REPORT: Cadillac Converj has a new lease on life, maybe
Cadillac Converj Concept - Click image above for high-res gallery
Last we knew, the fate of the Cadillac Converj vehicle was unknown and remained "a concept vehicle undergoing a review that has not yet concluded." Resistance to putting the Voltec plug-in powertrain into a Cadillac apparently came not only from the Treasury Department (when General Motors was still in bankruptcy) but also some executives within the company.
BusinessWeek names the resisting execs as GM North America President Troy Clarke and Mark McNabb, who ran Cadillac, Hummer, and Saab. Note the past tense there: both Clarke and McNabb no longer work at GM. One of the Converj's strongest proponents, Bob Lutz, remains with the company. While nothing has been officially decided – some inside GM think the Volt should have been a Caddy all along while others don't think that luxury car buyers care about being green – don't count the Converj out yet.
Gallery: Detroit 2009: Cadillac Converj
[Source: BusinessWeek]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
wincros 4:39PM (8/23/2009)
The continuing confusion at GM seems amazing to me. Are they serious? A Cadillac sports car with a grey haired man in business suit being driven by a trophy wife, mistress, female chauffeur? Can you get a message more wrong? A Chevrolet Volt with a hinted price higher than the price of a lower priced Cadillac but which will be produced in numbers comparable to a luxury car. Whining about giving up Opel when it is hemorrhaging money instead of announcing the setting up a comparable engineering base at Chevrolet. Retaining not one but two luxury car divisions? Running ads that seem to blame the customer for not knowing that they have cars with fuel economy comparable to the competition when all the ads they have run in the past are about its trucks, and high performance Cadillacs.Unable to resist placing their large trucks and SUVs in ads about their vehicles getting 33 mpg. Is there no one in charge who has any focus at all? That is one thing you have to hand to Lee Iaccoca. He was focused and took charge of Chrysler and saved it, at least for a while. We may well lose a car company, but I am thinking it may not be Chrysler.
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jake 6:24PM (8/23/2009)
You do realize the "grey haired man in business suit" is Bob Lutz, right?
Nick P. 4:54PM (8/23/2009)
Tesla & Fisker plan's of starting with high-cost luxury EVs is proving to be a winning strategy in the long term. On this basis, the 40K Volt should have been a Cadillac. However, its styling screams "Chevy" -- "Cruze" to be exact.
The problem is that GM still has no clue about modern design. While the Model S is universally admired for it's elegance and styling inspired by Maserati and Ashton-Martin, this Cadillac is too...GM.
I don't care if the make a Voltec Cadillac, cause I'll never buy Cadillac even when I'm 77 like Lutz.
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ShaunneyCakes 8:11AM (8/24/2009)
I understand your dislike for GM design, but lets be honest, the Tesla Model S design is FAR from perfect. Its biggest flaw is from the back right, it looks like a Jaguar. This is a HUGE mistake in automotive design since it is key that the product does set itself away from the compotition. To say that the Model S is designed better than the cadillac converj shows a little inexperience in the design realm.
Horton12 2:17PM (8/24/2009)
I don't think you could say anything Tesla and Fisker has done is a winning strategy. Neither of them have won anything other than funding. The jury is way way out on these two guys and the odds are frankly against them.
why not the LS2LS7? 5:00PM (8/23/2009)
Glad to hear someone thinks Buick is a luxury car.
GM ran tons of ads during the period of $3.50 gas explaining they had the most cars with over 30mpg highway of any company. And what did people keep thinking? "Stupid GM put themselves out of business by refusing to make anything but gas-guzzling SUVs."
The grey-haired guy is Bob Lutz, an exec at GM. He was announcing the concept car. You don't think there's a picture of Jurgen Schrempp in a Mercedes CLK?
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my2CENTS 5:45PM (8/23/2009)
Nick P:
When someone goes and says that GM has no clue about modern design under the article talking about the Cadillac Converj, a concept car that not only was voted as the best car from NAIAS on this very website and voted most significant concept car at the autoshow itself, and then goes on to praise the styling of the Model S, which is nice but very unoriginal; I tend to think that person is either a plant from the Tesla corporation, a die-hard hater of all things GM, or someone who seriously needs their eyes checked.
GM knows modern styling. They've proven it again and again.
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Jon 6:38PM (8/23/2009)
Or perhaps we all have different tastes and opinions? Just because other people thought it was attractive it doesn't mean we all have to conform to the same way of thinking. I personally find it quite ugly, irrespective of how many people like it.
Nick P. 7:13PM (8/23/2009)
@My2Cents,
Dude, I actually went to Industrial Design school. I later went into software engineering but I'm quite well-versed in Italian, British and German design history. I do respect your opinion if you like it. We all have different taste.
When Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen explains his choices for Model S, it makes sense to me and I can tell that he and his team spent some time thinking about their target demographic and their aspirations.
http://www.oncars.com/video/494/2011-Tesla-Model-S-Part-1-of-3-Design
When I look at the Cadillac, I don't care what award they receive, it's blocky unbalanced and not very elegant.
Just my 2 cents.
wincros 7:34PM (8/23/2009)
Thank you for identifying the old gentleman being ferried about. I kind of think it is beside the point though. A sports car is about driving yourself. If he is incapable of driving his own luxury sports car concept perhaps he should not be there. As the face a failing corporation he should not be there.
why not the LS2LS7? 8:38PM (8/23/2009)
Wow Nick P., you have a piece of paper clearly indicating your opinions of style are by definition more correct than those held by the rest of us!
