While most year-end car sales stories focused on the fierce battle between the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord to be the best-selling car in America for 1997, an equally intense struggle was taking place a bit higher up the automotive price bracket. Cadillac and Lincoln jousted all year for the best-selling luxury brand in the United States title, with some European and Japanese competitors not that far behind.
In another sign of the competitiveness of the luxury bracket, Cadillac outsold Mercedes-Benz in the fourth quarter by only 1,346 vehicles.
Mercedes sold 122,265 vehicles in 1997, a whopping 34.6 percent increase over the previous year. Mercedes officials said they have a U.S. sales target of 140,000 in 1998. Mercedes' new SUV, the ML320, is helping sales, and Mercedes hasn't even achieved its full production level of the ML320 yet. Mercedes expects to sell 40,000 SUVs in 1998. Mercedes sold 14,659 ML320s in the last three months of 1997 as sales began.
General Motors has given Cadillac permission to sell an SUV, but it won't be ready until next fall, so Automotive News predicted Cadillac will probably not be able to hold on to its sales crown in 1998.
Other competitors are gaining fast, too. BMW had U.S. sales of 122,467 last year, an increase of 16 percent over 1996 and a 131 percent increase since 1990, according to figures released by the company in early January. BMW is even using marketing techniques seldom seen in the luxury segment , like paying promotional fees to have secret agent James Bond drive a tricked-up BMW 750il, a car that retails for $92,100, in one of the main chase scenes in the latest Bond movie, "Tomorrow Never Dies."
Lexus sales also remain strong. Jim Press, senior vice president and general manager of Lexus operations in the United States, speaking at the Los Angeles auto show in late December, said Lexus sales were approximately 96,500 units in 1997, up 19.6 percent. Press predicted Lexus sales would reach 120,000 this year, due in part to its new RX 300 SUV and to the hot new GS sedans, which are selling very well. At similar rates of increase, Lexus sales could approach Cadillac's in three or four years.
Until 1997, Cadillac had experienced a steady decline in sales since 1978 when it sold a record 350,813 cars. But Cadillac is fighting to reverse that trend. In fact, with its redesigned 1998 Seville, Cadillac plans to take on some of its foreign competition on their home turf. Before this, Cadillac achieved some overseas sales, but placed little emphasis on that aspect of its business.
"For the first time, we want Seville to be a serious world contender," said Thomas Evernham, vehicle line executive for the car. "Is Caddy still the standard? A lot of people think it is."
John Smith, Cadillac general manager, said Cadillac cannot afford to ignore the rest of the world. The luxury segment is one of the fastest growing market segments worldwide and could reach 4 million sales in the next five years. Smith, also speaking at the Los Angeles show, said with Cadillac's name recognition worldwide, it should be able to do quite well and even be a market leader in many of the 40 international markets it is targeting. Cadillac expects overseas sales to be 25 percent of total Seville volume of 45,000 cars a year, said Ed Berger, Seville brand manager. With the new Seville, several decisions in the redesign were made to appeal to foreign customers and meet safety regulations in Europe and Asia.
Two of the major decisions were to keep the international versions of the car under 5 meters in length, at 196.5 inches, in order to have a car that would fit in European and Japanese parking spaces and to avoid higher taxes that affect bigger cars in some countries. (The U.S. version of the new Seville will be about 5 inches longer because of the bumpers needed in the United States to meet federal safety regulations.) Cadillac will produce the Seville in both right- and left-hand-drive versions, the first time Cadillac has manufactured a right-hand-drive car since 1941. Both the United Kingdom and Japan are right-hand-drive countries.
Cadillac also used international conditions to test the car, seeing how well it held up under desert temperatures in Dubai, running it extensively at 150-mph Autobahn speeds and making sure the windshield wipers would work when the car was traveling at 125 mph.
But Cadillac isn't depending on size or steering wheel placement to sell the new Seville. ``It's the very best Cadillac ever built,'' Smith said, ``and we think it's the best sedan ever built in America.'' "From the very beginning of the Seville program," Berger said, "Cadillac was committed to a car that would meet the wants and needs of customers in more than 40 countries around the world. The result is a Seville that is truly a standard of the world, offering the performance of a European sedan, the comfort and quietness of a Japanese luxury sedan and a uniquely American sense of style."
While Smith and Berger might be expected to engage in a bit of hyperbole, the new Seville does contain some interesting new technology. National automotive publications have recognized several of the Seville's innovations as among the best in this year's crop of new cars. These include:
Adaptive seating, which uses a system of 10 computer-controlled air cells in the driver's and front passenger seats to provide optimal comfort. The system is based on one used for burn victims. The Seville seats continually adapt to changes in position by the person sitting in the seat, and will even account for a wallet in someone's pocket.
The 4-speed automatic transmission in the Seville STS has been programmed for performance shifting if it senses the driver wants to do so, shifting as the driver would with a manual transmission.
Cadillac calls its StabiliTrak system on the new Seville "the most advanced integrated stability control system in the world." Sensors in the vehicle measure inputs from the driver to determine what he or she wants to do. If the car isn't responding appropriately, a computer can selectively apply the individual front brakes to help keep the car on the intended course and avoid skids and spins.
Aside from this new technology, however, it's the little extra thoughtful touches that often sell luxury cars. Here, too, Cadillac met with a number of groups of luxury car owners to find out what they wanted in the car. Some of the extras that resulted from these sessions include the car's 425-watt specially designed optional Bose eight-speaker stereo that has truly excellent sound quality, an umbrella drawer under the front driver's seat, a glove compartment big enough to hold a Thomas Guide of street maps or a day planner and a center console that allows the driver to place CDs oriented either side-to-side or front-to-rear, depending upon the driver's preference.
The Northstar V-8, rated at either 275 or 300 horsepower, will power the two front-wheel-drive Seville models.
Cadillac is targeting the Seville at the Mercedes E-Class sedans, the BMW 5-Series and the new Lexus GS and LS sedans, Berger said, and intends to beat all of them on price. The Seville SLS carries a base sticker of $42,495 and the STS a price beginning at $46,995.
Cadillac may not be able to hold on to its luxury sales title, but the Seville is a good indication that it won't be because it isn't trying.
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