If YOU Were Johan de Nysschen What Would YOUR FIRST Actions As President Be To Turn Cadillac AROUND?

There really is nothing much that Cadillac can do to compete with the Germans and the British, since not many people are interested in Cadillac anyway. I mean, who buys Cadillac? Only some right wing Americans. And basically both the rich right wingers and the left wingers in the U.S. love German brands so much.

Because honestly, would you pay over 50k~100k only to buy a car that is from a bankrupt city (Michigan)? Or would you choose a German brand, which is considered as a "real" status symbol in the entire world?

If Cadillac want to do good, then just cut down the prices. And also, who thought that Transformers logo was a good idea? I already know the fact that the brands the Germans are proud of are Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and the Americans are only like proud of Transformers (Basically an American kids' show, made with the Japanese company. There are many animations that are far better than Transformers in Japan, but in the U.S., Transformers is the best thing Tsk Tsk Tsk), but I don't think that kind of idea works for a luxury brand.

And that ATS. I have never seen anyone driving one of those. Ya, probably I have seen one, but that's it. Who would want to drive a chick car like that?

And also, the Americans really should learn how to make safe vehicles.

Dear JDMUSMuscle,

I am so fucking sick and tired of reading your goddamned bullshit. Why don't you go fuck yourself, moron. You are wasting everyone's time.

Alain

Then don't read. Besides, who are you? I don't even know who you are. What does that mean? It means no one cares about you.

By the way, kid, why are you sick and tired of reading it? Did I lie? No, I did not. But I guess truth just hurts, doesn't it? ;)

So once again, who are you? Does anyone care about you?

@ATrain JDM never says anything of value which leads me to believe he is a plump 12 year old ginger sitting on his bed fantasizing about the EVO, WRX, and GTR.

Matt my friend, since I am an adult (And highly doubt you are one), I will just say you need to grow up my friend.

And also, you should stop fantasizing and face reality. You do not own a Mustang Boss, my friend.

And also, just back in the old days, you were nothing but just one of my followers who copied the way I talk. But now that I am talking differently, you feel betrayed now, am I right, son?

But do not be discouraged. I am still supporting GM in a different way. But I don't think you can see it with your low IQ ;)

You just proved you're a Brittney/Gaga fan in junior high.

He should sell the XLR for $49,500

First thing he should do is tell GM, and the rest of Cadillac, to get over themselves and stop living on the laurels of the brand from 50 years ago.

Secondly, he should tell them:
- Abandon the older buyers that want land barges
- Stop charging prices equal to the German and Japanese competitors
- If you want younger customers, build a car they want to buy
- Building a RWD sedan that turns is the first step
- Make Cadillac dealers upgrade their showrooms
- Art and Science design language is done, create a bold new language
- Every car Cadillac makes needs to be better than the competition costing $10,000 - $20,000 more
- Whoever decided the ELR should cost more than a Tesla S should be fired

Finally, every car with a Cadillac badge should have a V version with a Manual transmission or dual clutch as an option, excluding electrics.

Pretty solid. Diggin' your thinking.

"Building a RWD sedan that turns is the first step"

they've already been doing that, the CTS and ATS are both at the top of the class in handling. It seems they need to figure out the second step, since they've got that covered and it's not really working so far.

@ JRobUSC

I never said the ATS or the CTS were not good performers. Producing those cars was the first step, but Cadillac needs to do more!

Cadillac needs to follow that by not only switching their product focus to a younger audience, but also the other steps I outlined in addition to other measures I did not.

Cadillac needs to bring a car to the market that gets younger buyers into their showroom. They need to looking at introducing products like: - the late Acura Integra/RSX
- a TSX clone that stays below $30,000
- becoming America's leader in hybrid technology
- beat Tesla to market with an affordable, near luxury electric
- leverage GM's economies of scale and start developing platforms
- build a car that sells well in Europe

You obviously have never driven a CTS or an ATS. They are very nicely set up.

I LOVE Caddy, just so everyone knows I am biased. It is absolutely my favorite brand. Given that. I have owned in my 29 years of driving: four Caddy's, four Mercedes, five Lexus, two BMWs, one Audi, one Ford and one Bentley.

Currently I drive an Escalade and a GT Speed.

I am someone Caddy should be targeting: so pay attention Cadillac or ignore me…I can buy what I want.

