Why Cadillac’s latest rebirth won’t fail

General Motors design chief and Holden hero Mike Simcoe has emerged as a key player in ensuring Cadillac’s latest reinvention doesn’t fail, like a series of previous overhauls of the US luxury brand.

GM has revised and repositioned Cadillac numerous times over the last 50 years, gradually eroding its position as one of America’s and the world’s pre-eminent luxury brands.

Most recently, the decision to make Cadillac GM’s lead electric vehicle brand was announced in 2019.

Since then it has rolled out the Cadillac Lyriq and revealed a trio of other battery-electric luxury SUVs including the Optiq, Vistiq and Escalade IQ – all of which could come to Australia – as well as the hand-built Celestiq sedan.

“In North America – and the same thing is starting to happen in Europe – the impression of the brand is of a rebirth,” said Simcoe.

“If you do the right thing people tend to forget what you have done in the past.”

Simcoe and Cadillac global design chief Bryan Nesbitt were speaking to Australian media ahead of the brand’s launch in Australia later this year, with the 2025 Cadillac Lyriq large dual-motor electric SUV.

Nesbitt said protecting Cadillac’s pre-eminence was only possible because of executive commitment and buy-in from the entire GM organisation.

He revealed a Simcoe-led team laid down a series of requirements to define Cadillac’s position.

“It requires corporate commitment at all levels; in manufacturing, purchasing, in how you manage your metrics. So Michael and the team created Cadillac requirements internally as far as how to maintain that.

“In the end you don’t want the product to be so dependent on personalities that it can’t continue to evolve and be better and better.

“So you have to put in some rules of engagement and we call them Cadillac requirements, where we have a price of entry that can be cross-functionally honoured, respected and executed.”

Past issues for Cadillac have included poor quality, mediocre technology, product sharing with other cheaper GM models including the Opel Omega rebadged as a Catera – a failed attempt to take on the big three German luxury brands head on – and even a confusing badging policy.

Apart from some success in China and critical acclaim for some models, the brand has failed to make much headway.

In 2009 a planned Cadillac launch in Australia was abandoned at the last minute, while a local entry was considered again in 2015 but quickly parked.

Simcoe explained that era of failure was now behind Cadillac because of GM’s commitment to treat it as an exclusive brand within the company.

“Cadillac actually has its own set of componentry. In a traditional form through the brands you would share the background and the core architecture, the switches and controllers and things like that and then make them customer-facing in a branded way.

“With Cadillac, from the customer-facing [components] all the way through to the core architecture, the switches and the steering wheel and every other component in the car, is specific to Cadillac.

“It’s that sort of commitment that needed to happen.

“Once an organisation is committed at that level then I won’t say the rest becomes easy, but you have a commitment to treat the brand as a very specific thing.

“It is agreed now that is where the technology will find its way into the company. It’s presented on Cadillac.”

Simcoe, who started at Holden in 1983, is the creator of the reborn Holden Monaro and the mastermind behind the VE Commodore range.

He said GM’s willingness to create the hand-built $US350,000 (more than $A500,000) Celestiq saloon was proof of the corporation’s commitment to getting this rebirth of Cadillac right.

“It demonstrates both internally that we had a moral compass and to tell customers we were committed. The Celestiq represents a north star.

“There’s a little piece of Celestiq in everything we do.

“You can’t pull off something like Celestiq without having a rock-solid opinion about what the brand represents and how you would execute the design of the brand,” said Simcoe.

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