The closest approach to a monopoly in the

automobile industry today is Cadillac's

velvety grip on the luxury-car market. It
was acquired through an amazing combination of luck, product quality-and an unrelenting appeal to the American ego.
... . .: ....

The

Cadillac
Phenomenon
by William H. Whyte Jr.

If ever a fat and happy group of businessmen forgathered,

it was the Cadillac executives and dealers who met at the
Waldorf last November to talk over strat egy. At the climactic :moment, the house lights dimmed, the curtains parted,
and there, slowly revolving under the spotlights, was the
19$5 Sixty Special Sedan ($5,292.07, f .o.b. Detroit). Like
priests worshipping before some ancient deity, the dealers
gaied in rapt silence for a moment. Then, perhaps triggered
by :a, highlight caught in the Florentine Curve of the rear
wiJidow, or perhaps it was out of some common impulse
of !gratitude, suddenly, spontaneously, they broke into an
applause charged with genuine emotion. There it was:
nineteen gorgeous feet, two and a half solid tons of Arnericari Dream-and all thejrs! .
What they were seeing, as well they knew, was not just
a dar but "an institutiori. Probably never before has one
material object become so much the focus for so many of the
aspirations that propel the American ego.
._Polls have indicated th:it at least one out of two Americans
would buy a Cadillac be~ore any other car if they had the
money. G.M. itself is not 'sure just what the potential market
is; last year the Cadillac division built .a record 123,734
ca~s, yet at year end had 90,000 untilled orders . .
"" df the million and a Mlf cars sold in the $3,200-and-over
class in the U.S. in the last five years, 30 to 40 per cent were
Cadillacs. In the first eight months of last year, 73,715 Cadillacs were sold, practically as many as all the big . Chryslers
(4i,074) , Lincolns (25,583), and big Packards (8,298) put

l 06

FORT1JNE fbruory

I QSS

t ogether. More of the popular Series 62 Cadillacs were sold

(57,943) than Buick Roadmasters (44,111).
._The 800,000 Cadillacs on the road constitute a gold standard for the nation's used--car lots. The poor man's Cadillac .
sometimes is a Cadillac, and in some working-class neighbor- .
hoods Cadillacs outnumber any other make.
"" "Cadillac" has been ftrmly integrated into the language
as a symQol. Newspapers, despite the old taboo against using
.brand .names in news columns, use this one all the time, e.g.,
JUST COULDN'T TRANSLATE HIS LOVE INTO CADILLACS.

._The jokes about Cadillac are legion. (First man: What

kind of car are you going to get? Second man: What else?)
It has got to be such a staple of humor, as a matter of fact,
that radio and TV programs sponsored by the competition
are in constant peril from Cadillac jokes. "Some downfall
that girl had," quipped a comedienne on 'the Ed Sullivan
show. "Her downfall was a mink coat and a Cadillac!" Sponsor Lincoln-Mercury was not amused .
._ Finally, as dealers like to observe, almost everybody sooner
or later will ride in a Cadillac whether he likes it or not; '''
90 per cent of the hearses sold in the U.S. are Cadillacs.
;;;
.~

The showmen

:~~

:A
How did it all happen? To make the obvious point..that ;~

Cadillac is a magnificent hunk of machinery does not ex-

plain the phenomenon: it is clear that Cadillac's popularity ~
is out of all proportion to the mechanical differences be- i:
tween it and other makes. Quality must precede pr estige, "j

. Pain ti ngs by L emuel p. LA:ne

i;("

ij
;.;:.