Caddy needs to be world class, not almost there or we go the same test results as BMW, but a Bentley finish for a Benz price. That means the cars have to be sexy, the interior and exterior has to be better than the Germans, not as good. Think the difference between a LS 460 and an S550. They are both nice, but one is just better. So Caddy needs to copy Bentley. The interiors have to 100% real materials (Bentley): wood is wood, metal is metal, carpet is deep and everything else is leather. They also have to feel secure on the road. Go all wheel drive on everything standard and this will help a lot. People also like buttons, it gives them something to feel and press. Just because you can make something new doesn't mean you should…remember the 1980s dashboard Caddy made…oops.

Line up:

They need an S Class competitor. A large athletic luxury sedan. With a fuel efficient V8 (look at the A8), the styling has to be sexy and elegant (Bentley, Audi, Maserati). The also needs to be offered as a limited producion Coupe. The Elmiraj would be amazing so long and no GM bean counter sucks the sexiness out of it. The Sedan should start at $74K and go no higher than $93K. The Coupe should be offered in two fully loaded trims both with V8s. One fast (CL 550) and one sportier and stupid luxury style fast (CL 63). Pricing can be $95K and $110K. If Caddy doesn't make these Halo cars they should just rebrand Infiniti cars and call it a day.

A CTS type car without a hint of GM plastic inside or out. Get a fuel efficient V8, not everyone want a V and no one dreams of a V6. Keep the V, it is awesome, had one. The interior needs to be Ghibli quality. Still wood is wood, metal is metal, carpet is deep and everything else is leather or Alcantara. Caddy is almost there on this. This car also needs a hardtop convertible cousin, not an SL. Something between a 650i and at Grand Turismo a quasi four seater hardtop convertible (V8 only). The sedan should be around $50-$80K for the V. The convertible can be around $85K fully loaded, no options.

The ATS just needs some sex to it. Some guy who sucks the sex out of American cars got a hold of the AST and did his thing. Get rid of some of the cheesy interior crap in that car. If it wouldn't be in a Mercedes or an Audi it shouldn't be in a Caddy. A coupe is need here too. Skip the convertible, make it specail for the CTS. This car needs to span the $34-$48K range, add $5K for the coupe.

SUV should be Escalade. I love the Escalade. I wish they could get better fuel economy, but this is my truck! Pricing is fine. Less CM plastic couldn't

You are basically asking GM to do things impossible.

If Caddy does not have cheap interior, then I am not sure if that is a modern American car to be honest. I like that cheapness in Caddies and I actually highly doubt GM would price it cheap if they were to put down Bentley quality materials on the interior.

Cadillac is years away from producing a credible competitor in that market segment. Cadillac needs to rebuild the brand by focusing on the near to mid-level luxury market, i.e. $27,000 - $60,000. $60,000 being the V models of the CTS.

There are enough people willing to throw big money on Esclades, so even though I hate it, they have to keep making them because it brings in the profit.

When, and only when, Cadillac has established itself a serious player in this near to mid-luxury range, Cadillac can call on its heritage to move into upper segment of the luxury market.

Americans prefer Larger cars = and the ATS and CTS both have little rear seat room. The first thing I would do is produce a CTS-L - a few inches longer - and I think that car would be a big seller. Neither car has a useful trunk as well.

The XTS should be repositioned as a competitor to the Lexus ES350 - which is now similar in size.

Of course - they need that Full Size sedan - and some "Coupe" versions of the sedans as well - but that will take more time.

Lastly - for all those who say they should abandon the older folks - they should not. They are the ones with the money to buy these cars - and "luxury" versions of the cars would not take major changes as well.
However - for Americans - the cars should be class leaders in interior space - and have real trunks as well. There is no reason why they cannot build a car a younger person would want - AND - also produce cars for those who have the money to afford them too (Ie older persons)

Retire the fin tail-lights forever. The new attractive face and an unflattering retro-feeling rear are out of balance.

Fix Cadillacs leasing program to be more competitive to drive higher volume sales. Most of the competitors sell a high mix of their vehicles on lease. A few years back, my father and I looked at the last generation CTS a couple years after it's launch. They wanted over $150 more a month for a similarly equipped vehicle to the German and Japanese competitors. Even worse is the dealer felt it was an aggressive offer in the market. We walked right out.

Straighten Cadillac and STOP trying to be a BMW. Have Cadillac become a premier AMERICAN car.

Cadillac has been obsessed with BMW for years. This demonstrates Caddy's mindset of being inferior to BMW.

Cadillac isn't broken for one thing. Autolies loves to sing and dance about how Audi is on fire with sales, yet Cadillac outsells Audi by 20%.

