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Cadillac and Audi Ham It Up in a Battle of the Hippest
From rss.businessweek There’s a subtle rivalry brewing in the luxury car business. Audi and Cadillac are both hamming it up with television advertising to make the case that they’re the hip antidote to stodgy traditional luxury (read: Mercedes). In recent ads, both of them have new commercials loaded with imagery painting luxury as cold and stuffy as they take a fun stab at old money. One of Cadillac’s newest ads depicts an older couple having an anniversary dinner at their long dining room table. Actor Laurence Fishburne intones, “blue-blooded, cold.” Cut to racy imagery: a motorcycle roaring down the highway, a young guy eyeballing a beautiful woman in a glass elevator. The ad eventually goes to a Cadillac CTS and Fishburne asks, “What happened to luxury? Where did the personality go?” The point, of course, is that Cadillac brings something new and edgy to the luxury market. The theme is “red-blooded luxury.” Audi takes it a step further. On one of the German brand’s newest ads is an obvious play off the classic Margaret Wise Brown kids’ book “Goodnight Moon,” with a vaguely creepy animated fox fur and other classic luxury items such as a well-coiffed French poodle and gold cuff links. “Goodnight outdated. Goodnight stuffy,” the ad says. “Good night old luxury and all of your wares.” Then we see a Mercedes sedan. Its lights go out. The ad concludes with a beauty shot of an Audi A8 sedan and we hear, “good morning, innovation. Good morning, unequalled inspiration.” Audi likes throwing down the gauntlet before its German rivals. The brand has taken on BMW several times. Audi actually staked its claim as the newest and coolest luxury brand several years ago with an ad that had an old rich man waking up to the grille of his big luxury car in his bed. It’s a knockoff of the horse’s head from “The Godfather.” So who has the better shout? Both brands are growing fast, Audi sales rose 23% last year and Cadillac was up 35%. Cadillac sells almost 50% more vehicles. But in terms of burnishing the brand as the coolest newcomer, Audi has the edge. Its average buyer makes more money. The A8 is a legitimate competitor to the Mercedes S-class and BMW 7-series flagship sedans. Audi’s A4, which is smaller than the Cadillac CTS, attracts nouveau luxe buyers. Cadillac is still working on cars to battle it out in those two vital market segments. Plus, Cadillac marketers readily admit that they are trying to expunge the image of old, stuffy Cadillac. You have to appreciate the moxie shown by both brands. Wise Audi: The New A8 Seeks Prestige, Not Big Volume
From rss.businessweek I sat down with Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen last week to chat about the brand’s plans for the U.S. market. As de Nysschen prepares to launch the new A8 sedan later this year, he had a few refreshing things to say. The first was that he thinks Audi should cap its growth in the U.S. He thinks that the sporty luxury brand should max out its U.S. sales volume somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 cars – almost twice what the brand sells in a typical year but still less than its chief rivals have sold in the market. His thinking is that luxury brands can become ubiquitous and lose their cachet; the next thing that goes is pricing power. Cadillac and Lincoln both lost their luster in the ’80s and ’90s in part because they were in a mad race to sell more cars than the other. By the end of the ’90s, both brands had cars everywhere. Having fleets of Town Cars and Devilles lined up with the taxis at airports probably didn’t help. His other push is to keep moving Audi upscale. Make no mistake, Audi wants growth. It is the top seller in Europe and China these days. In the U.S. this year, sales have surged 25%. Only Cadillac has outpaced its growth among luxury brands. But the brand would rather have prestige than gaudy sales numbers. Audi’s U.S. sales of 86,000 cars is less than half Lexus’s total. Take the new A8 that hits showrooms in November. Its starting price of $78,050 is about $2,000 more than the current car. Audi is loading up the car with a slew of new technology, like an 8-speed transmission that boosts fuel economy. The car will get 27 mpg on the highway, 4 mpg better than rival BMW’s ActiveHybrid 7i. It will also have a night vision system, a Bang and Olufsen sound system and, starting next year, a WiFi hot spot in the car. Later next year, the company will start selling the A7, a prestige coupe to compete with BMW’s 6-series. Bottom line, the brand is moving into more expensive models, not big sellers. That’s the kind of thinking that has pushed Audi into the top tier of luxury brands along with BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus. Cadillac Targets BMW in Super Bowl Ad
