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We're talking about a 1987 Cadillac today, because Cadillac finds it necessary to talk about cars they made in 1905 in order to try and sell their 2007 cars. Check their website. www.cadillac.com. So what we're doing really isn't any different than what Cadillac is doing right now. Another reason people talk about it, is because they wanted the idea to work out and they hope Cadillac will bring the project back from the "dead".
Besides being a miserable failure, the Allante was a ridiculously overpriced Italian 2 seater($60,000+ when new) that was designed to compete with expensive offerings of the same category from other European automakers which many American buyers revere. SL600, 560SL, whatever, it was meant to compete with all of those.
If GM's whole line up of cars were more like the CTS, they would be "Standard of the World". They'd be sittin' pretty.
________________________________________
-Cj :confuse:
-Cj
The northstar is a great engine but its old and needs great tweaking or a replacement. Take a look in that badge on the picture... XLR, STS, CTS-V, DTS, or SRX!?!?
-Cj
Yep, and I explained to you what happened. Why are you still bringing this up? Get over it, the differences didn't make any difference anyway. Did the correct numbers give the Cadillac an advantage or was it still under the bus in hp? I could see if I gave the SL the higher number and the Allante had the higher hp rating, but it didn't. IT DID NOTHING FOR THE ALLANTE'S STANDING. It was still a 60K weakling.
My point about the 600 was that it was a flop, as you claimed the Allante was.
You never had a point about the 600, it wasn't a flop by any measure but yours. The Allante was a utter failure by even Cadillac's own admission. Huge difference there. One company celebrates their prior efforts (Mercedes) and the other would rather you forget them (Cadillac). If that doesn't tell you which one was the junker then nothing will.
Did the Allante accomplish for Cadillac what was expected?
No. Why is that so hard to grasp? The car flopped on the road compared to the SL and in the market place. It didn't garner any respect for Cadillac only shame.
Your remaining 2 paragraphs are just excuse making on a grand scale. I've never seen anyone go on and on about nothing! A unwinnable, unstainable position. The SL beats Cadillac's effort then as it does today. End of story.
M
I don't know why people can't understand this but the entire history of the brand has been quirky, but pratical cars with a bit of luxury and a bit of sport that are FWD.
I am not even sold on having AWD SAABs.
It just seemed to me that when Caddy tried to make anything other than their luxo-boats of yesteryear, they were almost always an exercise in futility and their product was junk...as time went on, even the luxo-tanks became junk, and a Caddy was made no better then the Vega...that was then...
As much as I like the new Caddys, and they are better than the boat anchors of the 1980s, I always seem to question whether GM management and the UAW will ever REALLY figure out how to compete with Lexus, BMW, et al...one would think that Caddy could tear apart a BMW and just replicate its apparent quality and performance, but it does not do so, and I wonder why...
SAABs should be stylish and cleverly designed, with odd technology AND there has never been a SAAB that was anything but FWD. They should be winning rallies everywhere.
In their heyday, they were what Subaru is now - including the WRX rally car history
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SAAB should have a kappa based roadster called the sonnet...
SAAB should have a CTS thing
SAAB should have a this or a that.
I think a new Sonnet would be neat but it needs to be on a NEW small FWD platform not the Kappa.
That's also a problem with GM. Everyone wants them to produce a car that's just like the person's preferred auto, in styling, power, drivetrain, etc. And then they would pick it to death because it doesn't this, it doesn't have that, they shoulda' done that, they shoulda' done this, etc. I realize we all have difference ideals for a car in each size category. I'm just talking about no matter what they do, noone would be happy. It's like being a stepmother or stepfather, in most cases.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Until advent of AWD cars such as Audi and Jeep in rallies, FWD setup was only way to seriously compete. Saab and Mini were hot setups in 60's. Nobody serious about competing showed up in a RWD car. Saabs, such as red in photo, were also very durable in event of off-road excursion and rollover.
