2014 Cadillac CTS

You don’t think Ford is leading? In terms of consistency, Fusion, Focus, Fiesta, and Escape all are nice and have a solid design language.

The Dodge and Jeep both have individually really noce products, the entire line isn’t as solid IMO. Cadillac and Buick have been making big moves. Lincoln not sure about yet. I need to see that new ride in person. The comercials are nice.

But yes, agree, it is nice to see the Americans make some moves. Would like to see some of the Japanese brands get their mojo back. They seem a little off their game right now. Personally, if I was going to go non-euro, I’d go Kia or Hyundai… Curious to see if those companies can pull off a near lux brand like Lexus/Infinity/Acura

I think Ford also seems to be improving their quality, but I’m not a fan of the new design language; just a personal preference. The Mustang is gorgeous and I’m also a fan of that ridiculous truck with the massive FORD logotype in the grille.

Totally agree re: Japanese brands. Some of the new Toyotas have literally baffled me. And that Infiniti QX65 is just…astonishingly grotesque.

Again in agreement re: Kia/Hyundai. They’ve really surprised me. I remember the early days when both of those brands were punch lines. The newest Kias are especially pretty, IMHO.

I had a great-uncle who was on the original design teams for the Mustang and the Edsel and a few others…I’ve been meaning to root around for some of his sketches.

Ford: I think they are repositioning to a lower volume brand in NA. Right now, I think they are selling cars designed for Europe. It’s certainly differentiating them. We’ll see how big the market for Merkurs is in 2013.

Lincoln: I’m worried about them too. The new MKS was super popular at the car show. Easily the longest lines to sit in. On the other hand, the dash was crooked and the window trim was misaligned on the C pillar ON TWO CARS!!! Ouch.

Japanese: I still love '90’s Acura, Lexus and Infinitis. Now they are all rather disgusting and vanilla at the same time. 90% of the car (the middle bit) is completely anonymous. The fronts look like the brief was “be different”. Ouch.

Kia/Hyundai: Huge success across the board. They do have some weak models, but they seem to drop or redesign fast enough that it doesn’t matter. The big Hyundais are really nice today. Curious how the drive compares to luxury cars, but not curious enough to actually try.

Would love to see! Please post! :wink:

Seriously, what ever happened to the Acura Legend, or the original TL. All the new stuff looks like a generic car with some kind of weird predator or transformer mask stuck on the front end. And the Infinities went from tight and angular to melty and drippy.

Thanks for the interest; I only discovered this design genealogy all-too-recently.

This is the only sketch someone took the trouble to put on the internet, get ready for quite a doozy:

This is his Ford Volcano concept. He was also the supervisor of the clay model shop.

Nice Matthew! I’ve actually posted that Volcano sketch in the Vintage Concept Sketch forum:

Please feel free to bombard us in there :wink:

Ford is very public about its global design strategy, but they’re most definitely not going low volume… Based on sales to date this year and a quick look at last year’s numbers, they’ll sell almost one million F-series trucks, 1/4 million Escapes, and at least that many Fusions in the United States alone. http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2013/04/top-10-best-selling-cars-march-2013.html

Whoops. Off topic. Just thought you might want to know.

Relevant:
I’m glad the V version was brought up… I almost forgot, and then saw one in the parking lot this morning. It has a very different look to it than the standard sedan:

I wonder how this will translate to the new edition…

And the coupe… oh man I can’t wait to see what that looks like though I may be waiting another year… Here’s the outgoing 2-door:

domestics: I think GM is the style leader and it’s showing in their market share. They’ve brought Cadillac back to the top by sticking with the V performance versions as the ‘aspirational’ models. More importantly, they are the best positioned in the Far East with their entrenched Buick brand following.

Japanese: I think Lexus has gone off the overly-bejeweled cliff (while Toyota continues to follow Hyundai), Acura is once again trying to figure themselves out on Honda money (and will no doubt fail once again) and Infiniti seems to continue their quiet, subtle path of making interesting cars and questionable SUVs (maybe Nissan didn’t inform Renault that they also own Infiniti?).

Hyundai: simply kicking a*s on the Japanese right now, they are slowly burying Toyota, have usurped Nissan and are seriously challenging Honda’s reputation for quality…meanwhile they’ve positioned Kia to wipe up on the low end. South Korea’s extensive STEM educational programs are creating fast-paths to success for Hyundai, Samsung, LG, etc. We are in trouble.

Euro brands: I think Audi leads the pack but I still like my BMWs :stuck_out_tongue:

Ford sales:

2000: 4.2 million
2004: 3.3 million
2008: 2.0 million
2012: 2.3 million

They aren’t low-volume (and never will be). However, they’ve seriously down-sized their production capacity world wide to be profitable at 1/2 the volume of a decade ago.

Point taken, and it reminded me of a great graphic from The Onion…

The article is of course hilarious: Ford Reintroduces Model T Line That Made It Great

Here’s a good recent article;

Global sales & market share

GM sold 9.28 million vehicles in 2012, compared with the 9.02 million cars it sold the previous year. The automaker has 11.5% market share globally, and its share in two of the largest markets worldwide – the United States and China – in the fourth quarter last year was 17.1% and 14.3%, respectively.

Sorry Ray, this data can not be correct. What is the source?

As of today the report 1,7 Million sales of Focus and Fiesta, alone. Plus 800K F-series light trucks, which likely
would have been included into the 2000 figure of 4.2 Million.

mo-i

Today: Polk via Worldcarfans:
http://www.worldcarfans.com/113041056335/ford-focus-was-the-best-selling-passenger-car-in-the-world

I think Ray’s number are for the US, while those numbers for the Fiesta and the Focus must be world-wide.

mo-i and jada: Yes, US figures. Ford down-sized in Europe 20 years ago. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ford Europe sells more cars now than 20 years ago, but they had to get rid of the low-profit crappy car sales to be able to build up the profitable product line they have now.

love the front end of the new caddy, have to see the rear in person to know for sure, but rear looks kind of bland in photos.

liking caddy’s new models in general though, and in terms of the average cadillac owners age… 70 year olds wont be buying these by default like the old ones IMO (this car and the ATS), that was the problem, so i think their average age will go down as fast as could be expected. A younger buyer will want this car. 5-10 years ago the average 35-40 year old would not consider a cadillac outside of possibly the CTS. so if the product is right the average age will follow, its not a switch that can be flipped overnight.

GM is going in the right direction, buick verano is a great looking small car, the new impala looks beautiful in person, cruze is still nice, camaro and corvette are solid too.

Word. Nissan has also completely lost touch with reality.

You have Peter Schreyer, of AudiTT fame to thank for those.

Personally, I feel like this Caddy has been watered down too much. I was really getting in to their slicy-dicy looks, and it appears they have melted some of those nice tight lines & angles into softer radiuses, which, I feel is taking two pretty big steps back from that nice leap they took a few years ago. Don’t screw this up Cadillac.

I don’t know how much Peter Schreyer has to do with Kia/Hyundai’s good design. I think it says a lot about the management that they hired him. They probably let the designers have a little more room than at other companies.

From what I see-/ hear around me he can take a lot of credit for
this, even if he did not swing the pencil for a particular design,
but he directed the change and gave kia the successful new
direction.

They implemented a heavyweight design and research facility
near Russelsheim (where Opel is located) and contracted a lot
of local Ex GM and Ex Ford talent.

Hey, they even recruited some of my former classmates as
class A-modelers, no wonder the cars turned out that good! :wink:

mo-i