How Cadillac Designed Its Way To A Comeback
Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we've got reports from Co.DESIGN, The Truth About Cars, and Octane.
How Cadillac Designed A Comeback – Fast Company Co.Design
I'm heavily quoted in this article about Caddy's comeback, which focuses on design and provides a deeper look at how aesthetics played into their reversal of fortunes. Also. CHIMSL. Let this be a guide to Lincoln.
Legend has it, GM execs met in an informal meeting sometime around 2000 or 2001 to discuss Cadillac's future, and from this, they planned a reboot fueled by $4.3 billion in investments to save the brand. Maybe it really was one meeting. Maybe it was a series of meetings. The people I speak to at Cadillac don't seem to know, and they honestly don't seem to care.
Of Miatas And Men: A Father’s Day Story – The Truth About Cars
Derek, who apparently reached his adult height at age 3, provides a sweet description of how his father supported his early car nerd tendencies.
I still don't know what compelled me to make my Dad come out to his office every single weekend. I know that as a child, I had was obsessed with collecting car brochures. I had to get a new one each week, and Honda had a big rack of brochures in the lobby, where visitors waited. What better place to get my fix. Like a real junkie, the initial rush had to be fed perpetually, and soon the brochures from the rack weren't enough.
Ferrari 333SP – OCTANE
The subhead breaks it all down: The F50 was an F1 car for the road. So, what about turning an F1 car into a sports racer? Enter the 333SP.
Except the classic sports-prototype wasn't done just yet. Witness the Ferrari 333SP with its 3997cc F1-derived V12. The Scuderia had pulled out of frontline sports car racing back in 1973, and it was left to adapted road cars to make up the numbers into the early '80s – and then nothing. However, following protracted lobbying, Ferrari bowed to pressure and created this fabulous machine with a little help from a few friends such as designer/constructor Gian Paolo Dallara and Tony Southgate, whose resumé included F1, Indy 500 and Le Mans winners. At a stroke, the 333SP lent credibility to the new-for-1994 IMSA WSC category, but it would also go on to do rather well in Europe.