The car was obsolete at the time it was produced. Simple as that. Benz had a 500SL in the wings and it made the Allante look and feel old and stole ALL the publicity.
There's really nothing more complex than that about the story.
The 500SL's debut was March 1989, very bad timing for the Allante. It had an emergency roll bar deployment, active suspension (ADS) with automatic leveling. It has 320 horsepower, a governed top speed of 156 mph, and 0-60 in 6.2 seconds. Lotsa razzle-dazzle there.
It was also available as a 300SL 6 cylinder and a 600SL V-12. Choose your weapon, spotlight-seeker!!
Basically Cadillac was totally overshadowed by this new model line. The SL wasn't a DIRECT competitor, it was just the celebrity of two-seater luxury cars. Allante just remained unnoticed.
To us, the difference in price between an Allante and a 500SL seems like a lot, and that these cars were in different markets---but to high rollers who wanted the very best, it really wasn't the case. What's $30K to multi-millionaires?
I bet Allante owners felt like wannabees, don't you?
MORAL OF THE STORY? Don't fight the last war, fight the next war.
Corvette got it right in 2006, Allante didn't in 1988.
It wasn't a "flop", it was a non-event.
GM did make the full size front wheel drive cars similar in body stiffness to the Mercedes E-class. BMW's have not been as dependable as either Buick or Cadillac in the J. D. Power dependability studies, so coping a BMW would seem to be a step backwards.
An automobile is a dynamic entity, and its reputation ultimately comes from the experiences of the owners.
If BMWs reputation exceeds Cadillac's, then that's where one must look for the answer IMO.
I do know a Cadillac dealer in Chicago who continued to make a market in used Allantes for a period of time after 1993. I think the "Country Club Set" or "Golf Club Set" probably liked the Allante as a Cadillac convertible.
BMW's reputation was built on making sports sedans, or the ultimate driving machine (or something to that effect). Cadillac attempted to make the front wheel drive Seville Turing Sedan (STS) into a comparable sports sedan by developing an active suspension. The basic problem was that with 60% of the weight on the front wheels, handling was never really quite right.
Yep, FWD was an unfortunate choice for a luxury two-seater...here again, I smell the GM bean-counters.
Coming to mind, the next 9-3 may have a metal roof like the g6s.
Instead of the AWD 9-7x, it should be like the equinox!! The 9-9x can be a lambda.
Saab is doing ok with its FWD vehicles and 4WS Saabs new slogan: Saab_"Unique by design" as well as born from jets. The jets thing is getting old gracefully but still aging. Its good to have but not on every thing. Maybe something here, something there, but not too much. Still, its just my opinion.
BTW, the 9-3 is so great, GM took it and made the cadillac BLS. Also a fantastic car. But were my other next 9-3 ideas good?
-Cj :P
Possible pictures would be...
Very true. Also, the study most quoted by everyone, is the "Initial Quality" report - which tests the number of defects found in your brand new car in the first 90 days of ownership. Well, that's important, yes, but more important to everyone, I think, is the 3 year dependability study which measures how the car is really made. Initial nits and nats are annoying, but if the car keeps falling apart month after miserable month, you don't want one. (Insert Volkswagen here) :lemon: . That's the JD POwer study I observe.
Industry average is 227 with a best score of 136 and a worst of 438. BUT Land Rover really sticks out below Saab at 326.
Again if you look at the delta it is basically from 1.5 problems per car to 3 problems per car. Not a lot of difference anymore.
It might be an indicator of a calamity waiting to happen, but I don't see JD Power as a good predictor of actual long term reliability.
it's just a menu, it's not the food.
