How Cadillac will succeed in Australia

The chief of General Motors global design and Holden hero Mike Simcoe has predicted Australian buyers will be open to considering the reborn Cadillac luxury brand.

But Simcoe also made it clear GM and its local subsidiary General Motors Australia and New Zealand have a responsibility to make Cadillac vehicles as accessible as possible to potential buyers.

Caddy launches in Australia as an EV-only luxury brand before the end of 2024 with the Cadillac Lyriq. Pricing is tipped to start as high as $140,000 for the dual-motor SUV.

“The danger will be people not getting up close to it,” Simcoe told a roundtable of Australian media.

“So we have a job to do making sure as many people as possible see it live and actually ideally see it on the road.”

Cadillac will start with only three ‘customer experience’ retail sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland in New Zealand.

But the plan is to expand both the line-up and sales outlets steadily in coming years.

Models expected to be added to the local line-up include the smaller-than-Lyriq Cadillac Optiq, larger-than-Lyriq Cadillac Vistiq and the hulking Cadillac Escalade IQ.

The hand-built Celestiq saloon that relaunched the EV-only Cadillac brand is not on the local agenda, however a potential Cadillac hypercar could come to Australia.

Simcoe, who began his career at GM Holden in 1983 and oversaw the development of the reborn Holden Monaro and the VE Commodore range – including its WE Statesman and Caprice long-wheelbase luxury spin-offs among many other vehicles – has been in Detroit in overall charge of GM design since 2016.

Simcoe said he was unsure if there was much recognition of the Cadillac brand in Australia, but was confident local luxury buyers were willing to try something new.

“I don’t think Australians are terribly brand loyal,” Simcoe said. “That’s not to put them down, they are canny customers who in most cases will try something new when it comes.

“In the luxury space there are a few offerings, but there is not too much in the EV space that is different.

“I’d suggest whether you have some sort of hook or some sort of reminiscence of what Cadillac is/was there is a likelihood customers will at least go in the door of the dealership and have a look at the car.

“If they do then they will be impressed.”

Simcoe said it was important not to view Cadillac through its past models, iterations and failed revivals.

“Cadillac has been a bit of an effort,” Simcoe admitted. “We’ve tried to resurrect the brand probably three or four times in my recollection.

“There is a danger people will look backwards to what Cadillac was in particular in living memory. We have been attempting to give it some brand value through design for some time and it just hasn’t worked.

“This time round with the help of EV and the tech change, its relaunch has actually worked here [in the US] and we think it will work in Europe and Australia as well.”

General Motors Aust/NZ managing director, Jess Bala, who was attending the same media roundtable, said there was already “pretty good” local recognition of the Cadillac brand.

“There is pretty good familiarity with the Cadillac brand here,” she insisted. “Obviously, it is very well-known brand globally, but very few people have had the chance to drive one here for obvious reasons.

“But when you think about the Australian customer, we are a very fashion-forward part of the world, very edgy, very ambitious, like having goods that are an extension of our personality and of ourselves.

“And that’s why we feel the Cadillac brand and the direction it is going in and the vehicles that are coming are a perfect fit for our market.

“We held our first hand-raiser event here in Melbourne about three weeks ago and … it was the first time the public has seen the Lyriq in the flesh and they were blown away by it.

“In the days following we had a tonne of emails from people saying they wanted one of the first ones on the road.”

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