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INDUSTRY-
November 2002 by Michael Longinow Sidebar-
Produce a fiberglass-body roadster? No problem. Rear-engine? Done that. Gotta look fast even when it’s standing still? Step in our showroom, please. But looks can be deceiving. Wil Cooksey, Jr., plant manager, says his team of well-heeled workers at the Bowling Green plant aren’t worried about taking on production of Cadillac’s first-ever road warrior, but they have had to scramble a bit to get ready for what Cadillac hopes will be not only an internationally stunning two-seater, but an equally stunning production cycle. It’s not the pictures that sell a car, after all. It’s the way it looks six inches away – how it feels with your back to the seat, gripping the wheel. At $70,000 or so a pop, it ought to be a nice ride. If it all works, the customer knows it’s not just a good car, but an experience all on its own. It’s what’s made Corvette an American icon. And Corvette has been getting that feel, creating that iconic effect in Bowling Green for generations. It’s an outcome that comes from lots of eyes, lots of hands, lots of checks to make sure it all comes together. Some of what has to come together for the new Cadillac XLR has never been tried before quite like this. That’s probably why rumors floated at last year’s Greater Los Angeles Auto Show and Detroit’s North American International Auto Show that this speedster could cost $4 million to build. “What we’ve been able to do with Evoq (an early name for the roadster) is create a design vocabulary that embraces both art and science,” said GM Design Vice President Wayne Cherry in Motor Trend last year. From the back, this roadster will look vaguely like a Fleetwood Brougham. From the front, it will have the look of a Corvette-spaceship hybrid with Cadillac-style grill and insignia – along with sporty headlamps. But the newness goes way beyond looks. And the new stuff won’t be easy to streamline. This car will have a supercharged 4.6-liter Northstar V-8 engine, a power source common to Cadillacs, but until now, it’s been installed under a front hood. The new roadster’s Northstar will be installed in the back - a first for Caddy. The fact that this motor will hook into a modified Corvette transaxle helps a bit with production planning, but only a little. The type of five-speed automatic transmission and suspension system demanded by this concept Caddy will take a bit of tinkering in the production process, as will the night vision this car has planned. (Yes, it was used in the 24-hour Monte Carlo event some weeks back, but success on the track and success off the Bowling Green assembly line aren’t the same thing.) Another challenge will be the fairly new-concept electric top – aimed to be more than competitive with Mercedes and Porsche sports car tops. Among other amenities, the XLR’s instrument panel was designed by an Italian jeweler. And jewelers pay attention to detail - especially when they’re mounting expensive, artistic stuff on people’s fingers. “We’ll be sending some people to school,” said Cooksey. But he adds that his workers and supervisors have shown over the years that they’re more than willing to try new ideas. Call it pride. “They’re always willing to look at possibilities,” said Cooksey, adding that such flexibility might be expected in 20-something workers. Bowling Green workers average nearly twice that age - largely because they like working on Corvettes so much. “This car is a complex one to build,” said Cooksey. But it’s that very complexity that makes the kind of detail work at the Bowling Green plant legendary.
As the plant manager, Cooksey said Kentucky’s business climate, along with auto industry friends he’s found in Frankfort, has shown him that he has friends willing to help him navigate the often-tough winds of change in the auto industry. “I’m not sure you’d find that in a place like the Motor City,” Cooksey said. Bricks and mortar haven’t been a big part of the changes made for the roadster’s coming. As expected, little more than 10,000 square feet has had to be enclosed to house production space for the new assembly line. Cooksey said the plant will build Cadillac’s roadster alongside the Corvette, mainly with the same workers that have produced award-winning Vettes for years. There are more than 830 workers at the Bowling Green plant now. Last year, Automotive News estimated that Bowling Green’s Corvette-output capacity is some 80,000 cars a year, though the plant put out just more than 33,000 Corvettes in 2001. The success of the Cadillac roadster is crucial to Cadillac as well as General Motors – not to mention Bowling Green. An estimate by Automotive News in September showed a mere 5,488 sales separating Cadillac from Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus. Cadillac ranks third in that list. However, Cadillac is unique among its competitors in that more than 90 percent of its products are listed by U.S. government as luxury vehicles (with sticker prices of $38,000 or more, which triggers a luxury tax.) Some 73 percent of Lincoln’s products are luxury, 69 percent of Mercedez-Benz vehicles rank as luxury class and Lexus ranks even lower. (Apart from a couple models, its luxury lineup is just a bit over 30 percent of total production.) Fortune, which chalked up Cadillac’s decades-long sales slide to “stodgy resistance to change” in September, quoted Merrill-Lynch auto analyst John Casesa as saying Cadillac is fighting its way back into the market it created. Mercedes out-sells Cadillacs some five-to-one overseas and Cadillac sales even lagged behind those of American rival Lincoln in 1998. The Corvette and Cadillac match-up in Bowling Green has history behind it. Until 1997, when its sales dipped below Lincoln’s, Cadillac had been known as a safe company. Not a good safe – a boring safe. That year, design director John Cherry brought the plans to the company’s leaders and they bought it as the main thrust of a complete re-thinking of Cadillac’s direction and philosophy. The plan was to go back to what Cadillac was known for a half-century ago: outside-of-the-box design and innovative gadgets. Cadillac was the first to use electronic ignition, in 1912, and was the first to put power steering on American cars in 1954. Cadillac’s new roadster will be known for the night-vision capability it used in this year’s Le Mans road race earlier this year and in 2001. The last time Cadillac competed in that race, 1950, it was a better-selling car company. The new roadster
aimed at jump-starting Cadillac as a seller with the younger-than-60
crowd will roll off Bowling Green’s assembly line on Cadillac’s
100th birthday. Whether this automaker can have its cake and sell it
too remains to be seen. But Will Cooksey and a plant full of eager builders
will be lighting candles (late-night candles, too) to get ready for
the bash. A hopeful sign for this party, Cooksey said, is that he hears
people in California are already putting down deposits to be first in
line to drive away with their slice. Michael Longinow
is a staff writer for The Lane Report. Click here to see a list of Kentucky Motor Vehicle-Related Facilities
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is copyright 2002, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
One
downside to hard work is when it looks easy. Bowling Green’s General
Motors Corvette Plant, nationally-known for its production of sleek,
finely-detailed performance machines, has geared up to produce the new
Cadillac XLR sports car in ways that appear deft – smooth as the
fender lines on a sport coupe. 
Cooksey
hasn’t had to do much about change in Bowling Green’s operations
and he likes it that way. Success speaks for itself when it comes to
auto assembly. In fact, the Corvette plant’s location in Western
Kentucky – as opposed to Detroit, Chicago or any other large urban
hub – perhaps makes it perfect as a launching pad for Cadillac’s
XLR.