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.

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 ._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 . .

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. ;;;

·.~

"" 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 f•bruory I QSS

:~~ 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 prestige, "j

i;(" ij ;.;·:·. ·

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

f{~f-course, and part of Cadillac's popularity can be attributed g~~ supei·b engineering. So, too, can it .be attributed in part :)to coincidence and 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 marketing tc·;~·tr~t·t.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 qual-

symbol. From the design of the car to the advertising of the Cadillac approach has been 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, Ford 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 there is a vacuum to be filled

the prest ige-car market. · But Cadillac General Manager Don Ahrens is bothered

at all by the "ordinary'' tag. Why, he asks, 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 a ll auto dealers. The division, with some $400 million to $500 million of

sales, has beEm doing r ather handsomely too-indeed, were an independent company, it would rank among

hundred largest corporations in the country. Not less 2fl.lJ~odud;i011, but more, is in order, Ahrens :figures; last No-ccc:1.,uw"" he put his Detroit plant on two shifts and announced

for 1955 he was going after 150,000, count them , Cadil­sales.

to the "classics" year s ago neit her Cadillac nor any other luxury­

maker would have dreamed of. such a goal. In the early the luxury-car mer chandising was st ill aimed at

. Pain tings by • L emuel p. LA:ne

a small upp_er-income class. Leaf through some old FoRTUNEs of the era ~nd the ads tell the st ory-there, next to the 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 limiting pro­duction of the V-16 to two hundred cars." Occasionally the ads would beckon newcomers 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 price 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 Age 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, but only at the price of downgrading the Packard name; whe1·e Cadillac had given a separate 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 up with a design that foreshadowed the postwar "hard­top" styling, and many of its features were subsequent ly iitted into the other Cadillacs. By late 1940 Dreystadt had his package ; with the cheapest model down to $1,345, he discontinued the LaSalle and began merchandising

FO•lUNE .•.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 return the most dollars per pound of steel.

The competition was not prepared for the onslaught 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 of o·wners. Chrysler, Packara, and 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

108 FORTUNE 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 alterations 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 being 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-I•our·-ve:ar-.ota Gener&l Man­

Ahrens. He acq).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 Cadil-New York retail branch. In he became Cadillac's sales

and in 1950 became top phone on the left gets

wolrKom::· 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 with "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 ".'W'='-"'e• v~"" 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, what­

its 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 Cadillac owner,

. a thoroughgoing elementalist. There would be no truck motivation research ; Adams already lrnew just where

belly was. He was going to merchandise Cadillac as "a · of life." He figured 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

drove themselves crazy for 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 no, 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 main 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 read 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 change," 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_ He fw,s fought - without interruption-for the place in the world he wants his family to occupy. Few 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 ·wi ld­wood 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.1·s

1923 Pierce-Arro·w--Coupe

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

:·.

1932 Lincoln- Dietnch Convertib~e Se®n

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

l\ Gallery of Distinguish

For year,; Pierce-Arr ow's fender-mounted headlights were a mark of prestige. In 1935, uncushioned by a lower-pri~ed line, PiercccArr O\V went :mt of business.

The U.S. marketlooked so good to Rolls-Royce in the T wenties that it set up a plant in Spnngfield, Massachusetts. The depression closed i t dO\"ffi.

This is one of t he famous Lincoln "KB" models. For many "classic car" fanciers civilization to.o k a bad tur n with their passing in. 1940.

·can Motorcars

1.939 Packard Twelve--Dietrich 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 considered by many the m ost beautiful of cars. Ford is readying a successor.

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.-

.FOnuNE f' ~"'""' 1955 I ll

Here's the nearest thing to Automatic Scrap Metal Baling! WHEN YOU BUY a Dempster-Balester you not only get a

press built to take t he punishment of baling scrap metal con­

sistently day-in and day-out ... bale-after-bale, but you also

get the p.earest thing to automatic baling. The Dempster­

Balester's LOAD IT, CRUSH IT, BALE IT cycle (illustrated

below) is a simple 1-2-3 continuous operation.

,.

~~!l!! e!!!!!!!!!!!!!§

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 up­

tight posicion, charging box door closes ... scrap is BALED

and ejected. As each cycle ends another begins.

Withou·t question, 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 com­

plete informacion. A product of Dempster Brothers, Inc.

