"The Cadillac of watches" (or some other product) was a once common phrase that shouted "high quality" and it is still used today. The phrase was an offshoot of building luxury vehicles for more than a century that often included automotive innovations.
The phrase is hardly surprising when you consider that Cadillac has "starred" in hundreds of songs written by luminaries like Bruce Springsteen and rock pioneer Chuck Berry.
For many, the long, powerful 1959 Eldorado, sporting the largest tailfins the auto industry has ever seen, epitomizes Cadillac. But there's much more to its story. It was the first car with a fully enclosed cab, the first car with an electric starter, the first with shatter-resistant safety glass, fully synchronized manual transmissions and all-steel roofs ... the list also includes the first memory seats (1957!), the first automatic climate control, the first production V-8 (and V-12 and V-16) and the first school for mechanics, as well as the recent introductions of OnStar and Magnetic Ride Control.
Cadillac was the phoenix that emerged from the ashes of the first Henry Ford Company in 1902. The marque owes its existence to Henry Leland, who also founded Lincoln (1922). With an engine designed for but not used by Ransom Olds, Leland named his new car after Antoine de la Mothe, le sieur de Cadillac, who founded what became Detroit in 1701. Cadillac's badge, now in stylized form, is basically the French explorer's family crest.
In 1908, a year before it was acquired by General Motors, Cadillac cars demonstrated the first interchangeability of parts, something that made mass-produced cars possible. England's Royal Automobile Club proved the trait by disassembling three Cadillacs, mixing up the parts and driving the reassembled cars 500 miles. Sounds like no big deal now; it won an important prize then.
Cadillac's current names recall its early years when the company, like other carmakers, named cars with letters and numbers. Cadillac and its larger, faster cars survived the Great Depression, something numerous luxury brands couldn't do, then made military equipment during World War II. Cadillac's post-war news were the first tailfin (1948) and the 1949 Coupe de Ville (discontinued in 1993; the DeVille sedan lasted until 2005). The `50s brought Eldorado (1953-2002), Fleetwood (1925-96), wraparound windshields and "Dagmar" bumpers. The era's huge models succumbed to 1970s' fuel shortages and emission controls, morphing into less powerful downsized models. These included Seville (1975-2004) and two models - Cimmaron (1982-88) and Allante (1987-93) - that fared poorly.
The Escalade SUV (1998) sparked Cadillac's rebound, which edgy styling and hotter cars helped stoke. Escalade now comes in four varieties: "basic" (if a $61,935 base price is basic), the Hybrid, the larger ESV, and the EXT, a five-passenger SUV or two-passenger pickup.
Cadillac's stable of cars includes models powered by some serious ponies. The entry level CTS and the STS both have V-Series versions with eye-popping 556 and 469 horsepower ratings, respectively. The CTS-V, the world's fastest V-8 production sedan, can do 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. The larger DTS, the SRX crossover and the XLR roadster, which also has a V model, complete Cadillac's car lineup.
As you'd expect from a luxury brand, Cadillacs can be filled with goodies. Touch-screen, voice-activated DVD/navigation, push-button start, reconfigurable head-up displays, rearview cameras and Bluetooth phone interfaces only start the conversation.
In the marketplace, surviving more than a century earns ... nothing. Providing what upscale consumers want? More use of the phrase "the Cadillac of ..."
