http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=07904566

Another step to bring Cadillac even further up the food chain.

I think it might be interesting to see how the other Divisions take this, though... but I think it is warranted when you consider the price tags on Cadillac's market.

 

The other divisions are basically non-entities.

"Chevrolet" is a MARKETING division, not an engineering one. Basically, the marketing division is bereft of true engineering expertise. HOW to make something happen is not the question they answer, they are attempting to answer the question of WHAT should be made to happen.

HUGE difference there - and it should be painfully obvious that the HOW and WHAT are equally important and should be answered concurrently.

This is VERY interesting. GM isn't nearly as bad off as Ford in the engineering expertise department (Ford engineers are, in a word, pathetic... I could go into the things I have had to explain to Ford engineers before... but it might make you cry... or laugh, depending on your sense of humor).

All we have to do now is wait for this to "trickle-down". If Cadillac is getting real engineers, you can bet that the next division to want them will be Chevrolet. And if past history is an indicator of the future, Chevrolet gets what it wants.

Wow. An American car company is slowly coming to the realization that engineers and designers aren't commodities...

The day may be coming where GM steps up to the plate and tells the German and Japanese:

"You know what... we're the best in the world. Period. We have the best people, and we're going to blow you punks right out of the water."

Truly a great day gentlemen.

 

PacerX, I figured you'd enjoy this news more than anyone... it's almost as though Cadillac went right along with some of the engineering personell issues you have spoke about here in the not so distant past!

 

I would like nothing more than to see this day. Let's make it happen!

 

"PacerX, I figured you'd enjoy this news more than anyone... it's almost as though Cadillac went right along with some of the engineering personell issues you have spoke about here in the not so distant past!"

Thank you for thinking of me, kind sir!

The news makes me smile from ear to ear. An initial validation of what I've been preaching for years.

I'm formulating my next article as we speak.

 

Just to expand a bit on PacerX's post, Chevrolet doesn't even get to dictate what they sell. Kurt Ritter when he was running Chevrolet was very aware that Chevy needed a Camaro, and he also desparately wanted a RWD sports sedan. However, the head of Chevrolet is basically a marketer, meaning his job is to create ways of selling cars his/her division is given to sell (Pontiac's chief, Lynn Myers, is in the same prediciment). It's up to GM's product people (headed by Bob Lutz) and then finally the product planning board which has the final say in what gets made and what doesn't.

What the division heads can do is throw support behind a business case, get to see what the design studio is doing for them (division heads don't dictate what their own cars look like, though they can make suggestions).

Cadillac is in a very unique position at GM. They right now, along with Team Corvette and Holden, are pretty much free of direct involvement (or interference, depending on your point of view) that the rest of GM's divisions face. Even Opel.

 

Maybe my hope is that an engineer could make a stronger case for certain things to senior management than a marketer could, or at least strengthen the marketer's case in the right places.

I don't know the entire past history, but a good example might be the airbox lid on the F-cars.

GM spent lots of money tooling up and producing an airbox lid system to cancel out intake noise.

My hope would be that an engineer would look at this thing and say:

"Hey, this is kinda silly. Performance folks LIKE intake noise and I could save a ton of money doing a lid without all of this baffling and related nonsense AND make more power AND get better fuel economy."

MARKETING should have gone out and got the information that CLEARLY STATED that Camaro Z28 and SS buyers, on the whole, couldn't give a crap less about anything other than REALLY OFFENSIVE intake noise (like, "It sounds like a bunch of bolts in a coffee can when I accelerate") when there's 10hp laying there for the taking. It seems absolutely elementary.

Put together a quick focus group (like a group of folks from this board and a group of folks who might not be as extreme as us) and ask the question by having them hear a before and after (it takes about 30 seconds to swap them).

2% It bothers the snot out of. But they're 1970's Corvette owners and line up all the screws on their sill plates because they're obsessive-compulsive.
5% Are professional orchestral musicians and they can hear it, but it doesn't bother them.
10% Might be able to tell the difference from the driver's seat. With the radio and HVAC off and the car not moving. With a light wind.
10% Used to get their jollies by taking the air cleaners off their cars in the garage and revving the car from under the hood to hear the 4-bbl gasp.
50% Couldn't tell the difference if their lives depended on it.

The rest of us can't hear it over our exhaust cut-outs anyway.

A marketer who drives an Impala might not catch that one... well, they DIDN'T catch that one. SLP/GM did in the last year of production, and then charged the $*&^%(@ out of buyers for it.

If the GTO has as tortured an intake tract as the F-cars did, someone needs to be taken out back and shot.


"Baffles? We don't need no stinking baffles."

 

Looks like GM is going absolutely all-out for Cadillac and hearing more news like this makes me believe that once again Cadillac could be on top.

 

This is all so true... because an Airlid is probably the #1 LS1 mod out there... cheap and effective.

Also, I consider myself a 'car guy' , and I couldn't hear a noticable difference from my stock Airlid to my MTI Airlid... so.... ya, you make a great point.

Of course, this all assumes there was a lengthy process to develop a 'properly' baffled lid to reduce the noise.... which I do believe probably happened.

 

This is great news, but the purchasing department still makes decisions around GM, and I'm assuming that these engineers will still run into the same problems, regardless of whether they work for Cadillac or out of the corporate office.

And it'd be nice to see the same attention given to the "lesser" divisions, because if anyone thinks that there's less engineering in a $25K vehicle than a $75K vehicle, they're wrong. Different, maybe, but not less.

 

Awesome news. A great step forward and once again GM is showing that they are serious about making Cadillac the Standard of the World again.

And PacerX, your posts are always very informative and also very amusing!

"If the GTO has as tortured an intake tract as the F-cars did, someone needs to be taken out back and shot." LOL at this one!