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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    I think Marchionne wants to sell the company, probably would be a good pay out for him. Mazda and those little guys don't have that much cash, Mazda has $3 billion cash on hand. VW on the other hand has $31 billion of cash, plus Piech is worth over $5 billion, although I imagine most of that is his 10% of Porsche, I don't know how much cash he could raise to buy in. VW could buy out FCA and take ownership.
  2. smk4565
    The Agnelli family may want to keep Maserati, they surely want to keep Ferrari. Even still, Ram sells a lot of trucks and they have a good diesel. Jeep is the jewel. VW could do well with FCA because WV isn't truck or SUV heavy, Jeep doesn't compete right now with VW or Audi products. They could merge their compact car platforms into one to save money, that is where their margins are bad.
  3. smk4565
    A merger with GM could work. GM has no minivan, so that would be easy to slide the Town and Country to Chevy and/or Buick. The Chrysler brand could be killed off. Dodge gives that cheap performance brand, and Dart, Charger, Challenger is enough really, as Chevy would have the other sedans. Jeep sells and makes profit, no need to mess with what works. GMC truck could be killed off because they have Ram trucks, and Ram is different than Chevy. Cadillac could share some stuff with Alfa Romeo and Maserati to make a luxury trio. I think Ferdinand Piech should buy 25% of the FCA stock, and merge them with VW to make his super auto union. It would be a much better feather in his cap than the failed Phaeton.
  4. smk4565
    Maybe the Wreath and Crest, errr Crest just can't pull buyers in regardless of what the specs are. Because the Lexus IS outsells the ATS pretty easily, (4488 to 1500 in March) and that is a sedan only car with gas only engines. The Lexus doesn't really beat anything in the class in fuel economy or power or acceleration or handling.
  5. smk4565
    CT6 is the largest, most expensive Cadillac, so it is their flagship until something else comes along. Just like the RLX is Acura's flagship car. Some companies just have a lousy flagship, such as Acura or Volvo. I think Cadillac thought CT6 would be able to go against the Germans, but the Germans got better, and Cadillac didn't get their DOHC V8 through development in time, so they had to backtrack a little. When Ed Whiticare was CEO in 2011 or whenever, they talked about the omega platform and a full size Cadillac to go against the S-class. $12 billion buys 6 cars really, Mercedes spends $2 billion on a car sometimes, they spend $1 billion on the mid-cycle refresh of the E-class and it looks like they didn't do much to it, money goes fast. If Cadillac gets 6 cars that is: ATS, CTS replacements (CT3, CT5 or whatever) XT5 XT3 small crossover XT7 large crossover CT8 That is 6 cars and the money is gone, the XTS and ELR aren't getting killed off so that saves money. And I didn't even factor in a new Escalade, but they won't need one until after 2020, and most of that cost is from the Tahoe anyway. That still leaves Cadillac with no sports car, just 4 sedans (+ coupe of CT3/CT5) and 4 crossover/SUV.
  6. smk4565
    BMW may have lost some touch due to the electric steering and bigger vehicles, but they BMW buyers keep coming back. I seem to remember a Car and Driver comparison and they said the ATS had the best chassis and best handling but the 0-60 time and fuel economy were worse than the BMW, and C/D didn't like the 6-speed automatic transmission or the CUE system. The ATS doesn't do enough other things well to topple the Germans. Advertising and marketing are a problem, but so is image. Cadillac still has a lousy image with a lot of buyers. They could make the ATS out handle the Z06, it still won't help it get sales, the rest of the car needs to exceed what the Germans are doing to get people to look at it.
  7. smk4565
    I am not a fan of high belt lines, and a lot of cars do it, some are really bad like a Chrysler 300. I like having a more open feeling and being able to see out of the car, something that older cars seem to be better at compared to new ones because of safety regs. They should probably scrap CUE and just buy something from Apple or Android. I miss the wreath, the old logo looked better. But if they want younger buyers to buy the ATS, they should put 4 rings on the grille.
  8. smk4565
    They could probably sell a luxury truck but they even said it would be like 1,000 units a month. It would never get volume because Mercedes buyers are mostly car buyers. It isn't their line of business, but I am sure they could build a better truck than the F150 if they were so determined to. Their cars are 100 times better than what Ford makes. I'd rather see them stick to cars though and dominate there.
  9. smk4565
    I see them making a mid-size pickup with a Sprinter-like interior and utilizing 4Matic and the turbo diesel in the Sprinter. This will be a global market truck, not meant to be a luxury vehicle. I bet if they do an American version it will be along the lines of the V-class or Vito, whatever it is, and the Sprinter, more for commercial use.