Sold In: Canada by W. P. Fcsvorite

Compa~y of Canada, Ltd., 418

Main Sfreet, E., Homjlto•, Ontario

Mfg.ln;Canoclo by Hamilton Bridge

Co111pa~y, Ltd., HCimilton, Ontario

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 FORT0NE ftl:r '"'l' 1955 ! .

Cadillac continued f rom page 109

t!bo-ve the trees. The family •·uyJ.es out with the final voice of confir­tMiti-on. " H i there, neighbor, is·n' t it. a lovely day?"

T here's the fi,-.~t t rip to the offi<:c -with c~ ·wa·iting delegation to ad,mit·e hi:; dwir:e. H f"ll get those qnit:k; ghmN:;< of a.pprOJ;fl l IJw,t· idl him

the d•·e,rn he d;·e!w?.e,cl f'or so man y

years is still·in the hea·1·ts of others. Let him an·ir e a t the door of a

di~tingui.~hed hotel o·r a fa-m atts re.>taw·mit ... 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 the •wor<ls are lt<ritte" h!<re- -·"who has earned 'the !'ight to sit at this wheel."

Peace of mind 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 !

Wha tevc1· the wixtUl·e, 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

don't pull that eam ed-it stuff on u s, the biggest gangster in town owns a. Cadillae. Adams eunfcsses, "We lay low for a. while then, " but before long he is reaching f or t he needle again. ( Tentath·e ads f or '5!l: " Only Thirty-Five, But He's ~larned l t." "To the Class of 1!JS4." )

F r equently Adam~ does dwell on sn<·h non-symbolic aspects of Ca rl illa(; as its ease of driving. FJven here, however, the main theme is nevcl' very far away. Cadillac driving is se·rene driving; It is a. p roved t ltera.pett.tic. I t offei-o pear;e of mind. It makes you f ee! good. Il even eha.nges yom· person­ality. You t ip better; you acquiJ:e a ;,ense of noble.,se oblige. Let the . other fellow dash past at the light. The r ace is over. Relax .. Y ou don't have to pmve a th·i1>g.

Lest this peace-of -mind pitch r ep el the young in heart, Adams builds into it two levels of wean­ing. I n his ad " Tread Lightly, Proud Foot.!" he ' n iles with sol­emn mien that ther e is something Cadillac wishes · to impr ess upon p eople. Under that h ood :is a jug­gernaut. K ow it was p ut ther e f or safety. It was not put there f or drama tic displays on the getaway, for the ungracious pw·po~e · of dominating the highway, for blind­ing, exhilarating surges of speed­nev~r, >un·er push the pedal down

drive them t razy," Adams happily, "to get their 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 ilh•c. Ib:s rwcomplishments him to it. Bu l he feels that if 11nrdw,,u l " Cadillac, some of' jrie1•d~ might think him

t1:o1.ts. Several years ago the :Jg emen L was distressed to th:tt the execut ives of a largP­ant e company WC\re not Cadillac~ out of fear of the

· h ol<lers. Simibrly, rep orts weut, 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 a t lh e foolish <Uld pusilllan,im( people who n eedlessly themselves of a Cadillac,

. actually eost more. I<'

year ~aved in g·as would fling·. What the ads do, -provide the prosped with a pr emise that can be masq a.s th e m·ajor premise; don't wrong, he can te-ll his prc~tige stuff is striC>tly bil·ds, the real r ea,on be C:ldillac wa~ economy,

. · Lw.,P.n t he <'.:>:clu~ive and the cratic. On the one hand, it chandise.o; the join-the-club and \l'hat adman Adams sale;; ma.nag·er -Jim Roehc deliver. Dealers' salesmen br eak tmy legs running a f ter tomers these days, but on ce a .·.

joins the d ub he is made jcct of a great deal of planned custom attention. counseled to look up on any lac agency anywhere as a away from -home ; any repairs when he's on <L trip, can be to his -home dealer and each is supposed to ;;tand ready checks, get hotel theatre t ickets for the

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

giant step in electronic growth!

Small enough to fit in you r pock,~t , the world's fi rst commercial trans is tor r•1dio 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~tlc i nstr~rnent ~e ts better performa nce !rom a t lu mble!ul ·ot TI trans1stors than manv larger sets get from a handful of vacuum tubes.

