by "Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now)" (bman76-4)
Published 01/15/2017 at 02:25
by "Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now)" (bman76-4)
Published 01/15/2017 at 02:25
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STARS: 6
Shockingly modern styling for a car first built in 1967.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
01/15/2017 at 03:15, STARS: 4
Very modern - puts it in perspective when you realize this is 13 years newer.
"AMC/Renauledge" (n2skylark)
01/15/2017 at 03:27, STARS: 0
I have always wondered what this would have looked like if NSU had made it a piston-engined car and kept it going as long as the Volvo 140/240.
With aero ‘80s bumpers, side trim, greenhouse trim, taillights, and grille, I bet this would look every bit as modern as an ‘86 Taurus, or even ‘92 Taurus.
"AMC/Renauledge" (n2skylark)
01/15/2017 at 03:32, STARS: 0
Which was a shame because the ‘76-79 Seville was very much a car for its time. Its styling was so clean and reputation so good that it staved off the growth of Mercedes while it was on sale. Domestic makers copied it into the ‘90s.
Then the ‘80 Seville debuted in all its baroque bustleback FWD Broughamness. Gone were its predecessor’s trim and elegant lines and reliable engine. And sales crumbled while M-B’s took off.
"Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now)" (bman76-4)
01/15/2017 at 04:18, STARS: 1
Postmodernism will be the death of us all.
"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
01/15/2017 at 08:23, STARS: 0
Definitely one of my favorite car designs of all time...such a crisp, clean design that still looks current in a lot of respects, even today....
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
01/15/2017 at 09:33, STARS: 0
I friggen HATE bustle back Sevilles!! They genuinely make me angry whenever I see one in person.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
01/15/2017 at 16:38, STARS: 1
I actually kind of like it. The engines were mostly crap and the front doesn’t quite match up with the back, but it was pretty daring of GM to green light such an exuberant design.
Very much the wrong car to build though, it set Cadillac’s image as a proper luxury brand back by about 20 years. Some might argue they still haven’t recovered.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
01/15/2017 at 16:41, STARS: 0
Sort of. The original Seville proved that a small car could still have all the proper Cadillac attributes and that there was very much a demand for it.
It didn’t work too well as a Mercedes competitor, though. Most of the luxury cars traded in for one were Cadillacs and Lincolns, and it didn’t do anything to lower the average age of Cadillac buyers. The people who bought them were generally the same people that bought the bigger Cadillacs and just wanted something easier to park. Which was the exact same market GM had identified in a research study in the early ‘60s and basically did nothing about.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
01/15/2017 at 18:01, STARS: 0
Daring, most definitely. Also hideous though. I like Cadillac very much, including many of the malaise era Cadillacs and forgotten late 80's Cadillacs. Those bustle back Sevilles, however, even as a kid made me angry to look at.
"AMC/Renauledge" (n2skylark)
01/15/2017 at 20:25, STARS: 0
If what you say is true, something else must have forestalled Mercedes-Benz’s continued rise in the ‘70s for the years the Seville was out. I don’t know if I believe that 40k people wanted to pay an extra $3k just for a car that was easier to park. The Seville was priced in line with the junior Benzes at the time, well above the deVille and Fleetwood.
My impression was the Seville indeed won over Cadillac buyers who were otherwise ready to defect to Mercedes, as many wealthier people were doing at the time. And because the ‘76-79 Seville was so well done, it delayed their move to Benz until the baroque ‘80-85 model came out.
I agree the front didn’t match the back of the ‘80 and appreciated the daring of the design. But it was so retro and baroque and lost so much of what luxury car buyers loved about its predecessor.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
01/15/2017 at 20:31, STARS: 1
The median age of the first gen Seville buyer, by GM’s own numbers, was 57, which compared to a median age of 52 for the bigger Cadillacs. Also, 45% of Seville buyers were female, which compared to only about 33% on the full-size cars. Also, only 15% of Seville buyers traded in a foreign luxury car.
It sold very well, but it basically sold to the same type of people that were already predisposed to domestic luxury cars, not the crowd that was increasingly going to Mercedes. Primarily, the Seville appealed to older women, which was the exact same group that a GM marketing study done years earlier had suggested might want a smaller luxury car.
During the same period, GM’s research also showed that the next generation of luxury car buyer - e.g., the children of Cadillac buyers - were totally ignoring the domestic brands in favor of Mercedes and BMW, meaning Cadillac was catering to a large, but gradually shrinking, crowd that wasn’t really being replaced.
The first Seville was a start, but it still had things like button tucked upholstery, fake plastic wood, padded vinyl roofs, coach lights, white wall tires, and chrome wire wheels that Mercedes and BMW buyers simply didn’t want.
"AMC/Renauledge" (n2skylark)
01/15/2017 at 20:36, STARS: 0
Ah, well I wonder why so many defected to the imports in 1980. Because all the domestic luxury car marques took a huge hit in the 1980-82 period while BMW and Mercedes took off. The Seville took its redo very badly.
Your demographic info is interesting, but it still doesn’t really tell me whether these folks would have bought a Mercedes in ‘76 if Cadillac never offered this car.
If Cadillac weren’t trying to head off Benz with it, why did they price the Seville so high? It had an Olds engine and a loose relationship to the Nova. It’s not like they needed it to be that expensive.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
01/15/2017 at 20:39, STARS: 1
Oh, they were trying to target Mercedes, of course, they just sort of missed on some of the details. As to pricing, the Seville was positioned at the same price point of the 450SE when the development started, but by the time the Seville actually came out, the price of a comparable Mercedes had increased to about $4,000-$3,000 more, so they didn’t really go directly head to head.
I don’t know that it did much to head off the Germans, they were still growing pretty steadily all during that period. Mercedes topped 50,000 units in the US for the first time in 1977. The Germans were getting the younger buyers in their 40s and early 50s, Cadillac was going for the group in their mid 50s up through their 60s, 70s, and 80s.
"AMC/Renauledge" (n2skylark)
01/15/2017 at 20:42, STARS: 0
From what I’ve read, Benz may have crested 50k units in 1977, but they stayed in the high 40s/low 50s until 1980, when sales shot up again.
And by 1977, the Seville had the 280s to compete with.
"BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires" (biturbo228)
01/16/2017 at 06:30, STARS: 1
Love these cars. Didn’t Raph or Torch do a review of one of these with a 13B?