Irene Kim: Owning a Cadillac in America
was once the ultimate status symbol,
synonymous with success and achievement.
The company dominated the market,
outselling all luxury automakers in the US for decades.
Just 40 years ago, nearly one-third
of all luxury cars sold in the US were Cadillacs.
Now, less than 7% of luxury cars
purchased by Americans are Cadillacs,
and the company is struggling
to keep up with competitors it once outsold.
So, what happened?
Cadillac got its start in 1902.
It was actually formed from what was left
of the Henry Ford Company after the departure of Henry Ford
following disputes with his investors.
Engineer Henry M. Leland was brought on
to appraise the company's factory in order to sell it
but instead saw potential.
Leland chose to reorganize the company
as Cadillac Automobile Company,
naming it after French explorer
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the founder of Detroit,
which was America's automotive hub
as well as the home of the company.
At face value, Cadillac's cars seemed almost identical
to those the company produced under Ford.
But they quickly distinguished themselves
and gained a reputation for being
better made and more reliable.
In 1909, the company was purchased
by up-and-coming conglomerate General Motors
and officially named its most prestigious division.
Over the next few decades,
Cadillac set huge milestones in the auto industry,
including the first passenger car
with a fully enclosed cabin.
Perhaps most impressive was the development
of the first electronic self-starter.
Up to that point, starting a car
required the awkward and strenuous task
of cranking up the engine.
With some help from inventor Charles Kettering,
Cadillac simplified it to just the push of a button.
Breakthroughs like this inspired the company
to adopt its iconic slogan:
"Cadillac: Standard of the World."
Fast-forward to 1927.
Cadillac established the concept of a luxury car
with its LaSalle convertible coupe.
Before the LaSalle, cars were strictly created
based on their engineering needs.
With this new car, it was the first time a company
called in a designer rather than an engineer for the job.
Designed by car stylist Harley Earl
to be lavish and eye-catching,
the LaSalle became a trendsetting automobile
that once again highlighted
Cadillac's high standards for car-making.
Cadillac's success and technical progress
continued through the 1930s.
But then World War II hit,
and the entire car industry slowed production
in order to produce tanks and aircraft engines.
But that didn't stop the car brand.
Cadillac introduced designs that came
to both define the car industry
and embody the prosperity of the "fabulous '50s" and 1960s.
While the company received recognition
for its continued engineering developments,
it was Cadillac's iconic tail fins
that became a staple feature of all luxury automobiles.
Not to mention its cars' enormous dimensions
and Dagmar bumpers, nicknamed after the voluptuous TV star.
At the height of its popularity,
Cadillac was selling over five times
that of rival Lincoln,
and in 1968 managed to sell
over 200,000 vehicles for the year.
But Cadillac was more than just America's most stylish
and top-selling premium car brand.
Through General Motors' aggressive marketing,
driving a Cadillac became a status symbol in America
to everyone from celebrities and professional athletes
to presidents.
Matthew DeBord: It was the pinnacle of achievement
in American society at that point.
They also have had these zany names,
like Fleetwood, Eldorado.
They came up with these crazy, crazy names,
you know, drawn from the most pretentious notions
around European heraldic badges and stuff like that,
and the whole idea was to sell people
on the notion that they had really made it
and they were gonna ascend to some kind of
premium status in American society.
Kim: At the start of the 1970s,
Cadillac remained the dominating force
in the luxury car market,
as the idea that "bigger is better"
still rang true with buyers.
However, as the economy declined
and a widespread oil crisis spread,
owning giant, gas-guzzling sedans
became far less convenient
and far more expensive.
But more than anything, the rise of imported cars
gave Cadillac some serious competition,
and the brand started to lose ground
as the standard of excellence in America.
DeBord: When the Europeans showed up,
the Germans in particular,
with their snazzy little sport sedans, it was a revelation,
and a lot of people who, you know, liked to drive
gravitated toward those.
And they were gonna go for Porsches and BMWs
and Mercedes and that sort of thing.
And they also started to think about
European automobiles as just being better,
them being superior.
And then the Japanese arrived
with their little fuel-sipping machines
that're, you know, really quite reliable
relative to American cars.
And so people started looking at these and saying,
"Well, it's a better car, it gets better fuel economy.
Why am I driving around in this giant Cadillac?"
Kim: Although the 1980s started well enough for Cadillac,
with sales continuing to increase,
the company responded poorly to this rise of imports.
