Cadillac News

The newly sworn-in President of the USA and war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, stood on the back seat the white convertible as he celebrated his inauguration parade through the streets of Washington DC. The car in which he stood was General Motors (GM) new range topper, the Cadillac Eldorado.Never has a car had such a powerful introduction and global endorsement. When Cadillac was truly the ‘standard of the world’ the Eldorado stood above and beyond all else.It was the lowest, sleekest American automobile of its era. The styling derived directly from GM's 1951 La Sabre and 1952 Cadillac show cars. The convertible top was hidden below a smooth metal cover that fitted flush with the rear deck.Nothing interrupted the flowing lines of this aspiration on wheels. It was the first production car to have a wrap around windscreen which set a style trend for the next decade. It was the dream car you could buy in your local Cadillac dealership.Every luxury option in the known universe was standard on this baby. GM made just 533 Eldorados in 1953. They priced it three times higher than a normal Cadillac and sold every one of them. While the 1953 example is the star of the lineage, the 1957/58 four door hardtop Eldorado Brougham and the front drive 1967 Eldorado are similarly lusted after.The 1957 Brougham is one mother of a car. They made only 700 of these sleek hardtops with their brushed stainless steel roofs and ‘suicide’ rear doors. Prices started at a jaw dropping $13,500, which could have bought you two houses in a good Los Angeles suburb at the time. A new Rolls Royce was only $9000.Then there's the ‘67 Eldorado. Styled by David North and based on the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado, (also penned by North), the ‘67 is often seen as the pinnacle of GM design in the 20th century. Big and low, vast and fast, it carried a 7.7 litre V8 under its long bonnet. Its flanks are sheer and clean of chrome and it demands your absolute attention.At the recent RMs Auction of the Don Davis collection, his white ‘53 Eldorado went for $231,000 and the ‘57 pink Brougham was snapped up for $253,000.David Burrell is the editor of Retroautos.com.au 

As car executives arrive in Shanghai for the biggest car show in the world's largest car market, companies including Volkswagen, General Motors and Toyota are looking for ways to sustain growth in China's increasingly difficult market. Volkswagen is hoping a swath of new customer service measures will help secure its position as the volume leader and sweeten relations with the Chinese government after it came under criticism from state-run media. Japan's Toyota, Honda and Nissan face challenges in reversing sales declines stemming from last year's diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo over a clutch of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. “China is the world's biggest and fastest-growing market. If you don't make it in China, you're likely to remain a second-tier automaker forever,” said Macquarie Securities analyst Janet Lewis. Carmakers are unveiling new vehicles at the high and low ends of the value chain to capture China's increasingly complex market. To spark Cadillac sales, GM recently launched an advertising campaign featuring actor Brad Pitt and plans to more than double its Chinese Cadillac dealers to 200 by the end of the year. Last year, Cadillac sold just 30,000 vehicles in China. GM said in January that it planned to increase Cadillac sales to 100,000 by 2016. More than 15.5 million cars were sold in China last year, up 7 per cent from the year before. Foreign brands accounted for more than 60 per cent of sales. But signs of a slowdown in China and increasing competition suggest growth won't come easily for much longer. China's first-quarter car sales rose a lower than expected 7.7 per cent compared with a year earlier, suggesting the world's No 2 economy hasn't entirely bounced back from a first-half 2012 slowdown. Passenger car sales growth in March unexpectedly slowed to 13 per cent, according to a semi-official industry group, from a 20 per cent gain in the first two months of the year. The industry faces other challenges. Beijing wants domestic brands to achieve a 40 per cent share of the market by 2015. Some industry observers say that increased government pressure on global carmakers is a result of Beijing's frustration that China's efforts to produce world-class domestic carmakers are lagging. Volkswagen pledged to improve its customer service practices in China, invest more and create new jobs. In March, the powerful state-run China Central Television criticised the German carmaker, saying it failed to properly address consumer concerns about faulty direct-shift transmissions in VW cars. Shortly after, the company announced a recall of more than 380,000 vehicles at a cost analysts estimate at $US618 million ($600m). VW said it had established two taskforces, one to oversee the recall and another to work long term on quality in China. It also said it would add 25,000 workers in China by 2018. Additional reporting by MICHAEL RAMSEY  

It could be third time lucky for Cadillac in Australia. General Motors is once again considering bringing its luxury brand Down Under.

