Unofficialbmw.com

[8bit]

At which point in the last 30-35 years do you think the general public started to see BMW and other German brands as superior to Cadillac, and which BMW models marked that transition

Caddy Seville (206 inches long, 4,300 lbs) $12,479 180 hp, 0-60 mph 11.5 Vs BMW 530i (190 inches long, 3,300 lbs) $9,187 176 hp, 0-60 mph 8.7 seconds.

Seville




&


e12 530i

[Henry]

Interesting question. I've always liked the design of that mid-seventies Seville.

I'm old enough to relate to your question. My first BMW ('72 2002tii)was purchased in 1975. Replaced a 5 yr. old 1970 Mustang with standard 5 litre, 4 speed, posi-rear coupe with 77k on the clock and in very nice condition.
I wanted a German car period. First choice was a 911 but even the cost of a used one was a bit too much...so tii it was. Rather then go on and on I'll simply say that the experience taught me to appreciate the precision and quality and performance. Also wanted my second BMW to be a new one...which I buy new 13 yrs. after selling the tii.

Early on...throughout the seventies...BMW was (IMO) a boutique brand. Maintenance biased, almost non-existent support network and, frankly, a demanding car to own.

I heard of BMW locking engineers inside a car and turning them loose on the western US desert in order to make the AC work. Look...this vehicle came onto us with standard transmissions and lousy AC or no AC at all during a time when, as today, Americans generally drive automatic trans., and (as I do) crave a powerful and well functioning AC.

However, Road and Track and Car and Driver extolled the virtues of the 2002 and the Bavaria sedan and the big coupe...and praised them non-stop. And don't ever underestimate the importance of the 1600 and 2002 to this company. It sold here, wasn't too costly and caught on. Very slowly things turned around. Why? Return buyers, very effective advertising (don't underestimate the power of an evolved cult of elitism), changing American tastes, and a very percise driving machine, and more younger Americans visiting Europe. I would, though, narrow this down to #1. Advertising/status buy #2 Return customers and #3 Improved product.

Finally...I recall an ad in Road and Track for the 2002 sometime around 1972. It went something like this...Picture of Roundel...copy read (paraphrase...and I'm quite serious about recollecting this): Have you seen this symbol before? Perhaps you were looking into it from the rear seat of your B-17 as it flew towards you on the FW 190.

Yeah. I remember that. Does anyone else here on the far side of about 50 flash on that ad? It appeared for a month or so and then was dropped.

Another ad from 1972 featured a 2002tii being driven down an alpine road...copy said our engineers also drive our cars. Both these ads were in Black and White. Very basic stuff.

And Hoffman in NYC first brought the cars into USA. He was (I believe) either forced to sell out by the company or something like that. Hoffman I think was the original importer of BMW and many other European as was called back then...sports cars. With no A/C or automatic transmissions and only the rare power window.

The odd thing is I still want a Caddie...with a Northstar V-8. For my elderly butter buns.

[scrat]

without doing the research i would think mid 80's. Thats when bmw started coming out with some awesome cars. Same time cady really started to go south. Especially diesel. I remember a lot of people would take out the vacuum pump put in a distributor put on an intake and carb and get rid of the diesel. They just had a lot of problems. especially with the smog. wow id take a 633csi any day to the caddy
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[8bit]

[LarrygP]

Cadillac went down, when GM bought in Roger Smith to run the company. The put a bean counter in charge. Forgot about quality, bottom line was all that mattered.
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Larry
'89 325i Cabrio (Sabrina)
176K

[8bit]

[donaldan]

I don't think there was a direct competition between the 2 brands especially in the early days. BMW targets a sport luxury market while Caddies are never meant to be sporty. Luxury, yes but sporty, no. Caddies are not engineered to be sporty. So each brand targets a different market. Fortunately for BMW, the sport luxury market grew while the generic luxury market of Caddies shrank. I don't agree to the premise that the beancounters at GM were at fault. In fact, it was the market planning process at GM that went to sleep and totally missed the changes taking place among the buying public's taste.

