Has Cadillac lost momentum?
Jerry Flint over at The Car Connection is running one of his curmudgeonly rants again. Only this time, it is about Cadillac. It seems that he is convinced that Cadillac has lost their momentum compared to the Lexus, Mercedes, and BMW's of the luxury world. To see his sales numbers, you have to admit that Cadillac is not seeing double digit growth of sales. However, I'd counter that Cadillac is still in rebuild mode. They do not have nearly the number of models of these companies (even counting all variants, Cadillac has 11 offerings to BMW's 18, Lexus' 10 - the only one on this list with fewer models, though they aren't pumped up by counting variants like V-Series or the 3 version of the Escalade, and Mercedes' 27), and they are still in a multi-year push to rebuild the brand image through competitive product. This all takes time to register with buyers (as a visitor to this site, obviously you are ahead of the rest of the market). Cadillac has chosen to grow their image by _not_ chasing the easy way to additional sales, but rather to slowly rebuild their image as a true luxury player one impressive model at a time. The sales will come once the market recognizes the changes that have been made and forgotten the past transgressions (which Flint is more than happy to remind us all about). This is not a sprint for Cadillac, but actually a shift in direction that will take many years. With each new release, they banish their old image a little more. Unlike Flint, I'm not ready to write them off just yet. The Car Connection: Flint: Cadillac in the Slow Lane