Cadillac V16 Borne Out Of A Marketing Battle With Packard

It’s an amazing quirk of both the automotive and financial markets that the Cadillac Division of General Motors had introduced the most luxurious, extravagant automobile and sold it well right smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

• Do Check: Cadillac V12 Prestige Luxury 1930′s Auto

In terms of economics and the marketing and sales of automobiles how on earth was this possible and how can it be explained.

The Cadillac V16 was the first and most successful V16 car created by Ernest Seaholm and Owen Nacker and was definitely intended to be the ultimate extravagance and luxurious automobile of its time. Driving and owing a Cadillac V12 was a supreme gesture that placed an owner above the common ruck of motoring.

To find the reason why such an extravagance was introduced just as the Great Depression of the 1930’s was gathering momentum, you have to look back to 1925, when Cadillac, top of the American luxury car league, was rudely swept aside by Packard, thus diminishing General Motor’s pride in having overtaken the then automotive market leader Ford (at least in terms of sales figures). Although G.M. General Motors was just 21 years old when the V16 was launched, the start of the corporation’s irresistible rise began in 1923, when Alfred P. Sloan was appointed President, and began to rearrange the GM corporate structure and structures.

As conceived by Sloan, the product spread of General Motors, was such that it could provide cradle-to-grave transport for “Everyman” ( or at least every American man),catering for his social and economic progression from Chevrolet to Pontiac , Oldsmobile , Buick and LaSalle and finally hopefully to the pinnacle – Cadillac. No doubt each marquee was clearly defined and identified in this clear marketing and sales sequence and progression.

Imagine then, the displeasure that Sloan must have felt when Cadillac suddenly lost the leadership of the prestigious luxury car class to Packard, who moved ahead in terms of automobile sales by over two to one in the mid 1920’s.

Plans were laid as early as 1926 for a grand gesture that would reassert Cadillac’s place at the top of the league. Packard had established a marketing image as a company that could achieve the ultimate in engineering with its “Twin Six” – the world’s first series-production V12 car of which over 35, 000 were built between 1915 and 1922.

The success of the Packard definitely dictated the way that Cadillac had to go. Cadillac had to faster, more refine than anything else on the automotive marketplace.

The answer to this was to enlarge the power of the existing Cadillac V8, but this would not do, for a bigger V8 would lose something in terms of smoothness, could have thermodynamics problems and would most certainly and would introduce torque characteristics that would necessitate development of a new and stronger transmission.

That for a number of reasons was not desirable by Cadillac as its existing transmission was actually quite satisfactory for the division.

The end decision by Mr. Sloan and upper level General Motors and Cadillac upper management was to introduce the V12 engine in a beautiful body to win on all counts. Thus it could be said that the V12 Cadillac of the 1930’s, although inappropriate for its economic market of its times, was borne out of ego and supported financially by a larger parent firm with both deep pockets and great resources.

The article is sponsored by William B. Simpson, who works for Winnipeg Used Cars for Sale and Wpg Auto Manitoba Canada.

For Further Reading:

1. Cadillac V12 Prestige Luxury 1930′s Auto
2. Cadillac Allante – Italian Styling by Pininfarina
3. Text Marketing Software Changes The Game