Obviously, with that, the public also clamored for quality because people began to keep their cars longer. American cars in general, lost out to the Japanese brands on that account. The Japanese cars simply are built better and last longer. Incidentally, the Germans are losing grounds to the Japanese on the quality issues in recent years so the Germans better watch out!
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Don

[panzerkeil302]

"Cadillac went down, when GM bought in Roger Smith to run the company"

You can only give smith 1/2 the blame....all politics aside-the UAW is also to blame.

In Korea, your average janitor in a factory makes .35cents/hour

In the United States, same janitor makes 50/hour.

The Union is making Ford pay it's workers til 2007 for doing nothing. Right or wrong, GM, Ford can not compete with leaner, more flexible companies, with lower overhead.

And that's capitalism. They're beating us at our own game, fair and square.

[LarrygP]

I am not a union man, however, during the seventies the US Worker was reviled as inept and inefficient. I argued at the time that the US Worker was just doing what management wanted. An example would be the $10 part that needed to be on the Pinto. The worker did not make that decision. This gave the Pinto a bad rep. I owned a Pinto, bought it new 1971, I had it for 12 years, it ran great. But the bad press killed it. I blame management as it is their job to steer and direct the company to quality, profitablity, and leadership. It seems to me that the US companies are always playing catchup with the competition. Lee Iaccoca resurrected Chrysler with innovative ideas, like the mini van. He was an engineer, he knew cars, and he knew what would sell.
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Larry
'89 325i Cabrio (Sabrina)
176K

[Henry]

Panxz writes: "In Korea, your average janitor in a factory makes .35cents/hour. In the United States, same janitor makes 50/hour... ...And that's capitalism. They're beating us at our own game, fair and square."

Competeing against .35 cent an hour labor is not what I can call competition. Even working at the minimum wage which is $5.xx per hour I can't imagine where the labor would sleep, what they would eat, and what they would wear. Not to mention health. Well, they could get sick and die. And please...don't hop on my bones with a ritewingrant about health care. I'm only saying that at 5 buck and a nickel or so per hour someone has difficulty buying dental floss. Or aspirin.

It isn't fair and life isn't fair. But that is just a rhetorical ploy. One of the issues here is that at 35 cents an hour or a dollar and hour or 4 dollars or 5 dollars an hour even I could beat an American manufacturer at his/her game. Of course, as the CEO I would'nt work for less then 10 million a year...hey, lets get real...make that 35 million a year. And benefits. And a generous retirement.

So what exactly do we have? Foreign manufacturing labor working for a dime on the dollar. And what does that mean? One thing it means is that manufacturing of some sort or other is virtually dead in the US of A. Or shrinking, that is. A constrictive manufacturing and industrial base. And that isn't even partisan. It's just what it is.

And I can't honestly blame all of this on "The Unions." Who on earth can compete against a manufacturing base that has as a base wage less then the equivalent of a good old American Candy Bar's worth of change as the baseline of an hour's wage.

Look...as I see it...and I know not too much of "Economics"...the 747 and the shipping container changed the industrial landscape. Suddenly it was relatively inexpensive to fill a container with bulk and air freight it to the US of A. And the seaborne container reduced dockside labor costs and shipping costs thus making trans ocean shipping timely and efficient. It's just the way it is.

As for the Caddie butter buns of a ride I crave...market segment stuff aside...how many vehicles does GM sell in the American market each year? And how many vehicles does BMW just manufacture each year? I don't believe there is a fair comparison here because they address different consumers. Just that BMW advertisement give the false impression that everyone lusts for and owns a BMW. In reality I believe GM and BMW are not what I'd call competitors.

David Halberstam, many years ago, wrote a really fine book about the Japanese and American auto industry. I forgot the title. It's a long book. Detailed and a long read. But he does touch upon the truths of the subject.

Remember, (I am showing my age) when the cost fuel went UP in 1973 and 1974 Datson (Nisson) and Toyota and Honda were standing in the wings with fuel efficient, fully loaded with no options necessary, very well made cars that Americans bought. GM/Ford/Chrysler continued to ignore this and continued on their own ignorant path which ignored rising fuel costs, tolerated lousy...make that really lousy workmanship...and passe auto designs. And that path was charted by management. And the lousy work was tolerated by managment and reinforced by intransigent union policy. And now, 30 years later...yes, thirty years later...we are still in the same sinking boat.