Transistors. scarcely larger than the button~ on your shirt, have already replar.ed vacuum tubes in many industrial and mi litary application~. Un til recently, the miraculous midgets have been too few apd too expensive for use in reasonably p riced con­sumer p roducl5. Now, unique transistor production techniques developed b: Texa;; Instruments have made possible mass pro­duction of the revolutionary transistor rarlio .. . already on retail sale acros, the i1a tion!

In many fields . .. petroleum instrumentation and geophysical exploration: electroni c resea rch , man ufacture and ;supply; · specialized military equipment .. . Tl's 25-year success story is a continuing record of significant achievement.

• TEXAS INSTRCMENTS INC ORP ORATFO

6000 LEMMON AVENlJ<: DALLA S Y TEXAS

}. 7 6 FORTUNE Fct,a.-v 1955

Cadillac c.ontin~

satisfied. Says Aht·ens, "It's all part of selling a guy peace of mind and pride!'

But the club doors are wide open. 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 newspapers and thus pays to reach millions of people who could never a.fford 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 image of Cadillac is in part w lul t h~ thinks their image is . .And who knows1 You never C:J n tell which man on the street will tu rn np with the $5,000 to buy a Cadillae. And if he 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 fact that they singled out Cad­illac.- as an E bony editorial asked, what better Ry mhol for e<:onoJ;D.io and social achievement? "You can get so hellishly cxelusive," s~.ys

Adams, "only a few fed they should buy. Thll perfect compro­mise i~ ·our aim. W hile t-he right hand holds us up 1li' a celestial sy, IJol, the lef t should indi<,.l te that 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 that "aristocracy" has become significant market for t.hc tar . .A study of Cadillac re;~1SUO!'l£.l'''; tions in the Philadelphia dieates that of

only about 1..5 per (•ent own hws-less than the proportion new Cadillac registraLions 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 drh•e about in :b'01·cl tion wag-on~, 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 reward achieved rather 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 the list. tion

The men who make Cadillac: (left to right}, production head Harold Barber, general sales manager J im Roche, chief engineer Fred Arnold, boss Don Ahrens. This 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 years in the regular Cadillacs.

40keysTo LATIN AMERICA MARKETS

MOR.B than 63 years of buying coffee in prod­

ucing 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 years 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 • Chicago

Los Angell!s • ·St. Louis • Toronto

Associated organizations In 40 cities throughout Latin .America

Cadillac continued

independent businessmen, with les~ protocol to worry about and often mm·e "business expense" money to play around >~<--ith, make up the largest sillglc group of owners. A P opula·r llb~;hanics poll of Cadil­lac owners (September, 1954) , f or example, showed that 33 per cent of al l Cadillacs ai:e owned by inde­pendent businessmen. Twenty per cent arc o;vned by executives, and 7 per cent by sal~men.

The company Cadillacs Motor-vehicle-bureau regist1·a­

tion lists reHed the "busines~ ex­perose" trend. A surprising p ro­portion of Cadillaes are registered, not in . the names of individuals. but of companies, a.nd u sually small one~ . Of all Cadilla'1 registra­tions in :M:anbatta.n, for example, 37 per cent- are in firm names; in Philadelphiu, 20 p er cent.

Registrat ions also show a strong per 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 .A venue, 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 up buying Cadillacs because they are psy"chologi('ally insecure . .A. lot of that is t rue but it i ~ not all so psychological as that. Jews have a healthy love of good living and Cadillac seems the most comfortable and luxurious car. So if a man can a fford it, why should he deny himself just. be­cause he 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 held by doctors- The gx·eatest concentra­tion is usually assumed to be among specialists but the general practitioners have he~n coming up fast. "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 with a doctor these days who can't afford one.''

The hard core of the Cadillac market , 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 owners 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;hing 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 argu·e the basie point. is a ha ndsome cae and its ers take g reat _care with of deta.il-it has, they like to "the Cellini look." They are careful, howe1•er, 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 displayed 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 like

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, ·for the famous fishtail. When it designing its first postwar Cadillac was on the verge of ing at face Yaluc l·equest~

"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 years, Cadillac .ecutives had learned to liv-e it; eventually to like it. This, decided, taking a deep

continued page

tor's .designer, somewhat hesitant­iy, "I think Cadillac has really gone too far."