~:

~~~;
;::;~;.:
;5~: .

f{~f-course, and part of Cadillac's popularity can be attributed

g~~ supeib engineering. So, too, can it .be attributed in part
:)to coincidence an d plain luck. But to a large degree Cadillac
~{bas become an inst itution because the Cadillac management
f~has worked deliberately to make it one. In a marketin g
tc;~tr~tt.R!!'-v beautifully attuned to the vast social changes that
taking place in the U.S., Cadillac has perfect ed a
effective method of mass-merchandising a qualsymbol. From t h e design of the car to the advertising of
the Cadillac approach has b een a triumph of selling and
In this " mass" success, as will be seen , may lie pitfalls.
so many Cadillacs on the road, some observer s think,
path is wide open for a less " ordinary" car. Significantly,
For d Motor Co. plans to market within a year an elegant
with a price tag of about $10,000. Ford,' in effect,
a $20-million bet that ther e is a vacuum to be filled

the prest ige-car market.

But Cadillac Gener al Manager Don Ahrens is bothered
at all by the "ordinary'' tag. Why, he ask s, should he be?
year his dealers grossed $980 million, and since they
to give away none of the list price in "long" trade-ins,
enjoyed an operating profit of about $45 million-:-<>r 5
cent, more than twice the rate f or all a uto dealers. The
division, with some $400 million to $500 million of
sales, h as beEm doing r ather handsomely too-indeed,
were an independent compan y, it would r ank among
hundred largest corpora tions in the country. N ot less
2fl.lJ~odud;i011, but mor e, is in order, Ahrens :figures; last N occc:1.,uw"" he put his Detroit plant on two shifts a nd announced
for 1955 he was going after 150,000, count them , Cadilsales.

to the "classics"
year s ago neit her Cadillac nor any other luxurymaker would have dreamed of. such a goal. In the early
t he luxury-car mer ch andising was st ill aimed at

a small upp_e r-income class. L eaf through some old FoRTUNEs

of the era ~nd the ads tell t he st ory-there, next to t h e custom-tailoring ads, is the big Lincoln at the Maryland Hunt
Cup, a Packard limousine coming out of the dxiveway of
J. Pierpont soniebody's estate; or there is the proud boast
that "once again Cadillac announces that it is lim iting production of the V-16 to two hundred cars." Occasionally the
ads would beckon n ewcomers into the field, but generally
they implied t hat their cars were r eserved for -the rich, and
if anyone didn't get the point he had only to look at the p rice
tag. Today the average price of all Cadillacs sold is only 1.7
that of the average price of all cars sold; in 1930 Cadillacs
were four times as expensive.
In retrospect, the early Thirties were the Golden Ag e of
the great ''classic" cars. The economic underpinning-s of
that r est r icted market had already been knocked asunder ,
however, and one by one the big cars felL Pierce-Arr.ow went
out of business in 1935; Lincoln production dwindled to a
f ew thousand cars a year , and the company turned to the
cheaper Zephyr, dropping its big K line alt ogether in 1940.
Packard kept on, b ut only at the price of down grading the
Packard name; whe1e Cadillac had given a separa te name,
LaSalle, to its low-priced line, Packard bestowed its own
name on a low-priced line of sixes and eights.
Cadillac hadn 't been doing very well either, but in 1936,
just about the time much of the competit ion was limping off
the field, General Motors put Nick Dreystadt in charge of
Cadillac. Dreystadt, a German-born ex-mechanic, set to
work pruning the line of the V-12's and V-16's and invested
heavily in cost-cutting production facilities. Meanwh ile
Cadillac's designers were getting in stride. In the 1938 Sixty
Special (Cadillac's intermediat e-price sedan) they had come
u p with a design that foreshadowed the postwar "hardtop" styling, and many of its features were subsequent ly
iitted into the other Cadillacs. By la te 1940 Dreystadt
had his package ; wit h the cheapest model down to $1,345,
he discontinued the LaSalle and began merchandising

FOlUNE

..J>,_., 1~55

}07

Cadillac to a vastly expanded market. In 1941, the last full

production year before World War II, Dreystadt came out
with another major model change. Sales, which had never
exceeded 40,000, soared to 60,000.
After making tanks for four years, Cadillac picked up
where it had left off. It was in a beautiful position. It had
a large following or contented wartime owners talking up
Cadillac durability, and a high-acceptance car with which
to resume production. Well before the end of World War II
Cadillac had set a postwar goal of 100,000 cars a year. Despite materials allocation, there would be enough steel, for
General Motors had decided that if there were going to be
more customers than cars, it might as well be generous with
the division that could r eturn the most dollars per pound
of steel.
The competition was not prepared for the onslaug ht coming up. Selling cars in the postwar was easy, but at a time
1\hen the market would take anything, these companies
largely missed their chance to build up an enthusiastic corps
owners. Chrysler, Packara, a nd Lincoln were saddled
with designs that hadn't caused any noticeable stampede
b,efore the war, and they were slow to retool for new ones.
In 1948 and 1949 they did bring out new models, but the
public took no particular fancy to these either.
; And Cadillac never gave them a chance to catch up. It
brought out a completely red.esigned car in 1948 and the
pUblic loved it: The following year Jack Gordon, who had
Sl.lCceeded Dreystadt as general manager in 1946, introduced
has overhead-valve, high-compression engine and with it
a( persuasive "economy" story. When sales manager Don

of

108

FORTUN E Febm v y 1055

