy route initially by gamming up a Granada only to find out that even doing a different roof in 1979 would not help so they abandoned the idea and reworked a fox platform to become the stylish 1982 Continental. If only Lincoln would have done a clean timeless design (in the inspired tradition of Mark II and ’61 Continental) for the Versailles. Who knows how things would have turned out.
Many years after the Seville, GM became fond of doing “international” packages on may of its cars, with an idea of competing with European ride and handling.
To the same end, what if the original Seville had been offered in two flavors? The plush one that actually got built, and an “international” package that gave up some of the plushness in favor of handling. The Nova 9C1 (police package) and F41 (handling package) got good reviews for balancing ride and handling better, and I’m sure those bits could have been incorporated into a Seville International Edition.
I recall my father ordering a Firm Ride and Handling package on his ’62 Buick Invicta wagon. Also Limited Slip differential. Somehow he was aware of the deficiencies of the standard suspension. This may have been the forerunner to the F41 package. But it was my mother who ordered a Volvo 850 wagon in 1995. After one winter, she got rid of the standard touring tires, replacing them with all- season radials. I believe the next year Volvo made the all-seasons standard. Performance tires may have been a bridge too far for the typical American buyer.
Can you imagine how difficult it was at the time to understand why European luxury cars were selling, if you owned the US luxury car market for 50 years before? Cadillac and Lincoln were at the point where nothing they did was enticing Boomers into their luxury cars.
“What are the turn-offs?”
“These Volvos have no luxury!”
“This BMW has no class!”
Detroit really never figured it out. There was a new generation of drivers who didn’t see any Lincoln or Cadillac as exclusive enough. They grew up around these brands and didn’t want them. They remember Aunt Gladys tooling around in one of them. They didn’t want to be seen in an “old person’s car”. How exclusive was it to be seen in a car that the Mormon family down the block owned as a used car? Exclusivity sells, and Cadillac and Lincoln were no longer considered exclusive.
Being the first on the block in a car from Europe was exclusive. Being seen in a car that was smaller than a traditional luxury car from Detroit, yet cost more, was putting the owner in an exclusive club.
Recently, the minivan lost favorability in the family market because it was not the image of exclusivity desired. Want room for a family of five and drive a vehicle not seen as a Mommymobile? Buy a Jeep – an Explorer – a Land Rover – anything that wasn’t what the normal families were driving to Wal-Mart.
Lincoln and Cadillac sold exclusivity for a half century. By 1970, it was gone. You cannot be exclusive and sell over 150,000 annually. You can’t be exclusive and share basic body structures with Chevrolets and Fords. You can’t be exclusive enough for the Snobbity-Snobs that have money to burn and suddenly want an electric Tesla. However, that is how the game is played, isn’t it?
LOLing out loud at the Versailles ad. “Engineering made it happen”! More like, “Badge-engineering made it happen!” amirite?
I read an article in Collectible Automobile magazine back in the late 1980’s that described Cadillac’s dilemma in the future. The gist of the article was that Cadillac, as a platform engineered vehicle that shared it’s components and engineering with lower priced models, could never command the high prices that it’s European rivals could. It made the assertion that the “Rich,” are richer than they used to be, and that there are a lot more of them. Many are also much younger than in the past. It also pointed out the diversity of the various nationalities that make up the high income level. Many are not traditional Americans, raised here, they can be of recent European or Asian or other world wide heritage, and they never had an investment in the traditional mystique that surrounded the traditional American luxury makes. “Buying American” is an irrelevant slogan to them, they want to buy the best, something that reinforces their status in income and education. And they can afford it.
So where did this leave Cadillac and Lincoln? Cadillac still produces a large number of models; several sedans, coupes and crossovers as well as the Escalde. The most popular Cadillacs are the CTS, their midsize CUVs and the Escalade. Lincoln has abandoned all sedans and now just concentrates on their CUV line up and the Navigator. Cadillac has followed the path of the sport sedan, but like Lincoln, their CUVs and SUVs empathize American style luxury. I suppose that this makes the most sense, they both do what they do best. Are their vehicles World Class? I guess it depends who you are comparing them to.