Has Cadillac's success bred com­J>lacency ~ Certainly, the dealer or­ganization might be a bit too eon·­tented. Fon:ru:<~E correspondents shopped the luxury ears in twelve cities a tross the CS. and without

the fin, It has long been ru- a single exception the Cadillac that in desperation the com- ~~•Icsmen in each city did the poor­

y hurried up designs on a fin- est j ob. While they could hardly reaJ: fender . The rumoT is be bJamed for being contented,

; the company did .. ]3ut some- they made it a little·too plain that along the Line ' opinion be- they didn't give a damn whethe1·

to change. The more fins that t he customer wanted a CadillM or on the road, the more n ot. In o;ontrast, the salesmen for

got used to them, and finally the other top-price makes demon-began to like thc.w.. "W e would · - strated that adversity can be stiro­b~en murdered," a competitor u la ting .. Quite aside from bet t.cT in open admiration. trade-in offers, most of them.did a

th~ rear deck. Too long, good basic selling j ob-thc Lincoln complained when Cadillae salesmen, in particul,.r--and ~cv-

it out on the 1948 Sixty eral got th e customer behind the Cadillac took the hint and wheel posthaste.

as there is in f ront. Before long· Cadillac slipped a

of ver tical clu·ome on the door. Again people protest.ed Cadillac 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 i t 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 de­

set dual exhausts in the

cross-up, they enlarged ~'Dag'illars" on the front bump­

. "Thi>; time-," says a competi-

Against the p erils of eont.ent­rncnt, llOwever, must be set the fact . that in fundamentals the C;ldillae dealer organization. is extremely strong. Near ly a ll dealers are in excellent financial shape, their plan:ts are tiptop, and they arc in fin e rapport with sales manager ,Jim Roche and Don Ahrens.

So far as Cadilla~ management is concerned, complacency doP.s not sceni 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

continued page 182

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

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FORTUNE f<b'•'O<Y 1955 181

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Cadillac Cl)71~inued ·

.-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, Buir·k, which is G.:\f. boss H arlow Curtice's alma

- t o pny the pri~c snutll produd ion ~ Cadmac, sells i ts l<J idorado for $6,:300, believes there is no worth bothering about for a ovP.r $7,000. It is sensitive to fact that the b ig increase sumer ·incomes has been middle-income group; it is mindful .that the p er centage

high-p ri<:ed· <:a< sales to tollil matPr . Like .\Yilson and Sloan be- sa les h>tS hovered fa ir ly foOn~i. f or e him, ho ,,.ever , Curtice rl'eng­nizes Cadi]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.ncering:...l~acler ;

if Cadillac can supply these bene­fits and makl• good pmfits too, who would deny it more facilities '1

The Continental touch If Cad illac'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 P•H:ka1·d ead1 h ave strong engineering points to rnake, ar!d in any obj ective cou1pnrison

Yrith Cadill~c, their I 9:35 models have a !l"reat deal t o offer . T hey <t r e couo pet ing-, however, tlg>l inst a

~ymbol: to heat Cadill~c they ca n' t be just a little h ctte1·; tbP cars

. mu~.t in some way fo rce them­s~:h·es on the public'~ c·en;;eious­nes~ as demoust1·ahly superior- at the n~ry least have a "persorwlitcy" in both design and ad..-eltising that make~ an appea l Cartillac docs not.

The fi rot strikingly diffe.rent "pe1-sonality" will probably come from F ord. v ncler Bill F ord, youngest of the three F ord broth­~rs, <lll enthu:;iastic group of de-5iguE.>r s and enginee rs i8 .tl'ou]ying ;l rw11· Continental. 'rheir approach 111 thf' lu,xury market is <'<lu~ider­

: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 :no out­put of 2,000 to 6,000 ~.ars :1 yo;ar. 'l'he car it.;;elf, in contr•t~t to tile. boldness of the Cadillac, will loave

a European elegance ani! '' ''"n t"nr­mation that will ag>lin enophu;;ize t he long hood. Then there is the 1n·ice: roughly, $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 luster east on the r~$t of the line. Will it be .1 com­mer cially profitable operation as welt i How it fares iu this respe<:t will tell a lot about the futur e of the luxur y m•lrk ct.