Ahrens succeeded Gordon in 1950, the pace continued.

had the benefit of such G.M. cost-spreading devices as
"C" body shell that Cadillac shares with Buick; on his
however, he went on to spend as much on subtle changes
some manufacturers spent for complete change-overs:
laying out $32 million for a major model change in 1954,
example, Ahrens spent an additional $18 million on
alter ations for the '55s (cost of changing the side .... ,_,u..u;o;
of the 1955 model: $3,500,000) . All in all, between 1946
1955 Cadillac put out something like $160 million for
dies, and plant improvement.

The newcomers
So much for the management decisions that
to Cadillac's ascendancy. During all this time, howeve1,
lot of things were happening outside Detroit that
equally important to Cadillac's success. Most important,
new kind of consumer market was emerging. The new
rich-butts of so many Cadillac jokes- attracted the
attention, but the significant arrivals on the postwar s
were the new well-to-do. Each year additional thousands
consumers were b eing elevated into the $25,0
income brackets. Furthermore, while taxes were
off top-bracket incomes, they also stimulated a growth
" business expense" perquisites, and a further, if less
able, increase in the number of people who were able
enjoy the good life.
For psychological as well as economic reasons, many
these people had an affinity for Cadillac. In a society
their own and others' positions had been shifting so

No. 1 salesman is
v-Iour-ve:ar-.ota Gener&l ManAhrens. H e a cq).lired his
the public tast e early; he
to be a car salesman himself,
in the early Thirties ran up
a record as head of CadilNew York retail branch. In
he became Cadillac's sales
and i n 1950 became top
phone on the left gets
wolrKo m:: Ahrens claims he
22,000 owners personally,
i s seldom too busy to keep
happy with a little chaffer.

of happiness,
has been writing
advertisin g copy for
twenty-five years, but it is
World War II that he has
the "symbol of achieveapproach . Though the
is heavily p sychological,
doesn't bother w ith "depth
or su ch; he finds that
talking to owners--or better
driving his own Cadillac-is
inspiration he needs. "I
a mechanism," lie
"I sell a stat e of mind."

needed a fix~a visible symbol that would affirm, to

as much as others, where they had got to, and
it would be from here on in.
,v""'"u"" m1ght have been a beneficiary of this need, whatits advertising strategy ; since the Cadillac seemed to
the best car around,. people probably would have made
of it whether Cadillac had asked them to ot not.
point is that Cadillac did. Once it recognized the craving
success symbol, it did more than accept this as a plus
; it went on to make the exploitation of the cr aving
., basis of its whole postwar market '&pproach.
great many people, of course, buy .Cadillacs for other
than to prove they've just made the grade. But these
Cadillac reasoned, are no gr eat problem and once
Y!'l-uu'-' gets them, they stay with Cadillac (74 per cent of
. .Cadillac sales are to previous Cadillac buyers) . If the

was to widen its market, thought Jim Adams, head

. . its advertising agency, MacManus, John & Adams, the
to go .after was someone else: the man on his way up.
Cadillac people agreed.
psychological warfare began. Adams, a large, genial
who looks every inch the contented Cadilla c owner,
. a thoroug hgoing elementalist. There would be no truck
motivation resear ch ; Adams already lrnew just where
belly was. He was going to merchandise Cadillac as "a
of life." He fig ured it might take an "incubation period"
two years to warm up prospects, and, since producwas still limited, possibly a lot of them wouldn't be able
a Cadillac when they did get warm. But it was the long
that Adams was playing f or, and the more people who

".'W'='-"'e v~""

drove themselves crazy f or want of a Cadillac, the more

fixed Cadillac would be as a symbol.
For ..some Madison Avenue tastes Adams' pitch 0 the
American. ego was much too blatant ("brutal," "imixpressibly vulgar") . Blatant or n o, it was to be a virtual primer
in the old-fashioned virtues of directness and consistency,
and it helped define for the whole Cadillac organization the
m ain line of attack. Adams indulged in practically no
"factory talk" about mechanical features. Instead; he told
a story. It was a simple story, and a man ambitious t o show
the J oneses where they could head in did not have to r ead be~
tween the lines for the moral of it.
Here, abridged from a collection of Adams' ads, is the
way the Cadillac story goes.
Let's say i t w a.s thirty-one years ago, on a beautiful morning in June. A boy stood by a rack of papers on a .busy street
and heard the friendly horn of a Cadillac. "Keep the
chan ge," the driver smiled, as he took his paper and rolled
out into the traffic. "There," thought the boy, a.s he clutched
his coin, "is the car for me!"
And since this is America, where dreams make sense in
the heart of a boy, he is now an industrialist_H e fw,s fought
- without interruption-for the place in the world he wants
his family to occupy. F ew would deny him some taste of the
fruits of labor. No compromise this time! T he papers are all
in order ... and the car of his dreams is waiting for him~
I t's his!
I t's J.unetime-and the top is down-and he's going halfway up the hill, to a spot where a lane strays into the wildwood and he can glimpse the top of a fieldstone chimney
Text continued page 171,
Overleo.f, a gallery of f amotts A merican luxury ca.1s

l\ Gallery of Distinguish

1923 Pierce-Arrow--Coupe

For year,; Pierce-Arr ow's fender-mounted hea dlights

were a mark of prestige. In 1935, uncushioned by a
lower-pri~e d line, PiercccArr O\V went :mt of business.

1928 Rolls-Royce-Riviera To'UI-n Car

The U.S. marketlooked so good to Rolls-Royce in the

