El Kabong

LOL@pretending the last 190 posts of wings' failed troll thread didn't TOTALLY blow up in his face. Go back and read dood. I'm sure the answers to your trolls, like the trolls themselves, have all been done before. Yes indeed. These days it's good to be a GM fan

Dood. You started this as a thinly-disguised slam on Cadillac and watched it turn into a great defense of GM's corporate strategy. Alao, hearing self-proclaimed powertrain engineers brush off extra zeroes is a bit disturbing. Little part, indeed

I didn't say that at all. ...Google "Roman numbers" and call me in five minutes. Sheesh. I learned that in Junior High :D

But seriously now. Cadillac is going to be fine. They're going to keep introducing advanced tech for the rest of the company to eventually use, and they're going to do it while watching their competition, gradually, adopt their brand strategy. It's good to be a GM fan.

NEXT time? Oh wings, you jokester, you...

You keep on thinking whatever it is you think :D In the meantime I'll sit back and watch the passion that Cadillac inspires zoom this tread toward 200 posts. Shame that other brands can't get folks this all excited. Maybe they should try harder

Funny you should mention movies... a while back I watched the Matrix movies again. Did anyone else notice that the Cadillac that was featured was a (then) new-and-exciting CTS? That was forward-thinking, as it turned out. They had to dredge up a suicide-door Continental for an interesting Lincoln. And so the problem was summarized without a word being spoken.

GM's current brand portfolio is about as minimal as it can get while still maintaining a global presence. And Drew is right-China is the reason Buick survived the restructuring in '08 and Pontiac didn't. Big picture stuff.

Hang in there man.

Give the Corvette to GM product dealers who qualify to sell Cadillac. Place it in the Cadillac showroom. Emphasize the "Corvette" over the "Chevy" in branding. Relatively inexpensive to do compared to starting a new brand, and it keeps the sub-Stingray segment for the Camaro. If/when the Zora drops play rock/paper/scissors to see which logo goes on the front.

As I look through what this thread has morphed into the overriding theme is that Cadillac invites discussion. This, by definition, makes Cadillac interesting. And if you can create interest then you've got a leg up on succeeding. I would rather have a brand thread that tolerates a fair share of silly posts than a brand thread that sinks like a stone.

Corey Crawford is not the most consistently brilliant goalie in the NHL. But he may be the best money goalie in the league right now.

Those are all awful. ...so why am I laughing?

Congratulations to Porsche and Chevrolet on their wins. Good to see the Corvette C7.R take the big one.

I'm enjoying this hugely.

I liked them as well... I was just tired of the thread at that point. He pretty much nailed it.

*L* no man, I'm not going to pile on... I just need to read closer. The year of development is actually a great idea because anyone who goes to Lemans for their debut is asking for trouble these days. That's part of what makes Ken Bowlby's Nissan so fascinating.

...and then I looked a bit closer at the announced date for Ford's return to Lemans. Oy vey.

CUE, like iDrive, will evolve rapidly. It'll be fine. As will the CT6. That interior does look good, don't it?

No worries. I was doing some pretty good editing and stuff there for a bit *L*There's such a thing as modular tech (fuel injectors, software, smaller components like that), and yes, all automakers do that. But when it comes to the expensive stuff like chassis, ideally you want to be able to develop state of the art stuff with the knowledge that it can eventually be less than state of the art expensive. This is what D6 is all about for Ford, and it is what both Omega and Alpha are for GM. We have already seen that the next BMW 7-Series chassis will be hard-pressed to match the weight savings of Omega, which is a testament to GM's engineering might when properly motivated and funded. Now, keep in mind that there are already rumours of an Omega-bodied Buick. So... A Buick with BMW-comparable chassis tech is possible. And Buick is Rung Two on the hierarchy.

I modified an earlier post to include this. CCAP probably just saw the first draft, so I'll reiterate for clarity: We're about to get a Cadillac-chassis Camaro whose chassis tech would be unthinkable if it hadn't underpinned two Cadillacs first. By the same token, the economics of scale allowed by building large amounts of Camaros helps amortize the cost of an expensive platform, or allows the beancounters to hold the line on Cadillac prices versus sales numbers. By way of comparison: Cadillac's one platform will underpin three cars, none of which has any real competition in-house. Ford will use three platforms for the same-size or class of vehicles, and two of those platforms will have Ford sedan equivalents.

Precisely. You can't have a premium brand without premium tech that eventually makes its way down the line. See also: Alfred Sloan.

Very well. But from my perspective the point has been decisively made. I cited sales data, wings cited rumours. I pointed out the similarities in Lincoln's strategy, he refuted them and then used different terms that just contradicted what he said. To further illustrate my point I'll just leave this link from Autoblog describing the chassis that Dearborn is spending all that cash on, and it's short AND long-term strategy for said platform. http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/27/lincoln-5-billion-revival-d6-chassis/

Fair enough. But let's also look at the flimsiness of his counterargument. There is a huge difference between discussion and semantics.

You keep repeating this nonsense as if it’s true. Lincoln is not creating some one-off ultra-expensive magical platform that will sweep in and save the day for Lincoln. That does sound like Cadillac’s failed plan, based on sales and the topic of this thread, but it is NOT Lincolns.No, what Ford is creating via improvements in flexible manufacturing, is a platform that is FLEXIBLE to any direction they want to go in, for both brands, to accommodate FWD or RWD. At least that is the Rumor and leave it at that. And that would only be small fraction of the monies allocated for their Phase II development that will propagate over the next 5-6 years. Phase I completed recently with the rollout of the new MKX. Otherwise, believe WTF you want. Let's see if I got this right:-The platform is not "magical" but will apparently support RWD, AWD, and FWD applications. Uh... Sounds vaguely Gandalf-ish to me -Ford is NOT emulating Cadillac's supposed "failed strategy" of trickle-down chassis tech, but this platform will support both Lincoln and Ford products. Golly :/ -Ford is NOT emulating Cadillac's supposed strategy, and you know this based on what you then say "at least that is the rumor and leave it at that." Well, THAT has the ring of authority, right there. -Then, after blowing your whole argument out of the water ALL BY YOURSELF with that "rumor" disclaimer you go on to describe all the (Monopoly?) money Ford is going to spend on PHASE II of the project. Holy. Freaking. Crap. You write some incredibly stupid things. But this may well be the capper. Are you serious? Every automaker ever does that. If Ford is copying GM in anything it isn't the "trickle down effect". MB? BMW? Audi? Everybody pushes their high end tech into their top tier products to showcase them. C'mon 'Bong.. I know you aren't a Ford guy but saying they are copying the "trickle down effect" is ludacris and you know it. Ford doesn't do it. Yet. And no, it's not ludacris at all. We're about to get a Cadillac-chassis Camaro whose chassis tech would be unthinkable if it hadn't underpinned two Cadillacs first. By the same token, the economics of scale allowed by building large amounts of Camaros helps amortize the cost of an expensive platform, or allows the beancounters to hold the line on Cadillac prices versus sales numbers. By way of comparison: Cadillac's one platform will underpin three cars, none of which has any real competition in-house. Ford will use three platforms for the same-size or class of vehicles, and two of those platforms will have Ford sedan equivalents. It ain't rocket surgery.