Two questions a1·e a t is8ue. First, the e<oonomic orie : >1re there enough people uble--aud "·illing

ly amun d 5 p er ~.ent ;;inN• Bil l 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 of un alLr~ etion er thn.n a tlis:advani::tge.

'f loe ~oc·ial llSped of t he p rice, . then, llt>lY well he the cri t ical one. , S in(·e not i.J iug 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-Royce lw~ 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 advant~gcs .' of t loe mas.~-p roduced p roduct, and · like anyone else, they are sensitive to th e charge of conspicuousness that go~~ with a lJigh p rice mg.

Tlo nt Lhc i·e is :l vaeu um in the. pre~e n t t·ar 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· and the proli ft,·a­tion of "da.'!o··ie" car dubs at·e ~ lues

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' they nmi't

stw.rilit:e ~on octloi n g· to suti~fy t loat · tasr e- it could lw ri dP, for ~:.:ampl~, OL" l'''"" 'Uger · sp a<·e, or e~onOIIJY ---,ltld I he iled- · siou depends on whether the taste appeul outweighs 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 t·each- as 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:t lly, t)[ cloc t· isks 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 ard-to-get

continued pa(Je 18{r

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Cadillac continued

phase may dim Cadillac's appeaL Says In•ing Sachs, who boasts h e is the country's " Largest Unau­thorized Cadillac Dealer," "It's the only hot · (lar around and the Sf:~u·city's one of the r easo!lll. If Cadillacs get too easy t o get, maybe p eople won't be so am:-ious to buy." "

For all the r eady agreement that . quantity lessens a prestige car's app eal, however, there is n o proof of the fact, an d some to the con­trary. F or the past seven years F ORTU:-11<: has been making a nnual surveys of its readers, whi~h,

among other things, p r ovide a running study of shifts in thc.i1• nttitudc to\vard "'"'S. T n 1948, 44.8 per <:eut o:C U•e J:!,ORT"C~E readers queried n amed Cadillac as the car in the high-pricP.d field they ''~"ould "most like t o have." In the in t l•r­vening y ea.rs t l1c number of Cadi!-

lacs on the "road grew steadily­and so did the proportion of r ead­ers nominating Cadillac; by 1953 ·· the number was up to 61 per cent. Preliminary returns from the '54 survey indicate about the same propor tion . W hile p eop le think the • other f ellow may dislike a c<ir t}mt is too p opular , they don't neees­sarily act on thac basis when they •· themselves buy.

For the immediate future, at any rate, Cadillac should be ahle to keep its vise gTip on the Ameri-can pulse, and, if i t sells those 150,-000, tighten it up a bit. The com- ·· · pany has been earning the grit> .. and like the Carlilhw o •vner at the ' · stoplight, i ts people can't help but smile just a little. Even at all those j okes about Cadillac : as long· as .: · the j okes a r en't about Lincoln and Packard and Chrysler, Don , Ahrens and his lieutenants couldn't f'huckle more. The public has to y ell uncle somehow.

- A M.D. for Troubled Compames ft~. I nstead of becoming a p hysi cian, ~ QJ}~ as he first wanted to do, Norton --y' \ Mailman, of New Yo:k City? h as Q-'/-: become a doctor of stck busmess 4;; ~ enterprises. I n the last six years :::--. 7-he has taken over the manage-ment 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. He did so well that he was hired by E versharp in 1940. He made $30,000 to $50,-000 a year selling pens a nd was able to save money.

When World War II star ted, Mailman worked for Bendix Ra­dio Corp. by day, supervised Ev­ersharp sales personnel by ni"ght. "During those years," he muses, "I must have got some sleep but I don't remember when." At war 's end Eversharp made him eastern sales manager. After a year in that job he moved to Pal Blade Co., Inc., where he headed t he cut lery division. There he got what he calls "a management, 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., New York, maker of indus­trial springs. He rearranged the company's credit, modernized its shop, collected unpaid bills, and

mounted 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 Manufacturing 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 weighing equip­ment, became handicapped by family feuds, Mailm an bought 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 three :··, plants. He also ended the hick- . erin g between management fac­tions. Chatillon stock re~;po•nded : to the M ailman . treatment doubling in book \'alue from $86 to $170. T he company~s future . looks so bright that Mailman bas no intention of selling out. In­st ead, he is looking around for an­other ailing company that he can , restore to health and merge with Chatillon.