It's June 1927 and Alfred Sloan, Chairman of the growing General Motors company is looking for a way to take sales leadership away from Ford. To date Sloan has amassed a number of brand names under his GM banner-Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile Buick and Cadillac -- and his objective for GM is to be number one by offering a range of cars "for every price and purpose". Henry Ford Snr grew up working hard on a farm. He conceived the Model T as a simple machine to eliminate the drudgery of an everyday working life-a car for the people (a folks wagon!). Henry sees no need to change the Model T. He believes people buy cars for their mechanical substance. His famous quote that "the customer can have it any colour he wants as long as it is black" misreads the desires of the increasingly affluent American consumers in a big way. Sloan is a new breed of professional manager. He sees the car as a consumer product and now he's decided that style, and annual styling changes-planned obsolesce will be a key competitive weapon in his quest for market leadership. And so he goes looking for someone to head up his new styling area, the Art and Colour department. He chooses Californian Harley Earl. It is Harley's job to give visual identities to all the brands and to convince the American car buyer that style trumps substance, which he does. Within five years GM overtakes Ford in sales. By the mid 1950s Harley Earl's focus on style has become the substance! At GM right now they are celebrating 85 years of the establishment of the Art and Colour section. Although America has had 14 presidents in those 85 years, only six men have held the powerful role of style arbiter for the world's largest car company. Two men, Earl and Bill Mitchell, sat in the big chair for a combined 50 years! Earl and Mitchell took the styling of cars from a backroom craft and made it the engine of a global organisational and economic powerhouse, and a way of life. So much has been shaped by so few. Harley Earl is remembered at GM with this prayer: "Our Father who art in Styling, Harley be thy Name" Amen to that, brother. David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au

How do you launch a rear-wheel drive car as your flagship model when it is physically smaller than a front-wheel drive model already on sale?  That's just one of the problems Mike Devereux must address as he considers the future of the Commodore in Australia. The Chevrolet Cadillac ATS is the latest of the global GM architectures to be revealed. It comes as a rear and all-wheel drive platform capable of being produced in right-hand steering configuration and will take a V8 engine. It is also aimed at the BMW 3 Series in the US and - more worryingly - is smaller in every dimension except wheelbase than the front-hook Holden Malibu that will go on sale here next year.  That makes it an unlikely candidate to replace the locally built Commodore when GM has to dip in to the global platform parts bin some time after 2016. Developing a "top-hat" of panels imprinted with Holden's styling DNA on a Cadillac CTS chassis would more sense, especially given Holden originally developed the Sigma II platform in the 1990s and Holden boss Mike Devereux is on record as saying he prefers a rear-wheel drive platform. Holden spokeswoman Emily Perry refused to comment on the Commodore successor. "We're not going to talk about the VF, let alone anything beyond that," she said. WHAT'S COMING The VF Commodore - an update of the VE platform - is due in dealerships next year and, while keeping the V6 and V8 engines, will be a leaner car than ever before as Holden looks to compete on the fuel-savings front. Helping the cause will be extensive use of aluminium panels instead of steel and optimised ECU and injection-mapping. The resultant weight-saving and software efficiencies are designed to push the Holden to four-cylinder fuel use levels. The trouble is, the fours are following the same path to generate more power and use less fuel. The 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder in the Cadillac ATS cranks out 201kW and even detuned for the Malibu the same engine will generate 193kW/353Nm. That compares well with the 179kW/353Nm in the 2.0-litre four-cylinder Ecoboost engine for the Ford Falcon. It looks even better alongside the 190kW/290Nm3.0-litre V6 in the Commodore Omega and Berlina variants. SIZING IT UP  

