GM to move Cadillac brand to New York City

[nain rouge]

Funny that Chrysler has had all these European associations, and yet that's the one company that clings to the traditional American concept of the car the most.

[canuck]

Funny that Chrysler has had all these European associations, and yet that's the one company that clings to the traditional American concept of the car the most.

Yes, Ford is the most international in terms of integrated design and unification of platforms. If Chrysler has that niche of American muscle to propel its sales, it should use it and not waste it on past k-car ideals of design. They do a good job with their minivans also, less boring and good value.

[FormerDetroiter]

Because Cadillac employees need to immerse themselves in the NYC culture to understand luxury? Gimmie a break. Sounds like this new Cadillac guy wants to be in NYC and not in DET to me. Have fun driving in Soho and finding a parking spot.....oh wait....

Do you really think the "Cadillac guy" is going to have to worry about driving or parking anywhere in NYC?

[scottn55]

I seriously doubt that this move will help put butts in the seats for Cadillac but I hope that it does. The current crop of Cadillac products is simply outstanding. The cars are "there" in that they're competitive with, and by many measures, superior to the German offerings. Brand management has been a real problem over the years and has hampered recent marketing efforts which is ultimately what I think this move is supposed to address.

Since somebody asked I'll list the production sites for all current/upcoming Cadillac models:

ATS & CTS- Lansing Grand River Assembly
XTS- Oshawa, ON
ELR- Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant
SRX- Ramos Arizpe Assembly- being moved to Spring Hill, TN next year
Escalade- Arlington, TX
Unnamed Flagship Sedan- Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly

[Steve203]

This has to be the dumbest thing GM has done since Roger Smith split the company into CPC [[Chevrolet-Pontiac-Canada) and BOC [[Buick-Olds-Cadillac) divisions in the mid 80s. Move the "decison makers" away from the testing and production facilities so they have a more fashionable address, but no idea what is going on in the real world?

Here's what Wiki says about Smith's reorganization

The reorganization added costs and created more layers of bureaucracy when the new groups added management, marketing and engineering staff, duplicating existing staff at both the corporate and division levels. Almost ten years elapsed before the 1984 reorganization was unwound and all car groups were combined into one division

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_S...reorganization

[bailey]

This has to be the dumbest thing GM has done since Roger Smith split the company into CPC [[Chevrolet-Pontiac-Canada) and BOC [[Buick-Olds-Cadillac) divisions in the mid 80s. Move the "decison makers" away from the testing and production facilities so they have a more fashionable address, but no idea what is going on in the real world?

Here's what Wiki says about Smith's reorganization

The reorganization added costs and created more layers of bureaucracy when the new groups added management, marketing and engineering staff, duplicating existing staff at both the corporate and division levels. Almost ten years elapsed before the 1984 reorganization was unwound and all car groups were combined into one division

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_S...reorganization

Speaking of stupid... now the new flagship sedan is going to be called the CT6.... of course not to be confused with the CTS.

Apparently the new chief wants to overhaul the naming conventions too. Hey fella, maybe start with not having your flagship have a name that sounds virtually indistinguishable from the entry level car during the overlap?

[Hermod]

Maybe GM thinks that the Cadillac offices are entrenched with embedded incompetents. Move to New York and a whole bunch of them will bail out. After a few years, move back from New York and quite a few won't make the move. Then you can start fresh.

[DetroitPlanner]

This sort of reminds me when Lincoln and Chrysler opened up in LA to help court those crowds.

Chrysler's office was called Pacifica. This was 20 years before the SUV of the same name came to be.

[Steve203]

now the new flagship sedan is going to be called the CT6....of course not to be confused with the CTS.

Or maybe they're trying to get it confused with the Jag XJ6. Given that Jag's horrible reliability record, that something I would not want to identify with, but since Caddie is indicating it's all about image, rather than substance, maybe they figure it fits.

[Steve203]

Move to New York and a whole bunch of them will bail out.