FOR INSTANCE -- the JD Powers on MINI is pretty bad...but I've been grilling owners now for 6 months, at random, and reading all the longterms, and I'm getting a somewhat different picture. Not Lexus grade, but better than I expected to hear.
the Mini only has 2.8 problems over 3 years per JD Power. While below iindustry average just not that bad. Like I said reliability today is pretty good for all cars/trucks. Should be a non issue for new cars. that is why GM felt confident enough to offer 4 years on Cadillacs/Buicks and 5/100,000 miles on everything. Their warranty has really been dropping in the last 4 years (and I have seen the data).
The car mag I can pick up at my doctor's office tomorrow will have a list of cars in it that the testers drool about: a Ferrari XTM 3649 model with superblaster motor option, a Catarina Testosterone Deluxe Italiano model imported for them to test, a CTX GT Mustang with optional production (137 only) motor (this one might catch my youthful memory car award), a minivan Ford 600 XLViss model that can corner as well as a Vette according to the rumor on the cover hook line, etc.
I've probably overstated my point. I'm not interested in Civic Si's. Test a 500 real world model; test a Lucerne CL; test a base Zephyr; test a DTS base model. And test them for normal driving not for racing characterists.
But that's not what would sell the magazine.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Part of the problem with the MINI was that JD Powers adds in perceived design faults to the score.
The average consumer isn't smart enough to comment on that IMO of course.
of course. Darn that average customer. Just not smart. They just do not know what they want and do not care. :P
The key is knowing how to tell them.
Elvis does say hi, is thinking of buying a Silver Thunderbird...
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
There is no issue here with me. The car could have sold 100K copies in 5 years, it was still a dismal failure because it didn't even come close to beating the competition of the day, which was stated to be the SL per Cadillac. Just because it sold well proves that Cadillac buyers are loyal, and we all know they had no problem buying any one of the heaps Cadillac sold in the 80's. Again, a pointless matter about sales. Sales are only one criteria in determining whether or not a car is a success or not. By all other means the Allante was an utter flop.
M
M
I don't get this, but it is interesting. The Allante was a 60K car with a non-power convertible top, it was FWD, it was underpowered and had very poor structural rigidty for a convertible. Even it had been RWD that would have fixed all the other problems it had. The car was typical GM of the day, half-baked and ill-conceived and put on sale way to early in its development.
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the current XLR most certainly does compare to the SL, much more so than than Allante ever did during its day. I don't see how you could think otherwise. This class of car isn't about sales as much as the sedan classes are so why are you so hung up on that? The XLR doesn't sell any better for the same reason the Allante didn't, because it is overpriced. The 100K asking price for the XLR-V is really over the top for a "Cadillac", but it is easily the best car GM makes or any American brand for that matter.
Cadillac tried to price the XLR like the Germans instead of taking a page out of Lexus' book. Lexus knew the SC430 couldn't compare to the SL so they priced it like a CLK550, not a SL550. Cadillac should have done the same, a 65K XLR and 85K XLR-V would have sold better than 78K XLR and 100K XLR-V do. To say that XLR cars don't compare to the SL and to imply that the Allante did is just way off-base. The XLR is way more "together" and competitive with the SL than the Allante ever was.
Sure the Allante was "together" by 1993, but hadn't it been on sale since 1987? It took GM 6 years to get the car right? If so it deserved to flop. The Allante even looked the part and the name sounded elegant, but like so many GM cars they were out to lunch on the details and that is what killed it. That and the ridiculous assembly process must have come the most brain-dead folks at GM at the time.
M
And I don't recall the Benz being anything but a rear driver. So wouldn't this be a more logical comparison to the Caddy?
Both had about the same success from what I remember.
The beautiful Caddy's of the 60's were still common on the streets in the 70's and 80's. They really made their replacements look sad, and the new cars ran poorly in comparison. Sure the old Caddy's were gas-guzzlers, but they were glorious cars.
No one could feel anything but sheepish and embarrassed in his downsized FWD 80's caddy when he parked next to an old 60's queen of the highway.
Fortunately for GM, Cadillac is like an aircraft carrier. It can sustain a lot of damage without being destroyed, but it takes a long, long time to just turn it around, and a long, long time to repair the damage.
