Faded splendour

It used to be a synonym for unabashed luxury, but now General Motors has a fight on its hands to restore the Cadillac's reputation, writes motoring editor ALASTAIR SLOANE.

It was on a dealer's yard outside London - a Cadillac Seville, 12 months old with 14,400km on the clock. New it would have cost £39,400, or about $140,000 in our money. Second-hand it was worth £17,995.

That's a drop of £21,405 in a year, or depreciation of about 54 per cent. The free-falling value of the Seville and others like it is one of the reasons why General Motors in Detroit is mounting a $US4 billion ($10 billion) plan to revive Cadillac and its image.

It has hired a former Volvo executive to head the struggling Cadillac unit. Mark LaNeve took over GM's luxury marque the other day, having spent three years at Volvo North America as its president, chief executive and vice president of marketing.

GM called LaNeve, aged 42, "the perfect person" to manage Cadillac's rescue plan.

"We look for Mark to jump into the seat and provide the leadership from day one, continuing the strategy of Cadillac and introducing the new products that will be launched over the next two to three years," says Ron Zarrella, head of GM's North American business.

Cadillac once epitomised luxury, reigning as America's bestselling premium brand from 1950 until 1998.

The brand now trails Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Ford's Lincoln in the American premium market, with last year's sales 46 per cent below its 1978 peak as the Cadillac brand increasingly becomes associated with older people.

Cadillac's American sales for the first three months of 2001 were down 26 per cent on the same period last year, and last month domestic demand for the 99-year-old luxury brand slumped 28 per cent.

The latest Seville is an example of Cadillac's Achilles heel. It is chock-a-block with technology, including a computer-controlled suspension system. But it has always looked dated, especially outside America and alongside luxury Europeans.

The Seville is powered by a 4.6-litre V8 engine, which drives the front wheels. Cadillac calls it the most powerful front-drive car in the world. But therein lies another dynamic weakness.

Cadillac uses an electronically adaptive suspension to help offset the effect of the engine's weight over the driven front wheels. But on secondary roads with twists and turns the system struggles to balance the car, as every critic who has driven the Seville away from the rolling highways of America recognises.

In contrast, the Cadillac's luxury rivals, especially those built by the Germans, can feel right at home in the twisty bits.

In trying to get back in the game, Cadillac next year plans to roll out its 2003 CTS, a baby Caddy representing GM's first bid to engineer an all-new, rear-wheel-drive car since the early 1980s. The Cadillac makeover also calls for a new roadster, more SUVs and a few new names.

Showrooms have been refigured with influences by a French interior designer. There's a new marketing push, a new Lansing, Michigan, factory dedicated to Cadillacs and the division has returned to motorsport. The Cadillac crest also has been updated to lure younger shoppers.

Before joining Volvo, LaNeve had been brand manager for GM's Pontiac Bonneville and held various Cadillac sales and marketing jobs between 1981 and 1995.

Aside from his experience at Cadillac, he more recently helped to usher Volvo through "its rebirth to reposition that European luxury brand to be more youthful, trendy and hip," says American motoring industry analyst Wes Brown.

"That's experience - successful experience - that's certainly a good thing to have as he undergoes what he's going to at Cadillac," says Brown, adding that LaNeve's mission may be to "bring that brand back from near-death, really."