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History of the Cadillac
Founding
Cadillac was formed from the remnants of the Henry Ford Company when Henry Ford departed along with several of his key partners and the company was dissolved. With the intent of liquidating the firm's assets, Ford's financial backers, William Murphy and Lemuel Bowen called in engineer Henry M. Leland to appraise the plant and equipment prior to selling them. Instead, Leland persuaded them to continue the automobile business using Leland's proven 1-cylinder engine. Henry Ford's departure required a new name, and on August 22, 1902, the company reformed as the Cadillac Automobile Company.
The Cadillac automobile was named after the 17th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, who founded Detroit in 1701.
Early Vehicles
Their first car was completed in October 1902, the 10 hp (7 kW) Cadillac. It was practically identical to the 1903 Ford Model A. Many sources say the first car rolled out of the factory on October 17; in the book Henry Leland — Master of Precision, that date is shown to be October 20; another reliable source shows car #3 to have been built on October 16. In any case, the new Cadillac was shown at the New York Auto Show the following January, where it impressed the crowds enough to gather over two thousand firm orders. The Cadillac's biggest selling point was precision manufacturing and, therefore, reliability; it was simply a better made vehicle than its competition.
1903 Cadillac |
1910 Cadillac |
1929 Cadillac |
1960 Cadillac |
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General Motors
Cadillac was purchased by the General Motors conglomerate in 1909.
Pre-World War II Cadillacs were well-built, powerful, mass-produced luxury cars, aimed at an upper class market, below that of such ultra-exclusive marques such as Pierce-Arrow and Duesenberg. In the 1930s, Cadillac added cars with 12- and 16-cylinder engines to their range, many of which were fitted with custom coach-built bodies; these engines were remarkable at the time for their ability to deliver a combination of high power, silky smoothness and quietness.
The Great Depression
In 1932, after Cadillac suffered from record low sales and charges of discrimination against black customers, Alfred Sloan created a committee to consider the discontinuation of the Cadillac line. At a fateful board meeting, Cadillac president Nicholas Dreystadt heard that legendary boxer Joe Louis could not go into a dealership to buy a car, because he was black, and resorted to having a white friend make the purchase for him. Dreystadt gave the GM Board of Directors a 10 minute speech in which he advocated advertising to black consumers so as to increase sales. The Board agreed to give Dreystadt 18 months to produce results. Cadillac managed to survive the Great Depression only by being carried along by Chevrolet, GM's low-priced, high-volume car. By 1940, Cadillac sales had risen 1,000 percent compared to 1934, thus saving Cadillac from going out of business.
Postwar
Postwar Cadillacs, incorporating the ideas of General Motors styling chief Harley J. Earl, innovated many of the styling features that came to be synonymous with the classic (late 1940s-late 1950s) American automobile, including tailfins and wraparound windshields. Cadillac's first tailfins, inspired by the twin rudders of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, appeared in 1948; the 1959 Cadillac was the epitome of the tailfin craze, with the most recognizable tailfins of any production automobile.
Cadillac's other styling attribute was its front bumper designs which became known as Dagmar bumpers or simply Dagmars. What had started out after the war as an artillery shell shaped bumper guard became an increasingly important part of Cadillac's complicated front grille and bumper assembly. As the 1950s wore on, the element was placed higher in the front end design, negating their purpose as bumper guards. They also became more pronounced and were likened to the bosom of 1950s television personality Dagmar. In 1957 the bumpers gained black rubber tips which only heightened the relationship between the styling element and a stylized, exaggerated bumper design. For 1958 the element was toned down and was completely absent on the 1959 models.