The roller door of Denis Thompson's cavernous warehouse rises slowly. He hits the light switch and there, bathed in a harsh white flourescent light, sits a 1957 Cadillac four-door hardtop.  And it's pink - the colour Elvis Presley chose for his first Cadillac. And its BIG! Everything about Denis's car is big. It has a dominating presence which cannot be avoided. From the twin 'dagmar' spinners jutting out from the front bumper bar to the chrome rear end that hides the fuel cap , it's all BIG. The bigness theme is continued inside. I'm convinced the interior has more area than my first house . Under the bonnet is a 365 cubic inch OHV V8 that produces a massive 400 pounds of torque and 300 BHP. That's big , even in 2011.  About the only thing not oversized are the brakes, Drums all round on this baby .I ask Dennis if he's planning to convert them to discs. "No" he replies in a manner that absolutely convinces me he is A-OK with them just as they are.  Dennis kindly offers to take us out for a drive. From the driving position the view through the wrap around windscreen and across the bonnet goes on and on and on. The back seat seems light years away, and four goodly sized folk could sit across the bench seats.  The dashboard is a glitzy and impressive array of buttons, knobs and dials. I'm sure that the original Mercury astronauts had less complicated dashboards in their space capsules than what GM put in front of Cadillac owners in 1957. Once we moving the size of the car is actually becomes an asset. Those driving smaller vehicles give us room to move. Trucks stay in their lanes. People look, point and wave.  The soft suspension and soft seats easily soak up the irregularities in the pavement allowing us to progress to our destination in comfort and serenity.  "Every time I take it out people stop and ask me about it", says Denis. "On freeways the other drivers cruise up alongside and passengers take photos of it!"  The car was imported brand new by a Canberra doctor in mid 1957. The right hand drive conversion was done by Bill Buckle in Sydney, The doctor drove the car for a few years then had it stored. The car then went through a number of owners, all with intentions of restoring it. It finally ended up outside the Elvis Museum in Parkes, and that's where Dennis found it. "It was sitting outside the museum in all the weather and was gradually rusting away. So we decided to buy it and restore it", he says. The restoration spanned two years, and involved a complete body off strip down and rebuild. Denis drives the Caddy about once a week and he hires it out for formals, weddings, sightseeing trips and such like. "It is a driver", he emphasises. www.retroautos.com.au

As you fork over your 30 per cent luxury car tax, consider the Chinese buyer being offered massive discounts and incentives such as free iPhones and cheap designer handbags.  Luxury car makers are falling over each other to gain a foothold in the lucrative Chinese market, according to financial news and data service Bloomberg. It reports that discounts up to 25 per cent are being offered on the Audi A8L, BMW 7-Series, and Mercedes-Benz S300.  A Mercedes distributor in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen is also offering female customers up to 20 per cent off Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermes handbags if they buy a car in March.  BMW dealers offered iPhones, free car insurance and maintenance in January and February, while Volvo gave buyers of their C30 small car a free trip to Hong Kong.  Shanghai Mercedes-Benz salesman Jack Ren says the days when customers paid extra to jump the queue for a new car have ended.  "A buyer of a S600 sedan ($390,000) last year would have to pay an additional 200,000 yuan ($30,000) to hasten delivery of his car," Ren told Bloomberg. "This year, the same car is selling for 200,000 yuan less." The discounts and incentives come as China's vehicle sales are likely to fall short of an 8 per cent growth forecast thanks to a slowing economy and rising fuel costs.  While China's car market may struggle to stay in the black, luxury car companies are still poised to make double-digit gains. Experts tip that luxury car sales will rise by about 24 per cent this year, which is down on the 34 per cent growth of last year.  Audi, BMW and Mercedes accounted for more than 70 per cent of luxury-car sales in China, with Audi having the largest share at more than 30 per cent, according to Morgan Stanley. Eyeing the sales luxury boom are brands such as Cadillac, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus and Infiniti which are expanding in China. But Credit Suisse has warned luxury car makers that offering discounts to increase their market share could dull the luster of their brand.  "You'd rather lose a customer because of pricing because that is part of your premium heritage: people can't afford it," a spokesman said. "Protecting your brand should be the most important thing."