To compete with all the new compact foreign automobiles,
the company began downsizing its entire lineup
to create a team of smaller, fuel-efficient cars.
But its cars quickly became indistinguishable,
not only from each other,
but from General Motors' other brands as well.
Cadillac owner: The black Cadillac, please.
Valet: Right away, sir.
Buick owner: Excuse me, I believe that's my Buick.
[laughs nervously]
Cadillac owner: Yes, so it is.
Kim: And as the company hastily pushed out
these smaller cars to try and match
the influx of luxury imports,
Cadillac encountered a number of failures,
the prime example being the Cimarron,
the smallest car Cadillac had ever produced to that point.
It sold so poorly that it was axed from their lineup
by 1988, just six years after its launch.
DeBord: It's a Chevy with a Cadillac badge slapped on.
It looks like a Chevy.
It's just a ghastly little car.
I mean, if you wanted a Chevy, it was OK.
But if you wanted a Cadillac, you looked at it
like, "What the F is this," basically.
So it was just an embarrassment.
But it was an attempt by, you know,
General Motors and Cadillac to keep the brand going
in a much more competitive environment
where some of the value proposition
of Cadillac had gone away.
Kim: Consumers recognized the decline
in quality of Cadillac's cars,
and it reflected in the company's sales.
Cadillac's share of the US luxury car market
dropped from 31% in 1980 to just 22% in 1990.
As Cadillac fell, its competitor
Lincoln reaped the benefits.
Lincoln's share doubled
during the course of the decade to 20%.
And in 1998, for the first time in 59 years,
Lincoln outsold Cadillac.
By the 1990s, Cadillac lost any appeal
it had with the younger market.
The running joke became that all Cadillac owners
were somewhere between 60 and death.
America's luxury car market
was now heavily dominated by Mercedes,
with Toyota's newly introduced Lexus brand close behind,
followed by BMW, whose sales were quickly rising.
But in 1999, the introduction of what would become
one of Cadillac's most iconic vehicles
would prevent a total collapse and help revamp the brand.
The 1999 Escalade was Cadillac's answer
to the full-size SUV boom
and its response to the success of Lincoln's Navigator.
The Escalade not only performed well sales-wise;
it became a pop-culture icon in itself,
making its way into movies and music videos,
as well as becoming a popular choice
among celebrity car buyers.
Things were starting to look up.
Cadillac saw a bump in sales,
a rise in popularity with the youth market
thanks to the Escalade, and somehow survived
General Motors' 2009 bankruptcy
that saw multiple brands dissolve.
Unfortunately, the 21st century
has not been completely kind
to the once glorious name of Cadillac.
While Cadillac's array of modern sport sedans
and performance models has been well received
by reviewers and the media, the numbers say otherwise.
In 2018, the brand saw its US luxury car market share
dip to a lowly 7%,
selling only 154,702 cars that year,
which put it behind even Acura.
And its sales among American buyers
only continue to plummet.
But why? How does a company that continues
to churn out high-quality cars with top-level technology,
like its self-driving Super Cruise system,
continue to dip in sales?
Well, Cadillac took a long time
to join the crossover SUV craze,
something that now makes up 60%
of luxury car sales in the US.
But despite its problems in the US,
the company may have found its answers
in the global market, particularly in China.
DeBord: The US market is at
peak levels right now as far as sales,
so there's not a whole lot of additional room for growth.
And you say, "Wait a minute, where are we gonna see
all the growth in the future?"
And General Motors looks, you know,
across the ocean and sees China,
whose market is already much larger than the US market,
you know, in excess of $20 million in annual sales
and could probably go to $30 million
or $40 million eventually.
People don't have a lot of cars in China.
And General Motors is looking at this situation
and saying, "People in China are going
to get richer in the future,
and they're going to want to identify their status
as a wealthy person with an automobile.
Why shouldn't that be a Cadillac?"
So they're just thinking, "Well,
why don't we put Cadillac in there?"
Well, they put Cadillac in there 10 years ago,
and it's been extremely impressive.
Kim: Between 2016 and 2017, Cadillac sales in China
exploded by over 50%, leading Cadillac to record
its second-highest global sales mark
in the company's 115-year history.
The company already has plans to expand
its network of dealers to 500 in China by 2025.
DeBord: We look at a rise in Cadillac,
we look at a fall in Cadillac,
and the fall may be something that can't be
arrested in the market where the brand was created.
I mean, it's one of the original General Motors brands.
But they could create a brand
that means something in another part of the world.