Now American auto manufacturers might produce a decent vehicle here and there. They might have wonderful spots of brilliance now and then. But the perception is otherwise. Still...some US cars are dogs. Other US cars are JD Powers above our BMW's on quality and build rating. It's kind of a $25,000 crap shoot on an American new car. Much less of a crap shot on a $25,000 Japanese car. As for BMW...just have deep pockets and really enjoy the ride and the concept. We're just out of this discussion (I believe) cause we're slightly irrational about our ride.

And all of this while Toyata, Honda and Nisson manufacture right here in the USA and continue to grow.

go figure.

PS...I guess not all Pintos got hit in the rear and blew the hell up. But I digress...

[panzerkeil302]

I'm not pro-union, or anti-union.

I'm not saying paying a worker .35cents/hour is humane...I'm not saying we should pay US workers 5/hour.

The bottom line is, capitalism is about freedom of choice...freedom to buy whatever product we want.

All the mechanics behind who provides the best product, who treats it's workers best, who has the best workers...they don't matter.

What matters is, the dollar...we vote with our green everyday, and everyday we vote to buy a shirt/socks/apples/toothpaste/diapers from China/Korea/Mexico where they have no unions, where the workers make nothing/per hour.

[Henry]

I understand. However, IMO the system of "Capitalism" is corrupted by competetion with .35 an hour (a random number I assume) labor. In a way the labor cost is not quite relevant to a discussion of competition...(and for the sake of focus and ignorance on my part I will not even touch the subject of "fair trade"). Why? Because I rarely find the affect of cheap labor passed down to me in the product. I could be living in a cloud here, however, the Mexican apples are pretty much the same cost or even more then the Colorado apples I buy, the clothing...well, I must look really hard to find a garment made in the USA...My shoes are made in the USA and I pay hundreds a pair but I always did and require really good shoes...and the cost of a Toyata is now more then the cost of an Impala so, in a nutshell, the benefit of cheap, make that subhuman cheap, labor (I know it costs less to live in Vietnam) is rarely (my experience) passed onto me in the form of a less pricey objet d'purchase.

I just can't think of .35 labor and $xx.xx labor in terms of competitive or capitalism.

Slavery isn't capitalism. And .35 an hour labor (if it really does exist) is sub-humane.

Panz...I know you wouldn't for any amount of profit employ someone for substandard wage. Not in 100 years. You aren't that kind of person.

I just unable to make a justifiable case for that kind of wage. To me it isn't capitalism (and not competition) at that hourly wage. It's something else...altogether.

[panzerkeil302]

http://www.nlcnet.org/resources/wages.htm

.23cents in China - .01cent in other places.

Right or wrong, it is what it is....it's why ford can't build a car with a 10year 100,000 mile warranty, and Kia can.

It's fair trade, it's capitalism doing what it does.

[8bit]

It's odd that the smaller Seville cost more than the larger 500ci Deville, that full sized car gave more Caddy for the cash. Maybe GM was preparing the way for the Cimarron. That was a nice little car

[scrat]

they were all ugly in my opinion. the only one i liked later was the cad sevile 32valve northstar system. i think around 1995 that was a nice looking cad. as for the others. anyone i ever knew to have one always had problems. until the mid 90's most american cars were known for one thing. As soon as they reached 100k you either junked them or planned on putting in a rebuilt engine. That just seemed like the life expectancy of most american cars. i once had a olds calais. 3.0 v6 at 85000 i was having the engine rebuilt due to bad connecting rod. 85000. back then i thought nothing of doing it. Today most people would freak out on having to put a new engine in at 85000. Same time most bmw from the 80's and 90's still have the same original engines in them with miles over 200k. I cant blame the american worker though. Its the american designer that screwed all this up. The american worker was just the guy on the line tightening bolts or putting the pieces together that someone else designed. The other problem was trying to deal with fuel injection with poor designed engines and trying to incooperate the smog emmisions.
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