Beware of Cadillac.What is behind Cadillac's resurgence? Though divisional general Divisional General is a rank used in many armies to denote a rank of general, corresponding to command of a division. For convenience Divisional General is almost always translated into English as Major-General, the equivalent rank used by the UK, USA, etc. manager Mark LaNeve places a lot of the credit at the feet of his predecessor, John Smith, and the current GM leadership, he says there is more to the uptick Uptick A transaction occurring at price above its previous transaction. In order for an uptick to occur, a transaction price must be followed by an increased transaction price. in Cadillac's fortunes than corporate personalities. "Out of all of the divisions in General Motors," he explains, "we were the first to be given a level of autonomy to set our own goals and direction. And that meant we were able to use the basic building blocks--platforms, powertrains, etc.--and create vehicles that are uniquely Cadillac." While LaNeve agrees the Escalade es·ca·lade n. The act of scaling a fortified wall or rampart. [French, from Italian scalata, ultimately from Latin sc is not as uniquely "Cadillac" as this strategy calls for, it struck a chord with buyers and--along with the angular angular /an·gu·lar/ (ang´gu-lar) sharply bent; having corners or angles. styling the division adopted with the arrival of the CTS--changed the expected Cadillac demographic almost overnight. "Who would have thought--in their wildest dreams--that a Cadillac would become the icon for the hip-hop culture?," he asks. "Or that we could do so without alienating al·ien·ate tr.v. al·ien·at·ed, al·ien·at·ing, al·ien·ates 1. To cause to become unfriendly or hostile; estrange: alienate a friend; alienate potential supporters by taking extreme positions. the upscale buyer that was the Escalade's original target." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Not unexpectedly, LaNeve is certain the CTS-based '04 SRX (Speed and Range EXpansion) A proprietary MIMO-based wireless LAN technology from Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems (www.linksys.com). It was introduced in 2004 prior to standardization of 802.11n. See MIMO and 802.11n. sport-utility and 2005 STS (Synchronous Transport Signal) The electrical equivalent of the SONET optical signal. In SDH, the European counterpart of SONET, STS is known as STM (Synchronous Transport Module). will continue Cadillac's sales surge. What may surprise some--and cause Cadillac's domestic competition to reach for the Maalox--are the 100 Cadillac engineers assigned to work with the various platform teams within GM. Their job is to make certain these bases have the technology and capability to support premium vehicles. It's very similar to the program Ford instituted for Lincoln a few years back, but which has dropped from view as Ford has fought back from its recent financial losses. "At this point," says LaNeve, "there are no Cadillac-specific platforms in the product plan, but this program makes it possible for us to get what we need to do the job, while supporting GM's overall consolidation and cost-cutting efforts." While not totally ruling out a premium platform exclusively for Cadillac, LaNeve says that concepts like the Sixteen should be watched for what they say about where Cadillac is going, not how it will get there. "The Sixteen concept was just that from a technical viewpoint," he says, "but it was a shot across the bows of the other luxury makes. We intend to compete on equal terms with them in the coming years." The Sixteen was just the calling card.--CAS |
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