The late news the evening of the announcement said only 30 people will be working in NYC. This is entirely for apperances. The Channel 4 news people were openly laughing about it on the air.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Funny that Chrysler has had all these European associations, and yet that's the one company that clings to the traditional American concept of the car the most.

Not sure how long this will last since Fiat bought them out. They will slowly be europeanized. As long as they leave Dodge alone, I'll be happy.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Actually, GM did "get it" with Spring Hill and a lot of the Saturn Idea. What killed Spring Hill was the UAW and it's all out war against Saturn's labor reforms so as to keep them from spreading to other GM factories. It was a like a cult there... people really bought into it. they sold like 300k in the mid 90s... then Yochich took over at the UAW and made it his mission in life to kill the idea of "technicians", flex shifts, work rule reforms and the profit sharing for lower base pay system. GM caved and it killed Saturn.

Tennessee republican politicians like Corker, helped kill them as well, when Saturn was discontinued, it was the perfect opportunity for Corker and his cohorts to block unions from being established in Tennessee. He led the charge when the UAW tried to unionize the new VW plant in Chattanooga earlier this year. People have a right to decline joining, but his methods of making sure it didn't happen was divisive and deceitful which isn't a surprise.

[Hermod]

Audi is HQ in "cosmopolitan" Ingolstadt, yet you will probably see 20 Audis on the streets of Manhattan or London before you see a Cadillac.

But, who knows, it could work. Infiniti is based in Hong Kong, specifically to separate themselves from the parent company in Japan.

Daimler Benz is actually in Sindelfingen, a suburb of Stuttgart

[Bham1982]

The late news the evening of the announcement said only 30 people will be working in NYC. This is entirely for apperances. The Channel 4 news people were openly laughing about it on the air.

Well then the Channel 4 people are wrong, and the joke's on them.

They're hiring 200 for the NYC office, and plan on 400 within a year. Our esteemed local "news" probably mixed up the fact that they're only moving 30-40 current Detroit-area employees to NYC with the overall office staffing needs, which are 10x greater.

[Gannon]

Isn't this the third leader Caddy has had in the past five years?!

This guy sounds like a one-trick pony, and is SO anti-Detroit that he doesn't want any of it to follow him to NYC. Fuck him.

First I saw that CT6 designation, I wondered how they'd developed 6-wheel drive. They use the CT4 on the all-wheel-drive CTS sportwagon. I know this because my neighbor took one home from the GM pool last night...that is one sharp-looking car.

There is considerable confusion about the employment stats...first it was 'only' 50, then Barra herself said One Hundred...and now this 200-400 one?! The new bozo insists that all his employees live the Luxury Lifestyle...they have to be totally bought into whatever all that entails.

I give it three years before absolute implosion. This will end up one of the most expensive of GM's blunders throughout its history.

Rumor has it this idiot is aiming to eliminate any price points below $75k...and wants to separate from the urban aesthetic common with used Caddys. He is a damn fool, a classist, AND a racist...IMHO.

Why are GM's worst mistakes SO easy to spot in advance?! Everyone I know is in a slow-motion flinch over this insanity...


Cheers,
John
son of a Fisher Body lifer

[Scottathew]

[nain rouge]

Everyone here cheered when Campbell Ewald made the jump from Warren to Detroit. Now Cadillac does the national equivalent of that jump and everyone is up in arms and predicting doom for Cadillac.

I think, rather than adopting the attitude of "they'll come crawling back eventually", Metro Detroit should view this as a challenge, a sign that we need to step taking half-measures and really fix the mess that region has made of itself. Not that I'm holding my breath....

[animatedmartian]

Everyone here cheered when Campbell Ewald made the jump from Warren to Detroit. Now Cadillac does the national equivalent of that jump and everyone is up in arms and predicting doom for Cadillac.