Low points, and the beginning of a recovery
Excessive dimensions
Despite record sales in 1973 and again in the late 1970s due to the popularity of the DeVille and Eldorado, Cadillac suffered from the malaise that set in to the American auto industry in the late 1970s to the late 1980s, primarily due to downsizing of cars in responses to fuel economy mandates following two energy crises. There were high points, such as the launch of the front-drive Eldorado in 1967 as a personal luxury coupe, with its simple, elegant design — a far cry from the tail-fin and chrome excesses of the 1950s. However, the 1970s saw vehicles memorable for excesses in dimensions and engine size before the downsizing era set in later in the decade. The new generation engine that debuted with the 1968 models at a displacement of 472 cubic inch V8 [7.7 liter] was designed for an ultimate capacity potential of 600 cubic inches. Displacement was increased to 500 cubic inches [8.2 liter] for the 1970 model Eldorado, then adopted across all models for 1975 but performance waned after peaking at 400 horsepower in the first year and declined in 1971 and later years due to reductions in compression ratios necessitated by the advent of low-octane unleaded fuel and increasing stringent emission requirements that further sapped performance and fuel economy.
Seville introduction and downsizing
The compact Seville was introduced as a 1976 model and used a fuel-injected version of the Oldsmobile 350 as its only engine. For the 1977 downsized full-sized cars and Eldorado, the engine stroke was reduced to that used in the 472 and the bore was reduced as well, yielding a capacity of 425 cubic inch displacement. The bore was further reduced for 1980-1981 to provide 368 inches, again sharing the stroke of the original 472, as well as the weight and physical bulk. The build quality also fell short when measured against German rivals.
As with most American brands, Cadillac was forced to downsize its offerings between the 1973 and 1979 fuel crises. Its staple De Ville and Fleetwood lines were downsized for 1977 and again for 1985 when the cars also changed to a front-drive configuration. A downsized Eldorado debuted in 1979 with a new bustleback Seville sedan introduced on the same platform in 1980. Both the Eldorado and Seville were further downsized in 1986 into the compact car class, with sales going down the tube due to loyal Cadillac buyers being repelled by their smaller size and high price tags along with styling that resembled much cheaper GM cars such as the Pontiac Grand Am and Buick Skylark.
Downsizing and the Brougham
The Cimarron and Seville models marked a beginning of "smaller" cars for the Cadillac line. Throughout the 1980s, American auto makers downsized most of their models, and the Cadillac was no exception. By the late '80s, the Brougham was the only Cadillac model that retained the style and size of the "big" DeVilles and Fleetwoods of the '70s. The Brougham was redesigned in 1993 and renamed the Fleetwood, with an optional Brougham package. In 1994 Cadillac replaced the 1993 engine with an LT1 corvette engine. The Fleetwood was discontinued after the 1996 model year. Following the demise of the Fleetwood, the Lincoln Town Car was left as the sole traditional full-sized luxury car remaining in the U.S. market.
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* 1987-1993 Cadillac Allante
* 1985-1992 Cadillac Brougham
* 1965-1976 Cadillac Calais
* 1975-1976 Cadillac Castilian Station Wagon
* 1997-2001 Cadillac Catera
* 1982-1988 Cadillac Cimarron
* 1935-1983 Cadillac commercial chassis
* 1949-2005 Cadillac DeVille
* 1949-1993 Cadillac Coupe de Ville
* 1953-2002 Cadillac Eldorado
* 1956-1964 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz
* 1957-1960 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham
* 1956-1960 Cadillac Eldorado Seville
* 1965-2003 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado
* 1927-1996 Cadillac Fleetwood
* 1975-2004 Cadillac Seville
* 1938-1993 Cadillac Sixty Special
* 2006-present Cadillac XLR V-Series
* 2006-present Cadillac STS V-Series
* 2004-present Cadillac CTS V-Series
* 2006-present Cadillac BLS (Europe, Middle East, Mexico, and South Africa only)
* 2003-present Cadillac CTS
* 2006-present Cadillac DTS
* 1999-present Cadillac Escalade full-sized SUV
* 2003-present Cadillac Escalade ESV top of the line SUV
* 2002-present Cadillac Escalade EXT pickup truck
* 2004-present Cadillac SRX
* 2005-present Cadillac STS
* 2004-present Cadillac XLR
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia.
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