Cadillac for More Than 50

Cadillac for more than 50 years was considered to be a typical American luxury car. it's success was the most visible in 1970s, yet today the preference of American luxury car customers shifted towards other brands mostly European: BMW, Lexus. It is also stated that sales of Cadillac in the year of 2000 were about a half of peak year sales of 1978 for Cadillac. Today we can make a prediction that the amount of sales had only decreased. Even though that in a period of 1950-1998 Cadillac was a top selling car it began to experience a serious competition with Japanese and European luxury brands starting from late 1970's. The problem is that it's not an economy car and it uses much more gas than other models. It became especially important after gas prices skyrocketed after Middle East crisis of 1970's so that American customers turned their attention to popular Japanese brands. After September 11th, 2001 the prices on gas grow with a constant rate so it's logically that demand on Cadillac decreased today. it's often being said that Cadillac and Lincoln are "old peoples" cars. The survey conducted by Newsweek magazine among the purchasers of luxury cars had only proved it. Average age of Cadillac buyer is 61-62 years. The statistics nevertheless shows that Cadillac is nearly equally purchased by people who are 58- 66 years old. The statistics of other brands is more age-varied. So we can make a conclusion that Cadillac is still a "perfect car" for those who witnessed its success in 1970's. For most of them Cadillac is personification of "American" and is a sign of "middle class prosperity." We can conclude from this histogram that Cadillac is a subject of interest of mostly elder part of luxury car customers, as in most cases it's not purchased by people who are younger than 50. It says that Cadillac customer oriented model is not directed on younger customers who prefer high tech ergonomic design, relatively small consumption of fuel and new car modeling tendencies. Cadillac remains a conservative brand.

Histogram for age and income of Cadillac owners.

Statistics of purchases of other brands shows that world's most popular luxury brands (Mercedes, BMW and Lexus) are purchased by those who are younger that 58 years old. For Mercedes the most typical customer is one who is 44-58 years old, for BMW - 40-51 years old, for Lexus- 43-56 years old. This tendency shows that younger customers are interested in fancy cars even if it's a car of foreign brand and don't prefer much "American classics." The only car, which is, as popular as Cadillac among those who are older that 50 is Lincoln.

According to cross tabulation provided below we can conclude that Cadillac is most popular among people who have 11-13-year of education, among successful middle class Americans with complete high school education or college degree. People who have competed 15 or more year of education are less like to buy Cadillac and the number of them is nearly three times less than number of Cadillac purchasers who have less than 15-year of education.

The annual income of those who purchased Cadillac verifies from 74K to 134K, with average annual income of $110,000. The biggest part of Cadillac purchases have annual income of 98-109K, most of them are 64-66 years old and have 12-14 years of education.

Age

Household income

74-85K

86-97K

98-109K

110-121K

122-133K

Age

Years of education less then 12

12-14years

15 and more

The situation with owners of other luxury brands is different. The average income of BMW purchasers is $14,288,00; average income of Mercedes and Lexus purchases is $186,773,00 and $154,404,00 respectively. The education level is higher as well, which corresponds to the higher income if compared to Cadillac owners. The average number of studied years for BMW owner is 16,1; for Mercedes it's 17,5 and for Lexus it's 15,8. This data means that typical owners of BMW and Lexus have a Master or Bachelor's degree and typical owners of Mercedes have Master or post-graduate degrees. it's important to note that among owners of BMW, Mercedes and Lexus there are no persons who have 10 years of education. For BMW this indicator is higher is than 12 years; for Mercedes it's higher than 14 years and for Lexus it's higher than 12 years. Such statistics shows that these cars are more likely to be purchased by upper middle class representatives who have Bachelor's or Master's Degrees.