  10. smk4565
    There should never be a mid-engine Corvette. But a mid-engine Cadillac sports car like the Cien is a good idea. They won't sell many but they don't need to, it is a vanity project. There should be a new generation Northstar V8, maybe no name or a new name, but they need a V8.
  11. smk4565
    Cadillac needs a sports car badly. They have no brand image because all they make are 4 door sedans and SUVs. They need some excitement in there.
  12. smk4565
    MB-USA if they decide they want the pickup was thinking they would make it more luxury oriented and sell it for near $50k. I am not a fan of a Mercedes pickup, but I can see why they want to do it, the pickup market globally is huge, and they could probably build a better pickup than anyone else if they set their minds on it. Mercedes has solid range of diesels, they have high torque V8s, 4Matic, a 9-speed auto, adjustable height air suspension, etc. The tooling is all there. My fear is this would distract from core business lines of C, E, S-class.
  13. smk4565
    The 5-series is sedan only in the USA, unless you want to count the Gran Turismo hatch which they hardly sell any of. The 6-series holds the coupe and they split the sales numbers out. 5-series sales were up 32% to 5,100 last month, the CTS was down 48% to 1,500. That would seem to prove BMW outselling the CTS 3 to 1. The 3/4 Series had 14,830 sales last month, even if 4800 were coupes (1/3 take rate), that is still 10,000 sedans to the 2,000 sedans the ATS sold. So BMW is winning at 5-1 ratio there. I would question Johan though on where are the other body styles, where are the diesels, where are the hybrids? They just keep making sedans with turbo 4s and V6s. The CT6 has been in development at least 3 years, they couldn't develop a TT V8, a diesel v6 or plug-in hybrid drivetrain for it during that time?
  14. smk4565
    Big luxury sedans usually have sedate styling, but I also imagine the people buying an A8 3.0 or 740i or Equus don't care much about driving engagement or handling. So Cadillac is selling weight savings and handling to a group of buyers that don't care about it. Look within Cadillac's own brand, the Escalade is their biggest hit and it is obese with a big V8 and flashy styling. That is what Americans want. They built the ATS and CTS lighter than the 3 and 5 series and it made no difference, the 3-series is selling better than ever.
  15. smk4565
    Well obviously it isn't an S-class competitor, the other Germans and Lexus are hardly competing with it, the S-class is the king daddy. And I'd venture to guess very few people are buying the S-class for 0-60 time, even though it is fast, I don't think that is why they get sales. I see Cadillac trying to sell the CT6 to people that would otherwise buy an A7, CLS, Jaguar XJ or Maserati Ghibli, which is to say people that want something sportier and more powerful than a normal A6 or E-class. Problem is, the CT6 is larger than those cars, doesn't look sporty, and has the same engines basically a CTS has. So why spend $20k more for a CT6 over a CTS for the same engines, and similar look. The CLS gets the price premium over the E-class because it has sporty styling and a twin-turbo V8 (although a V6 is available now). I just don't think the CT6 will sell because they won't be able to carve out a segment of buyers or convey what it is targeting in the advertising. I would have rather seen them make it look radical like the Ciel or something sporty, but instead it is another 4-door sedan, and it isn't what the market wants in a big luxo barge sedan. Cadillac already has loads of slow selling sedans, they played it safe with this car. It should have been a V8 to V12 tank like the S-class, or bring back '59 Eldorado fins for all I care, at least it would be radical.
  16. smk4565
    I bet the CT6 2.0T is there for the livery market. The car is big and they can keep the cost down with the 4-cylinder base model. Really this should be Buick LaCrosse or Park Ave market and Cadillac should leave it, but I doubt they do.
  17. smk4565
    I doubt the CT6 is going to post sub 4 second 0-60 times with the twin turbo V6. The CTS-V is in that 3.8 second territory, the CT6 isn't going to run that fast. And it may weigh 3700 lbs in base trim with a 4 cylinder, but add a TT V6, AWD and you are probably at 4,000, then add power recline rear seats, 30 speakers, etc and I bet it is like 4200 lbs. I suspect more like 4.5 seconds 0-60 like a CTS V-sport does. What I don't get is what the car is positioned against. Everyone talks weight and sportiness, but it doesn't look like a sports car. If it looked like a Maserati Ghibli or A7 or CLS, I could see the point of marking the sporting credentials. But the CT6 looks like a big CTS, it looks more like an executive luxury sedan, not a sports car. We heard about how the ATS and CTS were lighter than the 3-series and 5-series, but ATS and CTS sales are in the tank, and BMW keeps surging forward.
