New Cadillac Commercial Chassis

[Tim Cenowa]

What did the Cadillac rep say about the new commercial chassis?

[Brad Ross]

Angela Jurson, Cadillac Division of GM, stated that Cadillac will continue to support the Professional Car industry with a "sedan product" that can be modified into a hearse or limousine by coachbuilders.

Pictures of the already revealed Cadillac XTS Concept were shown as an example of what the styling will probably look like. We were told that no other information will be available until this fall.

[John ED Renstrom]

what I got from her statement was take it or leave we don't care

[Jeremy D. Ledford]

I for one wasn't impressed by the Cadillac presentation. It was already pretty much information already known to most of us as old news.

[Lawrence W. W. Wilson]

Tim, as stated, the Cadillac rep really didn't say much. She did say the next car would be FWD in case you didn't know that.

[Scott Crittenden]

said the interim chassis was basically the same save for different wheels. Wouldn't say much about the upcoming XTS. I had to get my shot in for a Cadillac version of the Caprice!

[Patrick J. Martin]

The GM rep's talk boiled down to nothing more than Cadillac will be continuing to offer a sedan to the coach industry.

Although I found the idea of having a Cadillac rep talk to us an interesting idea, I have to say that I found her talk very disappointing, even though it was exactly what I was expecting. Of course the talk from a corporate rep is going to be nothing more than public relations mumbo-jumbo, and a not-too-well-disguised commercial on why we think our products are the best.

But the question-and-answer session that followed was a real bummer. She could have just kept pressing the "play" button on a tape recorder for all the times she said "that will be released in the fall". What good are you as a corporate rep if you can't even talk about your own product?

A completely opposite experience was the banquet speaker at the Cadillac Centennial in 2002. Our speaker for that was Robert Lutz, who was then vice president of something at General Motors. But Lutz is also a real car guy, in fact his own LaSalle was an award winner in the centennial show. So despite being a corporate VP, he talked to us as car guys, and I think it was one of the most entertaining speeches I've ever heard.

[John Burchfield]

I've been so busy since returning from Hudaon that tonight is the first time I've had some time to look around the board! I agree with Patrick that the Cadillac lady's talk was pretty disappointing. I'm no public speaker, but I do know that one of the rules for a good speech or talk is "say something pertinent and nice about the group you're addressing." So, there was a Cadillac executive in front of a group of avid car collectors, the majority of whose cars are Cadillac professional vehicles and she made not one mention of our cars! A little "thank you for preserving some of our company's history in the beautiful cars you brought to this meet" or something along those lines would seem to have been an appropriate comment. At least from her party-line speech it seems Cadillac isn't going to walk away from this highly visible and profitable market, as some have feared. NOW, back to the secret underground garage and the XTS hightop ambulance prototype!

[Jonathon Fowers]

Was there a post about this? I haven't seen it and would like to.

[Dean Wilkinson]

Articles on the XTS, to be built in Oshawa, Ontario, can be seen at:

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...ac_xts-feature

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1...or-spring-2012