T wenties that it set up a plant i n Spnngfield,
Massachusetts. The depression closed i t dO\"ffi.

:.

1932 Lincoln- Dietnch Convertib~e Sen

1IO

FO K:TUNE f~r....~-.,..,..., lOSoCi

This is one of t he famous Lincoln "KB" models. For

many "classic car" fanciers civilization to.ok a bad
tur n with their passing in. 1940.

can Motorcars

1.939 Packard Twelv e--Di etrich Sport Phaeton

1940 L i'ncoln

Continen~oupe .

1955- Cadillac-"75" Imperial L imousine

In the Twenties and earl:~ Thirttes Packards . dominat ed the luxury field. "Ask the Man Who Owns
One," Packard suggested confidently.

The Continental, produced between 1939 and 1948,

is s till con sidered by many the m ost beautiful of
cars. Ford is readying a s uccessor.

This eight-pasSenger car (price, equipped: $7,040 ) is

today t he king of the limousine market . Last year
1,500 were sold, many to _corporations.-

.FOnu NE f' ~"'""'

1955

I ll

Cadillac
continued f rom p age 109

t!bo-ve the t rees. The family uyJ.es

out with the final voice of confirtMiti-o n. " H i there, neighbor, isn 't
it. a lovely day?"
T her e's the fi,-.~t t rip to the offi<:c

-with

c~

wai ting delegation to ad,mite

hi:; dwir:e. H f"ll get t hose qnit:k;

ghmN:;< of a.pprOJ;fl l IJw,t i dl him
the de,rn he d;e!w?.e,cl f'or so ma n y
years is stillin the hea1ts of others.
Let him anir e a t the do or of a
di~tingui.~hed

hotel or a fa-m atts

re.>t awmit ... and he has t he cou-

tesy that goes with l'espect. "Here

is a ?nan," the' Cadillac says- a!1tto8t a., plai... ly as t he wor<
ls a re
lt<ritte" h!<re- -"who has earned 'the
!'ight to sit at this wheel."

Here's the nearest thing

to Automatic Scrap Metal Baling!

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press built to take t he punishment of baling scrap metal consistently day-in and day-out ... bale-after-bale, but you also
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below) is a simple 1-2- 3 continuous operation.

,.

~~!l!!

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1-Skip Pan LOADS charging bo:x:. 2-Skip Pan returns

co loading position w hile Auxiliary Compression Door
CRUSHES scrap . 3--As Compression Door returns to uptight posicion, charging box door closes ... scrap is BALED
and ejected. As each cycle ends another begins.
Without q uestion, Dempstec-Balesrers are the simplest,
!JlOSt efficient presses baling scrap metal today! And you
have six to choose from-three standard and three high speed
~odels chat turn our high density bales in capacities to m eet
~ny requirement up to 10 tons per hour. Write t o us for complete informacion. A product of Dempster B rothers, Inc.

Sold In: Canada by W . P. Fcsvorite

Compa~y of Canada, Ltd., 418
Main Sfreet, E., Homjlto, Ontario
Mfg.ln;Canoclo by Hami lton Bridge
Co111 pa~y, Ltd., HCimilton, O ntario

Representotives in principal cities throughout the

United Stofes, Canoda, and foreign couotries . .There's
one near by to serve you promptly.

DE.MPSTER BROTHERS
42o DEMPSTER BLDG., KNOXVILLE 17, TENNESSEE

174

FORT 0NE ftl:r'"'l' 1955

!.

Peace of mind

drive them t razy," Adams

ha ppily, "to get thei r foot on
accelerator."

Man economizing
Ther e is, of cour se, one
disadvantage in the symbol
p eal: What would the n
think ~ Tl!e m an shou lcl OWT~ a
ilhc. Ib:s rwcomplishments
him to it. Bu l he feels that if
11nrdw,,u l " Cadillac, some of'
jrie1d~

might think him

t1:o1.ts. S everal years ago the

:Jg emen L wa s distressed to
th:tt the execut ives of a largPant e company WC\re not
Cadilla c~ out of fear of the
h ol<lers. Simibrly, rep orts w eut,
ecuti>es in other t!rms were
constrained hy fear of the boss.
To eombat t his, Ada ms took
otlen~ive. IN avllig the white

er at lh e foolish <Uld pusilllan,im(

people who n eedlessly
themselves of a Cadillac,

Month aft er month, year after

year, tb:e ads have hammered away
at the t heme--reward, earned,
dream; aehiev<!ment, drcan1, .June,
earned, admiration, CADILLAC ! . actually eost mor e. I<'
Wha tevc1 the w ixtUle, there i~ always one dominant thought : if
you've earned it, clm1't hcsitatt' ! Occasionally the d iet geto too rich f.or
p opular <consump tion and there
have b~en flurries of m ail- s~.ying year ~ aved in gas would
don't pull that eam ed-it stuff on u s, fling. What the ads do,
the biggest gangster in town owns a. -provide the prosped with a
Cadillae. Adams eunfcsses, "We lay pr emise that can be masq
low for a. while then, " but before a.s th e ma jor premise; don't
long he is reaching f or t he needle wrong, he can te-ll his
again. ( Tentathe ads f or '5!l: " Onl y
prc~tige stuff is striC>tly
Thirty-Five, But He's ~larned l t." bilds, the real r ea,on be
"To the Class of 1!JS4." )
C:ldillac wa~ economy,
F r equen tly Ada m~ does dwell
on sn<h non-symbolic aspects of
Ca rlilla(; as its ease of driving.
FJven here, however, the mai n
theme is nevcl' very far away. . Lw.,P.n t he <'.:>:clu~ive and the
Cadilla c driving is serene driving;
cratic. On the one hand, it
It is a. p roved t ltera.pett.tic. I t offei-o
chandise.o; the join-the-clu b
pear;e of mind. It makes you f ee! and \l'hat adman Adams
good. Il even eha.nges yom personsale;; ma.nager -Jim Roehc
ality. You tip better; you acquiJ:e
deliver. Dealers' salesmen
a ;,ense of noble.,se oblige. Let the . br eak tm y legs running a f ter
other fellow dash past at the light. tomers these days, bu t on ce a ..
The r ace is over. Relax .. Y ou don't joins the d ub he is made
have to pmve a thi1>g.
jcct of a great deal of
Lest this peace-of -mind pitch
planned custom attention.
r ep el the young in heart, Adams
counseled to look up on any
builds into it two levels of weanla c agency anywher e as a
ing. I n his ad " Tread Lightly, away from -home ; any repairs