  18. smk4565
    According to Autoguide and Autoblog stories, GM makes $654 per car, vs $994 per car at Ford and $2,726 per car for Toyota. Since all 3 have similar global sales volume, you can see how favorable things look for Toyota from a profitability standpoint. Audi is estimated to generate 40% of VW's total profit. Porsche makes $23,000 profit per car, Bentley $21,000 and Audi $5200, but obviously more volume than Porsche or Bentley. I couldn't find Cadillac's profit per car, but I found 2 articles saying in 2014 they had the highest incentive per car of all 35 brands in the USA, $6,400 per car through August and $7200 per car in October 2014. With that level of incentive, they can't be making Audi-like profits, Audi spends $3,000 per car incentive. If Audi makes $5,200, but Cadillac spends another $3-4k in incentives, Cadillac is probably making more like $2,000 per car. Even if Cadillac runs at a Mercedes-like margin of 8% (which I doubt they do with those incentives) at an average sale price of $52,000 they are making $4,100 per car, but only selling about 250k cars a year globally. BMW and Audi also have ATP of $52,000, Mercedes has an ATP of $59,000 and all make about $5k per car, but are selling 1.5 million cars a year. With 6 times the sales volume, and also high margins, the Germans are raking it in.
  19. smk4565
    Haha, nice find. I just did a google search, a pair of W221 bi-xenon lights with the cover and all is $3100. Replacement parts are always inflated and jacked up though to rip people off.
  20. smk4565
    I don't remember ever saying it cost $1200 for a S-class headlight. I know the 600 Grosser from 1963-1981 has ridiculously priced replacement parts, like $15,000 for power window switches. On the sales front, Cadillac is not in 4th place, they were in 6th place in the USA last month. March 2015 luxury sales: BMW 34,310 Mercedes 32,300 Lexus 31,054 Audi 17,102 Acura 14,760 Cadillac 13,756 Infiniti 12,525 Johan should have stayed at Audi, he would have had $28 billion rather than $12 billion to chase BMW and Mercedes. But he would still have the same problem of having to work off the VW parts bin and deal with VW bean counters, rather than GM beancounters.
  21. smk4565
    The CTS has been on sale for 13 years so I hope people know about it by now. But when you change the name again to CT4 or CT5, then you have to re-teach people the name of the car. The new "Dare Greatly" ads also give no mention of a car name, so it could be hard to get people to know what an ATS or CT6 is if the name of the car isn't in the advert. 3500 cars a year means this car will be a money loser, and we know hod the GM bean counters don't keep money losers around. Even at $5,000 profit per car, that is $17.5 million a year of profit, for a car that cost several hundred million to engineer. If they get an Audi-like 10% margin and $7,000 profit per car and sell 5,000 of them, it is still only $35 million times 6 years on market, is $210 million profit. This is where the S-class has a huge advantage over it's segment, at roughly $10,000 per car profit and 100,000 cars sold a year, it is a $1 billion in profit every year.
  22. smk4565
    This thing hasn't changed much and it has been on the market for a while. I think it looks a better now though, I thought some of the lines on the original were a bit funky, this looks more softened and a cleaner design. I am surprised the 2.5 liter four hasn't replaced the 2.4 liter to give it a power bump.
  23. smk4565
    I don't think the current crop of McLarens are good looking cars. The MP4-12C was a little boring, the newer ones are a little radical, and odd, but not really good looking super cars. The McLaren F1 still looks great today, I'd rather have an F1 than any of their current crop of cars. Of course an F1 now is probably a $2-3 million car and rising, that is a legendary vehicle.
  24. smk4565
    DeNysschen hasn't really done anything yet, but talk a lot, and sales keep going down. Infiniti is doing nothing with their new naming scheme, and that was about all he did for them. Audi is doing better now without him, than they did with him. I am not convinced he is the guy to lead the turn around. I think he is too arrogant and underestimates Mercedes and BMW. It is good that GM is spending $12 billion, but I think Johan might just squander it. Really Cadillac should be giving $2-3 billion a year forever.
  25. smk4565
    I thought Jaguar grille before Bentley when I first saw it. But why would Bentley even care what Lincoln does, Lincoln could be out of business in 5 years. But so many cars copy others, it would be nice if there was more originality in car design.
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