I will say that the 08 CTS looks more like a real Caddy than anything we've seen in a long time - perhaps since the Allante. However, we must wait with bated breath to see how the execution works in the real world. The Allante too looked good on paper, as did the Catera, and the XLR. Unfortunately they all had serious flaws.
I really hope that Cadillac has sweated the details - this time.
For one, Cadillac charges you a nasty premium for the supercharger and apparently the performance upgrade you get is not even close to worth the $20K. It's a bit of a rip-off I think is the general critics' notion. Also the electric hardtop is supposed to be diabolically unfriendly and it seems likely that this going to get real annoying real fast for many otherwise happy owners.
It's stuff like this that drives me nuts about Cadillac. They get to "almost" and then shoot themselves in the foot on TWO really really important items...the "promise" of performance vs. the reality, and the major component of the car's identity---the hardtop/convertible function.
I think the price is the biggest problem, a 100K for a Cadillac is a tough sell to their traditional buyers and it is way to much too ask of a Euro buyer shopping in that price range. They'll simply say "may as well get the MB/BMW/Porsche/Jaguar" etc. etc. A M6 Cabrio, SL550 or a XLR-V? Cadillac isn't going to win that one too often. The Cadillac name itself just doesn't garner any respect or interest with people who spend 100K on a car, regardless as to whether or not the XLR-V itself is worthy or competitive with other 100K droptops.
It's stuff like this that drives me nuts about Cadillac. They get to "almost" and then shoot themselves in the foot on TWO really really important items...
This is GM's problem in general. Take the Kappa twins and the Saturn Aura for instance. They look the part on paper and even perform nicely, but their are lots of oversights and/or faulty details that keep them from greatness. Interior quality/fit/finish, transmission (on the Kappas) and other things that annoy. To GM's credit though they seem to be more eager to make changes right away instead of years down the line. At least in the case of the Sky/Solstice.
M
The article was both an interview with a Cadillac spokesperson and a test of the 87 Allante. At the beginning of the article, the spokesperson said that GM's grand plan (note this is probably mid 1986) was to move Buick up market to replace Cadillac and to move Cadillac up market to compete with Mercedes. The rest of the article was on the Allante, and did not address the issue of where the Allante fit into the moving up scheme. My impression was that the Allante was not a final product in this grand scheme.
The article stated that they were planning to build up to about 500 Allantes per month, but did not expect to sell that many, at least in the first year.
That same issue of Motor Trend had a comparison test of the Corvette, Porsche and Mercedes 560SL. The Corvette was considered the run away best performer of the three. The skidpad performance was perhaps worth noting, the SL got 0.80, while the Allante was 0.81 in its separate test. Skidpad numbers are meaningless when it comes to actual performance on real highways, so how the two might have compared in actual handling is not clear, but in the Motor Trend test write up they seemed to think the Allante was much better than the rest of the production Cadillacs at that time.
As far as GM's grand scheme of moving Buick and Cadillac up goes, in 1989 Buick had a Park Avenue Ultra model, with a much nicer interior. The Ultra was comparable to perhaps the Fleetwood Cadillac at that time. When the 1991 Buick Park Avenue (an all new body) came out, the Ultra Park Avenue was not the 1990 version, but was more like the old Park Avenue, while the standard Park Avenue was the Electra. So I think GM's grand plan was dead by the early 1990's. We are now more than 20 years past mid-1986 and I do not see that Buick has changed, or that Cadillac is any more Mercedes like that it ever was. Mercedes had a broad range of models in the 80's, so Cadillac could have aimed at the low end.
This "ultra-luxury GT" market is a tough one....over $100K I'd suspect most people want either a really razor-sharp performance car or a big-[non-permissible content removed] sedan with overwhelming presence and performance. They pretty much spit out that Lexus SC430 or whatever it was.....