Proud Foot.!" he ' n iles wi th sol- when he's on <L trip, can be
emn mien that ther e is something to his -home dealer and each
Cadillac wishes to imp r ess u pon
is supposed to ;;tand ready
p eople. Under that h ood :is a j ug- checks, get hotel
gernaut. K ow it was p ut ther e f or
theatre tickets for the
safety. It was n ot put there f or
drama tic displays on the getaway,
for the ungracious p wpo~e of
dominating the highway, for blinding, exhilarating surges of speednev~r, >uner push the pedal down

Cadillac c.ontin~

t1ny h~r.s~:s;t'~it2:JO.e~ ra d.10

giant step in electronic growth!

It

o;(

Small enough to fit in you r poc k,~t , the world's fi rst commercial
trans is tor r1dio is a big milestone in Texas Instruments twentylive years of planned growth. Pleasantly audible proof of Tf's
leaders hip in electr ~ ni cs, thi ~ superb li~t lc i n s tr~rnent ~e t s
better performa nce !rom a t lu mbl e!ul ot TI trans1stors than
manv larger sets get from a handful of vacuum tubes.

satisfied. Says Ahtens, "It's all

part of selling a guy peace of mind
and pride!'
But the club doors ar e wide
op en. Not only in its copy, but in
l.hc media it selects, Cadilla(: bends
over backward to make the point
that anyone is eligible. Some people wonder why Cadillac invests so
much of its ;j)S-million adverli.sing
bud~t in newspap ers a nd thus
p ays to r each millions of people
who could never a.f ford the c:ar.
Cadillac docs this heeausc it believt;s that. in the commu nication of
prPstigc there is a t rickle-up as well
as a trickle-down effect, and that
the filling-st;1.lion attendant, the
doorman, and all t he other men on
the street ax-e ~te w anb of th~ ~;ym
bol as much as the Cadilla.t owner.
The ownel"s im age of Cadillac is in
part w lul t h~ t hinks their image is.
.And who knows1 You never C:J n
tell which ma n on the street will
tu rn np wit h the $5,000 t o buy a
Cadillae. And if h e ha;:; had to cross
over the traek~ to get there, Cadilla<:> cim~:sn't worry.
A number of prouoinent ~cgrocs
arc Cadilla( owners and though
the w rnpany does not dwell on th i~
in its advertising, it is proud of
the f act tha t they singled out Cadillac.- as a n E bony editorial asked,
what better Ry mhol f or e<:onoJ;D.io
and social achievement? "You can
get so hellishly cxelusive," s ~.ys
Ada ms, "only a few fed they
should buy. T hll per fect compromise i~ our aim. W hile t-he right
h and holds us up 1li' a celestial
sy, IJol, the lef t should indi<,.l te
tha t w~ are not too far above the

earth. Tiptoe, we say, a.ndyou

reaeh us !"

To see just how weil

the "earr1ed-it" approach has
to the market, take a look at
actually owns the Cadillacs.
fir~ t thing apparent is tha t
"aristocracy" has become
significant market for t.hc
tar . .A study of Cadillac re;~1SUO!'l.l''';
tions in the Philadelphia
diea tes that of
only about 1..5 per (ent own
hws-less than the proportion
new Cadillac registr aLions in
U.S. populat ion at h rge {1.9S
c;ent ) . The S;l me is true,
tally, fo r other luxury car~.
about 2 per cent of the
Register famili~s in
own Buick R oadmasters,
big Chryslers, or big Pad:a.nl ~.
A u1011g Social R egistPr itPs
is now a k ind of reverse snob
,\s they dr he about in :b'01cl
tion wag-o n~, many like to loo'k
the CadiJlac in the s:une
that t hey look ou the new ~u
velopments O'l'en unning their
courses. I t is not so much the
ing of the Cadillac that a
them , though they make their
tique in t.hcse t erms. Cadillac
become too mur:h a re ward
achieved r ather than
we<lith and thus an affront
:somewhat dispos~essed gentry.
As the a.ds say, the typical
iliM owner is the man who
worked hurd. The
heads t he list.
tion

Transistors. scarcely larger than the butt on ~ on your shirt, have

already replar.ed vacuum tubes in many industrial and mi litary
a ppl ication ~. Un til recently, the m iraculous midgets have been
too few apd too expensive for use in reasonably p riced consumer p roducl5. Now, unique transistor pr oduc tion techniques
developed b: T exa;; Instruments have made possible mass production of th e revolutionary transistor rarlio .. . already on
retail sale acros, the i1a tion!
In many fields . .. petroleum instrumentation and geophysical
e xplorati on : electroni c r esea r ch , man ufa cture and ;s upply;
specialized military equipme nt .. . Tl's 25-year su ccess story
is a continuing recor d of significant achie ve ment.

TEXA S INSTRCMENTS
INC ORP ORATFO
6000

}.76

FORTUNE Fct,a.-v 1955

LEMMON

AVENlJ<:

DALLA S

TEXAS

The m en who make Cadillac: (left to right}, production head Harold

Barber, general sales manager J im Roche, chief engineer Fred Arnold,
boss Don Ahrens. T his contentedly restless group is very interested
in that Eldorado special conver tible. If the public likes t he tail treat- .
ment as much as they do, it's a fair bet t he fact will be retlected in a ,
few year s in the regular Cadillacs.

Cadillac continued

40keysTo

ind ependent businessmen, with les ~

protocol to worry about and often
mme "business exp ense" money to
play around >~<--ith, make up the
largest sillglc group of owners. A
P opular llb ~;hanics poll of Cadillac owners (September, 1954) , f or
example, showed that 33 per cent
of al l Cadillacs ai:e o wned by independent busin essmen. Twenty per
cent arc o;vned by executives, and
7 per cent by sal~men.

LATIN AMERICA
MARKETS

The company Cadillacs

OR.B than 63 years of

buying coffee in producing countries has_given Otis, McAllister & Co. a sound
knowledge of the wants and needs of the Latin American
Republics. That's why manufacturers of U. S. products look
upon the network of Otis associated organizations in 40
cities as so many keys, opening doors_to Latin American
markets.
As the world's largest distributor of green coffee and a leading exporter to these countries, Otis has gained an intimate