From driversdrive.com  Inside Line reports that the 2013 Cadillac ATS is targeting the BMW 3 Series directly with its 2012 Super Bowl ad. Most car manufacturers are using humor, such as Acura’s Jerry Seinfeld ad and Honda’s Ferris Bueller Super Bowl ad. Cadillac is going for the direct pitch saying the 2013 Cadillac ATS is better than the BMW 3 Series. The Cadillac ATS is seen driving on the “Green Hell” in Nurburgring, Germany, where it was developed to take on the BMW. Take a look: Photo: GM Permalink | Facebook | Twitter | Recent Headlines | RSS Feeds
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From autos.ca.msn New car every year since 1955 for Michigan man BELGRADE, Serbia – Why does a Yugo have a defroster on the rear window?To keep your hands warm while you push it.That’s just one of the “Yugo jokes” about the cheap and much-maligned subcompact that won notoriety for being one of the worst cars ever exported to the United States.Now, the last Yugo, once the pride of communist Yugoslavia’s automobile industry, will roll off its Serbian production line Thursday in the central town of Kragujevac.It will be missed here – but probably not in America.Soon after it hit the U.S. markets in 1986, selling for the bargain-basement price of just $3,990, the boxy Yugo was derided by American car magazines “as barely qualifying as a car” and “an assembled bag of nuts and bolts.”U.S. owners complained of frequent engine failures and transmission problems – with the manual gear sticks sometimes detaching and ending up in their drivers’ hands – in addition to passenger doors and trim parts going awol.When the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted crash tests of 23 compacts in 1986, the car with the worst results was the Yugo, with $2,197 worth of damage in slow speed crashes against a flat barrier.Still, over 100,000 Yugo GVs – standing for Great Value – were sold in the U.S. before Yugo America – the company that imported it – went bankrupt and Washington imposed economic sanctions on Belgrade for fomenting ethnic wars in the Balkans in 1992.In the U.S., Yugo has made several joke appearances in Hollywood blockbusters such as Die Hard 3. Artists in America also found inspiration in the flimsy tin-can structure, turning it into something more useful – like a queen size bed or a kitchen stove.When sales started plummeting in the late 1980s, some U.S. dealers tried to clear their stocks by throwing in a free Yugo with an Oldsmobile or a Cadillac.”Of course, Yugo was never a BMW or a Cadillac, but I think most Americans did not know how to appreciate it,” said Momcilo Spajic, a proud Serbian owner of a Yugo – one of the nearly 800,000 produced by the Zasava, or Flag, factory since 1980.”This is driving in its most natural form. You feel every bump, squeak and jolt, and one can enjoy the sweet smell of gasoline and exhaust fumes,” he said. “No car can replace it.”Although it was a flop in the U.S., Yugo enjoyed iconic status in the former Yugoslav republics – something like the Volkswagen beetle in West Germany or the Trabant in East Germany.It was also exported to East European states, but not in the same numbers as to the U.S. mostly because Zastava could not meet huge domestic demand.Zastava is finally stopping the production of Yugo because its new owners, Italy’s Fiat, plans to start the assembly of its own compact, the Punto.As Zastava’s workers prepared to bid farewell to their greatest commercial success so far, they have attached a handwritten sign on the tailgate of the last Yugo on the production line.It reads: “Cao, nema vise” – “Goodbye, no more.” Test Drive: New engine improves 2012 Cadillac SRX
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Bill Jacobs Cadillac is excited to receive the new 2013 Cadillac ATS and 2013 Cadillac XTS cars with CUE Technology as seen at the Chicago Auto Show (PRWeb February 17, 2012) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/2/prweb9179751.htm Bill Jacobs Cadillac is excited to receive the new 2013 Cadillac ATS and 2013 Cadillac XTS cars with CUE Technology as seen at the Chicago Auto Show (PRWeb February 17, 2012) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/2/prweb9179751.htm Motorcycle Accident Attorneys Orange County
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