... up to half their price two years ago.
The interest is fed by the strong Australian dollar's exchange rate with the US currency, and depressed prices for older cars in the US in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and the current US recession.
Car transporter Cargo Online boss Steve White said there had been "a lot of movement'' since the Australian dollar rose to US80c and though imports are stabilising, his relatively small business is still moving 200 cars a year.
But he said while classic cars were still popular, new government rules on importing modified cars have seen a big drop in some muscle cars.
US-based specialist car dealer Lee Wolff of Vintage Motor Car in Ohio said he is "getting lots of inquiries from Australia.''
"The collectors that want great cars will pay fair market value. If it is something special they usually are not concerned about the exchange rate, if it is a vehicle they want,'' he said.
"The prices in the US collector car market are generaly lower than in recent times, but good quality cars continue to stay strong. 
"It is always better to purchase a good quality car that has been restored as the cost of restoration is so high.''
Perth enthusiast Reg Toohey is just one who found a bargain in the US.
 His 1956 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Convertible was bought for about $100,000 and arrived from New York to Perth just before Christmas. Mr Toohey said the price was about half of what a similar car would have fetched 10 years ago.
"The car had been totally restored - down to each nut and bolt - and had travelled only 1600km since,'' he said. 
"It is in immaculate condition. I was lucky that the Vintage Motor Car company I dealt with in Ohio had an honest appraisal of the car.
"I never wanted an older car because I thought they would be unreliable. But I participated with a business associate in the Peking to Paris race in 2010 in a hastily-bought 1935 Bentley and over 15,000km, it had no mechanical faults and only one puncture.
"So I got hooked on old cars, looked for a 1959 Cadillac - the one with the huge fins - and found this fully restored 1956 Biarritz.
 "You have a lot of fun with your family in these. Everyone from bikies to little old ladies love to see these cars. I know I'm just this car's caretaker - I hope it will go to other people after me who will enjoy it as much as my family does.''
Mr Wolff said Australians especially like limited editions from around the 1950s, he said.
 "Any good quality car is a candidate but Aussies like cars that were made in limited production.
 "The Cadillac Biarritz is a perfect example. The `56 Cadillac is a limited production convertible. It is 6m long and is sought after worldwide.
"They were mostly special ordered from the General Motors dealer for movie stars, sports figures and dignitaries. ''
Though rare, the Biarritz is the second in Perth - the other is a 1958 model owned by a private collector - and typifies a flow of American classics out of America.Of the 84 known surviving 1956 Biarritz cars, 50 are outside the US.
Mr Toohey said enthusiasts should spend time researching cars and costs.He was surprised that though the government charges no duty for an imported car, there were GST - at 10 per cent - and Luxury Car Tax (at 33 per cent) charges in addition to the cost of freight.He estimates it cost almost $30,000 above the car's purchase to have it parked in his driveway.
Department of Infrastructure and Transport data shows more than 11,000 vehicles were imported in 2010, the most popular being Ford Mustangs.However, showing that Australians aren't interested only in class cars, within the top five vehicle list was the Piaggio Vespa scooter.
 

The Koreans starred, the Japanese mounted a comeback, and One Ford hit the headlines with an extended family of Focus-based newcomers that it is certain to make a big hit in Australia. But it was one car and the commitment of its company chief that made the most impact as America fought back on the opening day of the 2011 North American International Motor Show.The ATS is a rear-wheel drive rival for the BMW 3 Series and its mechanical package will also be morphed into the next Chevrolet Camaro, ending the muscle car's Commodore connection. The possibility of significant Australian sales for the car, particularly with strength of the Australian dollar since the global  financial crisis, has Holden executives thinking again about the potential of Cadillac down under.They are also buoyed by the decision to make the ATS available with right-hand drive, as well as a diesel engine, even though its development has been focussed on the USA. "There is no indication of a plan to bring Cadillac to Australia but, obviously, having the ability for right-hand drive and options like a diesel powertrain would make it a great car for Australia," the spokesperson for GM Holden, Emily Perry, tells Carsguide."It's possible, but far from decided. There are other priority markets to look at. It's a global brand, but the focus is regional." Holden came close to adding Cadillac to its local lineup in 2008, when it planned a premium division which would have tied it to Saab and Hummer. But the global financial crisis killed the plan dead, as Holden focussed on survival when General Motors slipped into bankruptcy. "We had a choice - cut people or kill Cadillac. I was not going to cut people," former chairman of GM Holden, Mark Reuss, tells Carsguide. The ATS is a good looking car with a rear-wheel drive chassis that's been tuned at the Nurburgring, and it's already a hit with one Australian - Mike Simcoe, the executive director of design for General Motors International Operations, based in Melbourne."It would work well in Australia. What the GM network needs is some luxury products. You could top and tail the brand with Cadillac," Simcoe tells Carsguide.

The Koreans starred, the Japanese mounted a comeback, and One Ford hit the headlines with an extended family of Focus-based newcomers that it is certain to make a big hit in Australia. But it was one car and the commitment of its company chief that made the most impact as America fought back on the opening day of the 2011 North American International Motor Show.Cadillac failed to find a foothold in Australia but is still chasing fresh friends in the USA, and to that end will unveil the all-new compact ATS at the Detroit motor show.The ATS is a potential rival to the BMW 3 Series and the seriousness of Cadillac's effort - in contrast to Australia, where the plug was pulled before the first cars arrived in 2008 - is reflected in the intensive testing the car has had at the Nurburgring course in Germany.The rear-wheel drive ATS will be built in Detroit alongside Cadillac's most recent success, the mid-sized CTS that is built as a coupe, sedan and wagon including HSV-style V-Series performance models.While the ATS headlines for General Motors at home, the Detroit show will also see Chevrolet presenting a sporty RS version of the Sonic that's sold in Australia as a Barina.There will also be concept cars from GM's advanced styling studio in California, but they are secret until the show opens on Monday in the USA.