knowledge of the language, customs, exchange restrictions
and distribution methods of countries who use their coffee
dollars to buy U. S. products. Export divisions of Otis sell
to Latin America widely diversified cargoes, stamped "Made
in U. S.A."-products like priri.ting presses, processed foods,
plumbing fixtures, textiles, and lumber products.

Otis invites U. S . firms in search of Latin American markets

to consider the importance of working with an organization
with 63 y ears of selling know-how in a market where goodwill and on-the-spot experience are all-important factors.

OTIS, M9ALLISTER & CO.

Established 1892
IMPORTERS OF SELECTED QUALITY COFFEES
EXPORTEORS OF LEADING AM E RICAN PRODUCTS
San Francisco New York New Orleans
Los Angell!s St. Louis Toronto

Chicago

Associated organizations In 40 cities throu ghout Lati n .America

Motor-vehicle-bureau regist1ation lists reHed the "busi nes~ experose" trend. A surprising p roportion of Cadillaes are registered,
n ot in . the names of individuals.
but of compan ies, a.nd u sually
small on e~ . Of all Cadilla'1 registrations in :M:anbatta.n, f or example,
37 per cent- are in firm names; in
Philadelphiu, 20 p er cent.
Registrat ions also show a strong
p er capita concentration of Cadillacs in the urban Jewish business
and professional world.. In part this
is due to Cadillac's affin ity with upward mobility-ill the dress industry area along Manhattan's St>vent.h .Avenue, for example, there
are probably more Cadillac jokes
per square yard than anywhere
else. But this is only part of the
story. "You hear a lot of talk," one
.Jewish observer says, " about people on the way u p buying Cadillacs
because they are psy"chologi('ally
insecure. .A. lot of that is t rue but
it i ~ n ot all so psychological as
that. Jews have a healthy love of
good living an d Cadillac seems the
mos t comfortable and luxurious
car. So if a man can a fford it, why
should he deny himself just. b ecause h e is worried about what
people might. think?" Who, he
asks, is being inseeurc ?
Among professional owncx-s,
doctors predominate; r oughly i %
per cent of the Cadillac registrations in Philadelphia are h eld by
doctors- The gxeatest concentration is usually assumed to be
among specialist s but the general
practitioners have he~ n coming up
fa st. "If we didn't chive Cadillacs,
the patients would think lt>.ss of
u.s," says one practitioner, without
twi tching a muscle. "They ~crure
something must be mcong wit h a
doctor these days who can't afford
on e.''
The hard core of the Cadillac
mark et , in sum, is a group of fairly solid citizens. They are well off ;
- only 18 per eent of Cadillacs are
sold on the installm-ent p lan vs. an
average for all cars of over 60 p er

cen t. Most Cadillac owners

seeond car (69 per cent
own ers polled by Popu!a.,.
its had two or more . cars,
per cent had another
But they are no
lot of Cadillac owners
their own Cadillaes.

The cross-up
In styling, Cadillac
genius for matc;hin g the
a.lity" of the car with that
market. From the jutting
mars" on the front bumper
leviathan rear deck, the nar
breathes the same spirit
Adams' eopy. It is a a o'nL111am
"It has a sort of r aw
Wb.ilto t he latter i~ a.
envious judgment, Cadillac
not argue the basie point.
is a ha ndsome cae and its
ers take g reat _care with
of deta.il -it h as, they like to
"the Cellini look." They are
careful, howe1er, not to get
ba.sic design too refined.
Cadillac has managed to
u.n unusual continuity of
its car is never confused
somebody el>e's. Yet at the
time it has disp layed an
ability to come up with a
that makes the bystander
himself,_ the hell they say.
stylist Bill )iitchell, who has
a lot to do with the design
postwar Cadi!lacs, explains
"It takes a con tr oversial
be a success. If it is
don't like it. We lik e

kind of dissonance, is en
in accord: "You have to
out somehow. You've got to
little brutal about it."

The fishtail
Cadillac, being Cadillac, can
away with it. Take, f or

the famous fishtail. When it

designing its first postwar
Cadillac was on t he verge of
ing at face Yaluc lequest~
"sensible" car- for a while
seriously considered
the front grill. But the
people were showmen at heart.
the '43 model that never ap
the designers had made a
mock-up of a rear fender
like the tail of a P-38. A.:!;ter
at it for sevei-al y ears, Cadillac
.ecutives had learned to liv-e
it; eventually to like it. This,
decided, taking a deep
continued page

tor's .designer, somewhat hesitant"I think Cadillac has r eally

gone too far."
Has Cadillac's success bred comJ>lacency ~ Certainly, the dealer organization might be a bit too eontented. Fon:ru:<~E correspondents
shopped the luxur y ears in twelve
cities a tross the CS. and without
a single exception the Cadillac
~~Ics men in each city did the poorest j ob. While they could hardly
be bJamed for being contented,
they made it a littletoo plain that
they didn't give a damn whethe1
t he customer wanted a CadillM or
n ot. In o;ontrast, the salesmen for
the other top-price makes demon- strated that adver sity can be stirou la ting.. Quite aside from bett.cT
tr ade-in offers, most of them.did a
good basic selling j ob-thc Lincoln
salesmen, in particul,.r--and ~cveral got th e customer behind the
wheel p osthaste.
Again st the p erils of eont.entrncnt, llOwever, must be set the fa ct .
that in fund amentals the C;ldillae
dealer organization. is extremely
strong. Near ly a ll dealers are in
excellent financial shape, their
plan:ts are tiptop, a nd they ar c in
fin e rapport with sales manager
,Jim Roche and Don Ahrens.
So far as Cadilla~ management
is concerned, complacency doP.s not
s ceni imminent. Ahrens has a
st.rong killer instinct, and when he
says it has pained him to g ive