What makes you so sure Cadillac didn't think about their design? Oh yeah, because you don't like it.
Nick P. 10:27PM (8/23/2009)
@Camper,
Actually it sounded pretentious, but I was just answering a prior post that opined that I knew nothing about design. I don't actually think my tastes are better, merely well-informed ;).
I actually have to walk the same kind of tight rope in software design when an engineer doesn't quite understand good UI (Apple -- most of the time) vs bad UI (Linux, most of Windows). In the end, it's up to the taste of the person who pays.
If that Cadillac design is a hit, then the people buying it are right - because it fits their taste.
Oh4Sh0 8:24AM (8/24/2009)
Nick, you can dress it up any way you like it, but you can't lump GM's designs as a whole into one boat. They make sub $20k vehicles, sub $30k vehicles, etc., and these generally have to have some compromises. You can't facet their organization as a whole against Tesla, who has no plans to sell anything costing less than $50,000 (After government incentives, even?). There are plenty of GM cars that have great design and style - such as the Camaro, which is selling almost entirely on those cues alone. The Converj looks pretty hot and saucy by most people's standards, and when you consider it has both a large battery pack and a combustion engine under it, it's a hell of a concept. While Tesla wants to take their cars and model their looks around existing cars, GM does something entirely different and stretches it to make their newer upscale cars unique -- to set them apart from others. Looking at the Model S -- screams Maserati and Bimmer cues, comparatively, what does the Converj look like? Nothing else on the road.
Simply because it doesn't fit your taste doesn't mean GM "doesn't have a clue about modern design", as you would imply.
andrerumi 10:03PM (8/23/2009)
it depresses me to see the Converj interior because i realise how long is it still gonna take for it to be released
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Dave 8:52PM (8/23/2009)
I think the car has to have a fairly strong performance aspect if they want it to sell in numbers. But the idea of making a Cadillac on the Volt platform is solid, as is the adaptation of Caddy styling to the Volt's proportions.
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analog 8:55PM (8/23/2009)
The 'Aesop Institute' is yet another Mark Goldes perpetual motion scam, selling magnetic generators and hydrino engines.
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skierpage 9:02PM (8/23/2009)
Everyone, do *not* waste your valuable time visiting Aesop Institute and downloading a two page .DOC (!?!) file rambling about a) the Chava MagGen that generates 1 kW of power that will somehow "cut the cord on plug-in hybrids" and b) the SPICE Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine powered by fractional Hydrogen as predicted by inverse quantum states.
A scam site hyping non-existing scam technology hoping to scam woefully stupid investors who lack basic scam-detection skills.
Presumably "Mark" here is the same "Mark Goldes" of Chava Energy who's been spamming this scam elsewhere.
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my2CENTS 1:17AM (8/24/2009)
@Nick P:
You may have gone and studied design but that doesn't make you an objective person when critiquing design. Yes, I can understand that we have different tastes but when you make a blanket statement that GM doesn't have a clue on modern design, that's an opinion and not fact. If you had worded it as such, I wouldn't have disputed your post because I respect your opinion.
However,
You also said that you don't care about accolades the Converj received implying that the opinion of the people who critique car design have no influence on your critiquing ability. Yet, in your first post, you try to back up your argument of the Model S design by referring to opinions of other people saying it's "universally admired for it's elegance and styling". From what I have gathered, you're willing to accept other people's opinions when it suits your own.
You clearly have a bias that goes way beyond design and as a result, prevents you from ever giving a subjective stance when critiquing the Converj.
While people may like find the Model S as extremely desirable and modern, I don't necessarily agree them. I think it looks nice, but it's boring.
I for one find the Converj styling to be extremely attractive and modern and I find it borrows many cues from Lamborghini (which is a company that we all can agree is on the cutting edge of design) as well as many cues from the Cadillac Sixteen concept, which was also "universally admired for it's elegance and styling".
I shouldn't have worded my first post saying you need to have your eyes checked so I apologize for that and I do respect your opinion but I guess we will disagree.
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Chris M 4:15AM (8/24/2009)
The "Aesop Institute" appears to be a collection of various articles, including some eccentric economic theories and the Chava Energy collection of scams - yes, he's running more than one! He not only has a bogus "magnetic energy" scam (remember Steorn?) but also a bogus self-powered generators (just like self confessed scammer Dennis Lee) and even a "Self powered Internal combustion engine (copied from convicted scammer Stan Meyers and Josef Papp).
How "Chava Energy really works is by taking current troubles and using a glitzy website to amplify it into a positive panic, then selling the fearful dupes a fake "solution" that will never quite work right. He is already ratcheting up the paranoia about "skeptics" and sinister plots to "suppress his works" - the objective is to keep people from listening to those who would point out the fraudulent nature of his schemes, and keep them from reporting him to the authorities.
Skierpage is right, avoid it, unless you're a fan of high weirdness or like to laugh at the absurdities in this latest scam.
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Shock Me 8:40AM (8/24/2009)
Actually I love this Cadillac concept. If those bold lines made into the production model, I would be very happy. I also rather like the look of the Model S and I hope they are able to deliver that as well.
To the person who believes the Cruze and Volt look similar: Perhaps you are think of the powertrain mule that actually was a Cruze with voltec powertrain slipped in? As far as sheet metal they are VERY different. But if you can't get past the the bowtie that's more your personal problem (Although it does show how much more work GM's marketing and engineering teams still have to do to win you over.)
I say give me a sports coupe like this and make it like the Buick Velite roadster concept.
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