Step one: GO BACK TO NAMES

The alphabet soup of letters and numbers out there does allow ATS, CTS, SRX, XTS, DTS to stand out among MKZ, ILX, CLA, etc. Resurrect Seville, Eldorado, Deville or go with Evoq, Imaj, Ciel, Elmiraj, Cien, Sixteen, Converj...

Step two: PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT

The V models for the ATS and CTS should have followed the introduction of the new models by mere months. Where is the SRX-V? Where is Cadillac's coupesedan? They simply need to have a product line comparable to the German offerings WHETHER OR NOT those products are profitable.

Step three: POWERTRAINS

They need turbodiesels and hybrids and V8s. As counterintuitive as it is, Cadillac should have V8s available across the line. A series of V8s say in 4, 5, and 6 liter forms would bring a very much needed "Americanness" back to Cadillac. American = V8. It's not that turbo 4s and V6s shouldn't be the majority sold, but the V8 is symbolic.

Step four: STYLING

While I like the Art and Science look, I like the bold simplicity of the Elmiraj. On the CTS I like the face, but the tail is too bland. The ATS is just too bland overall. It's not ugly, but it's not as instantly gotta have looking like the BMW 3 or the A3.

Step five: PRICING

An immediate 15% price cut would makes sales faster.

Step six: DON'T BE BMW BE CADILLAC

They need a slogan like "Cadillac...Proudly American...Proudly Different"

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As someone who has had the chance to drive the last generation CTS-V and a BMW M5, I like the American muscle car sound and vibe of the CTS-V. It gives up nothing to the M5 in performance, but has a feel that is simply a delight to experience.

The M5 is an amazing car--I'd love to have them both--but if I had to choose, I'd choose the CTS-V.

First, stop chasing BMW, this goes for most luxury car companies. Take a look a Mercedes Benz, return to its root and is Benz proving it is a raising marquee. Be unique.

Embrace your history don’t run away from it. Dump the letters and use some of you many iconic names.

Build a flagship. Cadillac is great at concepts, but then cheap ass GM panics and kills it because some bean counter says it may not make a profit, or the “hipster demographic” won’t buy it. To be blunt Cadillac needs to grow a set and tell the accountant to shut the hell up. Some time you have to lose a few bucks to create showroom traffic. Maybe use some of the money you wasted on marketing the ELR and build a viable flagship.

Wake up to the fact that you are not a tier 1 luxury car company, and you don’t get to price your car accordingly. Cadillac builds some truly great cars now, but ten years ago not so much, it take a lot of time to establish a reputation. It took decades for BMW and Mercedes to get to where they are , and Cadillac you aren’t near there yet. Drop the price of you cars, dump the huge rebates and discounts (which kills resale value) sale cars at value pricing. Build a reputation and don’t thing that you deserve it because you over price you cars.

Embrace Americanism, take a look at Chrysler’s ad campaign and then look at their sales. Americans are a proud people and they should be proud of what the produce. Cadillac use to be a gold standard, do it again a let everybody know it. I don’t if a guy born in South Africa that uses to work for Audi and did nothing for Infiniti is the right guy.

First on the agenda: fire the design team for the ATS coupe.

it needed more drama

Cadillac need to reinvent a customer oriented buying/servicing environment and get away from the GM "manipulate the victim" approach one encounters when visiting GM dealers. Relearn what "customer and service" means. Don't force unnecessary technology (run flats) down our throats. Pretend that folks are going to drive these cars to more than the grocery store.
We left BMW because of the force the lousy run-flats/ no spare tire/turbos down their throats attitude. And we will soon be leaving Mrecedes Benz because of the same attitude - have you driven a CLA lately - horrible.
Build something really special and unique.

No one likes run flats. Use normal tires and keep a spare in the trunk,

I honestly do not know enough about Cadillac to make a call here...other than they would need to give me a reason to want to buy an American car. With GM's current state, this guy will have to pull some really magical tricks out of his ass for that to happen.

Cadillac may need to rely on it's glory days to boost sales. The only way to get away from the egg design and reclaim your roots is to go retro. VW did it with the New Beetle, Fiat has done it with the 500 Chevy's Camaro is a bona fide hit. Even Rolls Royce's Phantom is somewhat retro. Cadillac has so many classic designs that could be reinterpreted and they just build the same shapes as Buick and Chevrolet.
Also, use some real names that mean something An El Dorado or Fleetwood sure sounds better than an ATS or DTS. Lincoln has made the same exact mistakes and look where their sales are.