I think, rather than adopting the attitude of "they'll come crawling back eventually", Metro Detroit should view this as a challenge, a sign that we need to step taking half-measures and really fix the mess that region has made of itself. Not that I'm holding my breath....

Not sure how it's an equivalent comparison when CE is an independent singular company. Cadillac is a division of GM.

It's more like when Chrysler put employees in the Dime building downtown while still retaining their HQ out in Auburn Hills.

[bailey]

Everyone here cheered when Campbell Ewald made the jump from Warren to Detroit. Now Cadillac does the national equivalent of that jump and everyone is up in arms and predicting doom for Cadillac.

not even remotely the same. Does bring up a prickly question though.. LCE signed Cadillac last year. How long before they pull up stakes to follow the 1/4 of a billion dollar client to NYC?

I think, rather than adopting the attitude of "they'll come crawling back eventually", Metro Detroit should view this as a challenge, a sign that we need to step taking half-measures and really fix the mess that region has made of itself. Not that I'm holding my breath....

They'll come "crawling back" eventually because having a pretend HQ in NYC is not going put a butt in the seat of a 100K "ct6". Everything that is going to put those butts in seats is being done in Warren....and everyone knows this. Build a world class product and the rest takes care of itself. But, instead of spending a few hundred million a year on R&D....they'll be blowing it on vanity real estate.

[nain rouge]

OK, if you want to be that specific. But now Cadillac is a "separate business unit" [[according to USA Today) and it chose to move to a superior urban environment. Your comparison would only work if Chrysler had spun off something like Dodge into a new business unit, and then Dodge moved to Detroit. Which, of course, would've been a much bigger deal, and you all would've cheered.

[iheartthed]

not even remotely the same. Does bring up a prickly question though.. LCE signed Cadillac last year. How long before they pull up stakes to follow its 1/4 of a billion dollar client to NYC?

I read some suggestions that they would probably not hold on to the Cadillac account, per the new Cadillac's preference. I imagine that the rest of GM is more important to them anyway.

[bailey]

I read some suggestions that they would probably not hold on to the Cadillac account, per the new Cadillac's preference. I imagine that the rest of GM is more important to them anyway.

Didnt the rest of GM fire them in 2010?

[bailey]

OK, if you want to be that specific. But now Cadillac is a "separate business unit" [[according to USA Today) and it chose to move to a superior urban environment. Your comparison would only work if Chrysler had spun off something like Dodge into a new business unit, and then Dodge moved to Detroit. Which, of course, would've been a much bigger deal, and you all would've cheered.

The point being, nothing about the "urban location" has dick all to do with design or manufacture of the product. Lincoln tried this and was roundly mocked.... cadillac doing the exact same thing... except on the opposite coast is just dumb.

But, ok... you're clearly in support of it. Tell me what about having some office space in NYC is going to translate to a better premium luxury car?

[iheartthed]

Didnt the rest of GM fire them in 2010?

According to this Crain's article, only Chevy. Not sure if they were doing work for GM beyond Chevy though. Also mentioned in that article is that they were in plans to open an office in NYC last year...

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ampbell-ewald#

[nain rouge]

But, ok... you're clearly in support of it. Tell me what about having some office space in NYC is going to translate to a better premium luxury car?

They believe they can attract a better workforce in an elite urban environment. Sure, theoretically, aesthetics and the outside environment mean jack squat. All things being equal, GM's Tech Center employees could work as well in giant concrete box as they do in the buildings they currently inhabit. But the truth is, people aren't robots and require quality of life. Cadillac believes the sorts of people that value the lifestyle in NYC are the sorts of people it needs to push the image of its brand forward. We don't need people giving the green-light to ads that mock bicycles, as we saw in Detroit.

When Campbell Ewald moved to Warren, everyone on here was bleating about how it now could show its clients a better time [[because Warren is ugly and boring) and attract the creative types that value urban environments. But now Cadillac moves a step up from Detroit and it's the dumbest thing ever.