Cadillac's New Boss: We're Going To Build A $250,000 Super-Caddy Someday

Joann Muller

Forbes Staff

If you’re going to dream, dream big.

Cadillac’s new president, Johann deNysschen, envisions a $250,000 ultra-luxury car in the brand’s showroom one day, a prospect that seems hard to fathom for a carmaker still struggling to find its footing among European rivals in the $40,000-$50,000 price range. 

But deNysschen, the former president of Audi and Infiniti, says with time, it can happen.

“It’s too early today for a $250,000 Cadillac, but in 15 years it won’t be,” he said in an interview at the Los Angeles Auto Show. “We have to earn our worth.”

In his first three months in Cadillac’s top job, deNysschen has already made some big moves: a plan to relocate the brand’s headquarters to New York and a new naming strategy for its model lineup, similar to the letters and numbers used by European luxury brands. At the L.A. show, he unveiled high-performance versions of the ATS-V sedan and coupe, which will go head-to-head with the BMW 3-series M sport.

The cars are offered with a six-speed manual transmission that includes a new feature Cadillac calls “no-lift shift.” Drivers will be able to keep their foot flat on the floor, rather than lifting off the accelerator to change gears.

It’s an apt metaphor for General Motors's GM -0.06% plan for Cadillac. In the interview, deNysschen outlined a product blitz that could more than double the size of Cadillac’s lineup by 2020, potentially adding at least three more sedans and three SUVs.

It starts with the CT6 sedan which goes on sale next year. It will compete with short-wheelbase versions of the BMW 7-series, Audi A8 and Mercedes S-class. But deNysschen noted that most of the sales of those European models are longer-wheelbase models, which creates room for Cadillac to add a larger, top-of-the-line model that will sell “well above $100,000.”

He called it a low-volume halo car that wouldn’t necessarily be profitable, but would generate pricing power for the rest of Cadillac’s lineup. In the old days, he noted, GM wouldn’t build such a vehicle if the business case didn’t ensure profits.

“The luxury rulebook is different. Some cars make money. Some cars make volume. Some cars make image.”

Cadillac also needs a new entry-level model, below the ATS, to compete with the new Mercedes CLA and Audi A3, $30,000 models that are bringing aspirational buyers to those brands.

deNysschen added, “There’s something wrong when an American luxury brand has just one crossover and one SUV and the Germans have so many you can’t keep track.” He’d like to add a large SUV between the existing top-end Cadillac Escalade and the mid-sized SRX, as well as a compact model to compete against hot sellers like the Audi Q5 and BMW X3 and a subcompact like Audi’s Q3 and BMW’s X1.

It’s a long list of needs that will require an investment of about $2.5 billion, but deNysschen says he has the support of GM Chief Executive Mary Barra and President Daniel Amman. “It’s going to take 10 years before we see significant change,” he said. “It will be the middle of the next decade before people get around to mentioning Cadillac among the world’s top luxury makers.”

The most important thing, he said, is for Cadillac to stick to its convictions and not resort to price-cutting as a way to move vehicles. “This mission has to be built on core product substance,” he said. “I will not incentivize these vehicles.”