away business to the competition
because of the limitations on Cadillac production there is not the
slightest doubt that it has in fact
pained him very much. He has a lready spent a lot to get capacity
up to 150,000 cars a year and he
has giv!in chief engineer FreJ

iy,

the fin, It h as long been ruthat in desper ation the comy hurried up designs on a finr eaJ: fender . T he rumoT is
; the company did . ]3ut somealong th e Line ' opinion beto change. The more fins that
on the r oad, the more
got used to them, a nd finally
began to like thc.w.. " W e would
b~en murdered," a competitor
in open admiration.
th~ rear deck. Too long,
complained when Cadillae
it out on the 1948 Sixty
Ca dillac took the hint and

as there is in f ront.
Before long Cadillac slipped a
of ver tical cluome on the
door. Again people protest.e d
Ca dillac had really gone too
didn' t they know the vertical
broke up the horizontal sweep
of the ear ? .As it happens, Cadillac
did know it, but it figured this
was in order, and '.vith
or ninet een feet of hori~
sweep, Cadillac could afford
break that, on smaller cars,
look a little silly.
. In the l 952 rnodel C~dillae's deset dual exhausts in the

cross-up, they enlar ged

on the front bump. "Thi>; time-," says a competi~'Dag'illars"

continued page 182

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of a style: (left to right ) Ed Glowacke, head Cadillac designer,
out a point on General Motors styling vice-president Harley Earl
styling director Bill MitchelL Plaster mock-up is of Cadillac
car'' for the 1955 Motorama. Like its predecessors, it will proonly glamour but a riskless way of testing the public's
to new ideas.

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Descriptive- LiteratUre on Mi:trchant Co.Jt~Iators

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F-2

FORTUNE f<b''O<Y 1955

181

Cadillac Cl)71~inued

Give Your
Materials Handling a

.-hnold a hefty bn <lget fo r flies

and t ool s f or the upcoming '56

and '57 models.

In all this, the General ::\fotors
top management is a willing ally.
P art of a n increase in Cadillac's
sales would undoubtedly cotne out
of its sister division, Buirk, which
is G.:\f. boss H arlow Curtice's alma
matPr . Like .\Yilson and S loan bef or e him, ho ,,.ever , Curtice rl'engnizes Ca di]Jae'~ importanee to (L \L
E ven if it In~ t money, Cad illac
woulc1 be valunh le to the cotupany
::.1.:$ ;1 style and engi.n cering:...l~acler ;
if Cad illac can supply these benefits and makl good pmfits too, who
would deny it more facilities '1

The Continent al tou ch

"FOUR POSTER"

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i

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If Cad illa c's rlomimm :t~ i~ to be

challenged, t he , eompetition will
have to come up with sonwthing
r'1ther speetaeula l'. Chry~ler, L incoln, and PH:ka1d ead1 h ave
strong engineering points to rnake,
ar!d in a ny obj ective cou1p nrison
Yrith Cadill~c, their I 9:35 models
have a !l"reat deal t o offer . T hey
<tr e cou opet ing-, however, tlg>l inst a
~ymb ol: t o heat Cadill~c they ca n' t
be just a little h ctte1; tbP cars
. m u~.t in some way fo rce thems~:hes on the pub l ic'~ cen;;eiousnes~ as demoust1ahly superior- at
the n~ry least have a "persorwlitcy"
in both design and a d..-eltising that
m ake~ an appea l Cartillac docs not.
The fi rot strikingly diffe.rent
"pe1-sonality" will pr obably come
from F ord. v ncler Bill F ord,
youngest of the three F ord broth~rs, <lll enthu:;iastic group of de5iguE.>r s and enginee rs i8 .t l'ou]ying
;l rw 11 Continental. 'rheir approach
111 thf' lu,xury market is <'<l u~i d er
:th ly differ en t f rom Caclillur's. F or
one rhing, they I)lnn to 11onko the
Con tinental a more hand-took.1 ,lfrair and to promote it as snell. Initially, they arc think ing of :n o output of 2,000 to 6,000 ~.ars :1 yo;ar.
'l'he car it.;;elf,
contrt~t to tile.
boldness of the Cadillac, will loave
a European elegance ani! '' ''"n t"nrm ation that will ag>lin en ophu;;ize
t he long hood. Then there is the
1nice: roug hly, $9,000 to $ 1ll,IJO(l.
The Continental prout.i~e:; ro be
u beautiful car an d, som e \do:o1 like
G.}f.'8 dream cars, 1uay p~ y hig
diviclemh; iu the l uster east on the
r~$t of the line. Will it be .1 commer cially profitable operation as
welt i H ow it fares iu this respe<:t
will tell a lot about the futur e of
the luxur y mlrk ct.
Two questions a1e a t is8ue.
First, the e<oonomic orie : >1re there
enough people uble--aud "illing

in

- t o pny the pri~c

snutll produd ion ~ Cadmac,
sells i ts l<J idora do for
$6,:300, believes there is no
worth botheri ng about for a
ovP.r $7,000. It is sensitive to
fact that the b ig i ncrease
sumer incomes has been
middle-income group; it is
mind ful .t hat the p er centage
high-p ri<:ed <:a< sales to tollil
sa les h>tS hovered fa ir ly foOn~i.
l y amun d 5 p er ~.ent ;;inN
Bill F ord, however, does
care so much 'a bout the
of people llhlc to pa.y .'j)lO
the absolutl' nnuober of t hPm.

a y ear. F or many of thc,;e

i t eoulcl fur ther be ar gued, the

fad tha t the price of the car
about double llui ~ of Cadillne
he somc1.loiug o f un al Lr~ etion
er thn. n a tlis:advani::tge.
'f loe ~ocia l llSped of t he p rice, .

then, llt>lY well he the crit ical one. ,

S in(e noti.Jiug quite like the Conti- :
n cut,ll is now in the m<trk d, there :
are r.o ready a n:ologi es, b u t it
b e noted t!Ja t Rolls-R oyce l w~ bwn ,
selling l ~s.~ th:m 1.50 ca rs a
in the U.S. sinr.e the wur.
riclo Arnpri eang, it wo uld seem, are
p retty well sold on the ad vant~gcs .'
of tloe mas.~-p roduced p roduct, and
like anyone else, they are sensitive
to th e char ge of conspicuousness
that go~~ with a lJigh p ri ce mg.
Tlo nt Lhc ie is :l vaeu um in the.
pre~e n t tar market may ver y well