The world is also producing numerous upscale luxury Cross Overs and SUVs, many at very high price points. Just yesterday I was passed on the freeway by a snarling,very low and sporty looking “SUV”. I was able to catch up to it in traffic and discovered that it was a Lamborghini Urus. These cost approx 230,000 dollars, over twice the price of a top of the line Lincoln Navigator. I don’t suppose that a Urus buyer is cross shopping Aviators, though maybe they stop at the Porsche or Bentley dealer.
All of my discussion is irrelevant because I can’t even afford a new upper tier Cadillac or Lincoln. My purchase of their older models doesn’t affect their bottom line or sales direction. Though, as a life long fan of both marques, I’m just glad that they are still around and making enough money to stay in business. Hopefully they will continue to find customers.
“Cadillac, as a platform engineered vehicle that shared it’s components and engineering with lower priced models, could never command the high prices that it’s European rivals could”
What Cadillac eventually figured out was they had to develop platforms that were significantly differentiated from Buick and Chevy that they could demand some of the prices that Mercedes, et. al., could demand. Of course, this is in some sense going back to Cadillac’s heyday, where except for the basic bodyshell, in the 1950’s few components were shared between Buick, Olds, and Cadillac – engines, frames, and oftentimes transmissions were different, as well as very different interior treatments. The great “Chevification” of Cadillac that occurred throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, culminating first in the Seville and later in the Cimmarron, could only go on so long.
Now of course, the big problem is that it’s hard to market traditional coupes and sedans anymore, and in any case the market is changing with electrification. Hard to see where that will lead in the end.
I often thought the Chrysler Lebardon/5th Avenue/Dodge Diplomat/Plymoth Gran Fury were the most “honest” of these cars. iacocca said – hey, you can have the basic car for $$, or the bling-ed out version for $$$, but even so we aren’t charging $$$$ like Cadillac or Ford, and we will make it reliable and pleasant and (largely) trouble-free, so much so that the cops and the taxicabs use them too. Doesn’t that sound like a reasonable deal? If only Chrysler had seen to invest in a few mild upgrades like fuel-injection and an overdrive on the torqueflite, they could have probably produced them just as long or longer than the Panther platform cars. But Chrysler had a lot of things going on then, with the LHS cars and the absorption of AMC, and it just wasn’t in the cards.
Why did Chysler do the upside-down turn signals on the LeBaron? Who ever thought that was a good look? Even as a kid I knew that was “ugly trying to pass itself off as merely weird”. Chrsyler hadn’t yet absorbed AMC in 1977, but maybe an ex-AMC or ex-Studebaker stylist snuck that into a presentation one day, and the Chrysler execs, too busy perhaps updating their resumes with bankruptcy looming, just said “ok, what the hell” and it made it into production.
I remember when these appeared on the market while I was in college. Each had rear leaf spring suspensions. My VW Beetle had a more sophisticated suspension.
I agree with you Mr. Solberg, that article was written over thirty years ago and Cadillac has made great strides since then. I believe that the article was written before the restyled and up sized ’89’s came out, which were pretty popular. Cadillac had shot themselves in the foot after the initial success of the ’77 downsizing. The HT4100 debacle, the FWD platform with GM generic styling, and later the somewhat troublesome NorthStar engine. Even some of their risky efforts like the Allante were not successful. It seems like the company just lost their direction and was floundering. Until Lexus stepped in with a better Cadillac and their buyers defected. I think that the ’92 Seville was a sign of hope, but they failed to see that FWD had become declasse and took too long to bring out a RWD and AWD platform. Now they have V series sedans, even that BlackWing model. I had high hopes for the CT6 and maybe I’ll get one when they depreciate down to my level!
There’s nothing wrong with platform sharing, provided that they are good platforms. That Lamborghini that I mentioned is part of the VW family, which also includes Porsche, Audi, and Bentley. There is a lot of corporate sharing going on there, but the products are well differentiated, and expensive. And that’s kind of the point. People with more money are going to spend it. As the Collectible Automobile article implied, Cadillac lost their image of exclusivity in the 80’s, and could no longer be competitive with the very highest tier nameplates, even though their current product line up is the best it’s ever been.
I owned a brand new 1977 1/2 Chrysler LeBaron two door coupe. It was dark grey with a silver landau roof and silver interior. I put wide whites on it. It was my beautiful disco mobile. Unfortunately, it was also an electrical nightmare due to the Lean Burn engine set up. But, it was pretty and I was only 22 and very proud of it. It was my first new car. I chose poorly. This car stranded me so many times and it was new! But pretty!