be true; ccrt;)inly the postlnll" in-
crease in sales of 8ueh fo,:cigu <:Hrs
as the 'J <t.gmn a nd the proli ft,ation of "da.'!oie" car dubs ate ~ l ues
t o '.tn un5u ted yearning for SO!ne-
thing ditif'reut. Most . people who
b11y speeial car~ buy to s;JI.isfy a
t<Js te,

~ 11d

in e:ld J

c;l~t'

stw.rilit:e ~o n octloi n g to
tasr e- it could lw

they nmi't

su ti~ fy

tloat

ri dP, for ~ :.:ampl~, OL" l'''"" 'Uger

sp a<e, or e~onO IIJ Y ---,ltld Ihe iled-

siou depends on whether the taste
appeul ou tweighs t.he saniiice. The
JJcoplc whose W.St es will be mqst
ar oused by the Continen tnl may
not be the same as those most able ':
to pn.:r. Yet it m n.y he those who '
J" " 'e i.o teach- a s mu<:h as the rid1 '
- 'dto will spe.ll the critii>B.l differ- ; :
enee betwecti succes.'l and failure. :

Too many Cadillacs?

w hich brings up r.hc matter,
fin:tlly, t)[ cloc tisks Cadillac i.s taking by Hpflir~g p roduction. Among
11Sed-c"n: dealers there are fears
that th e passing of th e h ar d-to-get
continued pa(Je 18{r

Cadillac continued

lacs on the "road grew steadilyand so did the proportion of r eadp h ase m ay dim Cadillac's appeaL
ers n ominating Cadillac; by 1953
Says Ini ng Sachs, who boasts h e
t he number w as up to 61 per cent.
is the country's " Largest UnauPreliminary returns from the '54
th orized Cadillac Dealer," "It's the
survey indicate about the same
only hot (lar around and the
propor tion . W hile p eop le think the
Sf:~ucity's one of the r easo!lll. If
other f ellow may dislike a c<ir t}mt
Cadillacs get too easy t o get,
is too p opular , they don't neeesm aybe p eople won't be so am:sarily act on thac basis when t hey
ious to buy."
"
themselves buy.
For all t he r eady agreement that .
For the immediate future, at
quantity lessen s a prestige car's
any rate, Cadillac should be ahle
app eal, however, there is n o proof
to keep its vise gTip on the Ameriof the fact, an d some to the concan pulse, and, if i t sells those 150,trary. F or the past seven y ears
000, tighten it up a bit. The com-
F ORTU:-11<: has b een making a n nual
pany has been earning t he grit> ..
surveys of its readers, whi~h,
and lik e the Carlilhw o vner at the '
among other things, p r ovide a
stop light, i ts peop le can't help but
running study of shifts in thc.i1 smile just a little. Even at all those
nttitudc to\vard
Tn 1948, 44.8
j okes about Cadillac : as long as .:
per <:eut o:C Ue J:!,ORT"C~E readers
the j ok es a r en't about Lincoln
queried n amed Cadillac as t he car
and Packard and Chrysler, Don ,
in the high-pricP.d field they ''~"ould
Ahrens
and
his
lieutenants
"most like t o have." In the in tlr- couldn't f'huckle more. The public
has to y ell uncle somehow.
vening y ea.rs tl1c number of Cadi!-

"'"'S.

- A
M.D. for Troubled Compames
ft~.

Owner:

Da niel Ce!viM::rn
General Consro<:.to::

Charles. H. Tompkins

Co.

MKhonkol Co()ltor:tor:
Norair

Engin e~ring

Corp.

Arc,., if'1<:#:!

Johr'l H. Grohom ond As~oe: i o tts

I nstead of becoming a p hysi cian,

as he first wanted to do, Norton
Mailman, of N ew Yo:k City? h as
become a doctor of stck busmess
enterprises. I n the last six years
he has taken over the management of three ailing compallies,
all of which he restored to robust
heal th.

Mailm an, born in Baltimore in

1914, had finished two years of
premedical studies at the University of Maryland when the depression wiped out his family's money and he had to find a job. He
soon discovered he had a gift for
selling, and after selling radios
and jewelry he became a Shaeffer
Pen Co. salesmall. H e did so well
that he was hired by E versharp in
1940. H e made $30,000 to $50,000 a year selling pens a nd was
able to save money.
W hen World War II star ted,
Mailman worked for Bendix Radio Corp. by day, supervised
ersharp sales personnel by ni"ght.
"During those years," he muses,
"I must h ave got some sleep but
I don't remember when." At war 's
end Eversharp made him eastern
sales m anager. After a year in that
job he m oved to Pal Blade Co.,
Inc., where he headed t he cut lery
division. There he got what he
calls "a m anagement, or chairside of the desk, perspective,"
which proved useful later.
In 1949 Mailman put his selling and mana gerial knowledge t o
work by buying a 50 per cent interest in E. M. Fisher Spring Co.,
Inc., N ew York, maker of indu strial springs. He rearranged the
company's credit, m odernized its
shop, collected unpaid bills, and

Ev-

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7m ounted a big se1ling campaign.
Wit hin eight een months he increa,.ed gross fr om $12,000 to $50,000 a month, and then he sold out.
His next venture was Burroughs
Brothers Manufact uring Co., a
ninety-year-old Bal timore pharmaceutical company in difficulties
b ecause of man agemen t changes.
Mailman and a brother-in-law '
(Ben Gaboff) pu t up $70,000 in
cash, borrowed $160,000 on longterm notes, and bought the company. T he annual brross is now up
from $350,000 to some $1 million.
In 1951, when the hundred-andtwenty- year-old family-owned
John Chatillon & Sons, Inc., New
York m aker of wei ghing equipment, became h andicapped by
family feuds, Mailm an bou ght
over 50 per cent of the stock and :
moved in as chief execu tive. Tl)e
company was in debt, had too
much inventory, and was over-
expanded. Mailman retrenched ,
by selling off one division (cut- "
lery), and closin g one of t hree :,
plants. H e also ended the hick- .
erin g between management factions. Chatillon stock re~;ponded :
to the M ailman . treatment
doubling in book \' alue from $86
to $170. T he company~s future .
looks so bright that Mailman bas
n o intention of selling out. Inst ead, he is looking around for another ailing company that he can ,
restore to h ealt h and merge wit h
Chatillon.