(EXPANDED FROM 4/18/2023)
According to Ed Cray’s (1980) Chrome Colossus, in 1932 Cadillac was in danger of being discontinued when a young service manager named Nicholas Dreystadt crashed a General Motors’ executive committee meeting to offer an idea.
Dreystadt had noticed that a large number of Cadillacs owned by African-Americans were brought in for servicing even though the corporate policy was to not sell to them cars. He proposed that Cadillac could boost sales by cultivating African-American buyers.
Mabra Holyfield (2019) wrote that these African-Americans were boxers, entertainers, lawyers, doctors and ministers who had been willing to pay white men $300 to purchase cars for them.
The executive committee gave Dreystadt 18 months to show what he could do. His efforts proved so successful that the Cadillac Division was soon breaking even and by 1940 had seen a 10-fold increase in sales, according to Cray (1980).
Packard — which then dominated the luxury field — continued to reserve for itself the “old-money, landed gentry,” Cray noted. “(T)hus Packard went under, while Cadillac prospered as America’s status symbol” (1980; p. 279).
Did doing the right thing drive Cadillac sales growth?
Cray was right that Cadillac showed a big improvement in production during Dreystadt’s tenure heading Cadillac. Production of the Cadillac and its lower-priced companion brand, LaSalle, soared from under 6,700 units in 1933 to over 66,000 in 1941, which was an almost 10-fold increase.
That said, it took a lot longer than 18 months for sales to rebound. Combined Cadillac/LaSalle output didn’t surpass 1930 levels until 1937. Sales didn’t really take off until 1941, when the LaSalle was replaced by the Cadillac Series 61, 62 and 63, which had list prices ranging from $1,345 to $1,965. Cadillac’s more traditional price range above $2,000 represented less than 11 percent of total output. So what really “saved” the Cadillac brand was going downmarket into Buick territory.
In addition, Cadillac’s improvement in market share wasn’t all that different from Lincoln’s through most of the 1930s. As you can see from the graph below, in 1934 Cadillac saw a sharper increase, but like Lincoln declined the following year. From 1936-38 both luxury brands saw their market share soar as the economy rebounded. From 1939 onward Cadillac usually did better while Lincoln/Zephyr market share fell off.
Another way to look at production data is to compare how Cadillac recovered from the Great Depression compared to General Motors and the U.S. auto industry as a whole. Cadillac and LaSalle production fell off much more sharply in 1933 and started to inch up in 1934 before roaring back over the next three years. Then, from 1937 onward, Cadillac tracked fairly closely with both GM and the rest of the industry.
What these graphs suggest is that Cadillac’s rebound in 1934-37 at least partly reflected the recovery of the auto industry in general. From 1937-41 Cadillac did much better than Lincoln, but its growth wasn’t exceptional for a GM division.
Of course, in the 1930s Cadillac’s biggest competitor was Packard rather than Lincoln. One challenge in making apples-to-apples comparisons is that Packard moved farther downmarket than either Cadillac or Lincoln with its 120 series beginning in 1935 and 115 series in 1937. In the peak year of 1937, senior Packards made up only 6 percent of almost 123,000 units produced. Cadillac would built slightly more senior models that year.
Price cuts in 1936 helped Cadillac rebound
One factor in the Cadillac’s growth appears to have been a major restructuring of its lineup in 1936. A new entry-level Series 60 was added to fill a roughly $900 price gap between the Cadillac and the LaSalle lineups (Langworth and Norbye, 1986). Advertising for the Series 60 emphasized price — and in the ad shown below targeted women drivers.
The Cadillac brand was moved both downmarket and upmarket at the same time. The Series 60 was priced below any senior Packard or Lincoln while the Series 90 was above high-end models from those brands.
What all this suggests to me is that Jim Koscs (2019) may be on to something when he wrote that “there is no evidence” that Cadillac’s sales increase was directly the result of dropping its discriminatory policy toward African-Americans. “Still, that was a step in the right direction to right a wrong, and the change inevitably contributed to widening Cadillac’s market going forward,” he concluded.
Driving a Cadillac wasn’t just about stature
Meagan Kathleen Monahan suggested that the purchase of Cadillacs by African-Americans “signified not only wealth and economic stature but also a personal victory against racism, where the public act of driving one’s automobile placed one on the same social level as white Americans” (2012), p. 13).
That said, it wasn’t just about stature. Driving While Black author Gretchen Sorin noted that large cars such as Cadillacs and Buicks were also preferred as a response to the challenges African-Americans faced while driving long distances — and not only in the south. Because they might not find restaurants where they were allowed eat or motels to stay at overnight, their car needed to be big enough to sleep in and carry essentials such as food (WHYY, 2020).
Sorin also debunked the stereotype that today African-Americans own a disproportionate number of Cadillacs. She said they do so in the same proportion as white Americans — 3 percent (WHYY, 2020).
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on June 7, 2020 and expanded on June 16, 2021, April 18, 2023 and Nov. 25, 2024. Production figures are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993). Output for 1930-40 includes both Cadillac and LaSalle because that is more comparable with 1941 figures for Cadillac alone, the first year after LaSalle was discontinued.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Cray, Ed; 1980. Chrome Colossus: General Motors and its Times. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY.
- Holyfield, Mabra (2019). “African Americans Saved Cadillac.” Los Angeles Sentinel. Posted July 11.
- Koscs, Jim; 2019. “How Nicholas Dreystadt ended racism at Cadillac in the 1930s—or tried to.” Hagerty. Posted October 22 accessed June 7.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1986. The Complete History of General Motors 1908-1986. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Monahan, Meagan Kathleen; 2012. “The Green Book: A Representation of the Black Middle Class and Its Resistance to Jim Crow through Entrepreneurship and Respectability.” Thesis, College of William and Mary.
- Sorin, Gretchen; 222. Driving While Black: African-American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights. Liveright.
- WHYY; 2020. “Driving While Black.” Posted February 11.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org:Â Cadillac (1936)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Cadillac (1937)
It’s a big stretch to say that Dreystadt’s decision to end the nonsense of not selling cars directly to African-American buyers saved the division, even if was the correct decision. There was a whole lot of other things happening during this era, including Cadillac’s move to streamlined styling as interpreted by Harley Earl. I would argue that the 1934 and later Cadillacs adopted this look more successfully than Packard and Lincoln did.
The really big move was the debut of the lower-price Series 60. This was essentially the first “modern” luxury car – it was built with off-the-shelf GM components, but featured a Cadillac drivetrain and styling cues. It was also lower in price than previous Cadillacs.
Packard dominated the upper reaches of the market, but sales in the segment evaporated as the decade progressed. (The Packard V-12 regularly outsold the Cadillac V-12 and V-16 combined.) But Packard also gained an increasingly stodgy image. Packard ads and promotional materials throughout the 1930s regularly highlighted “styling continuity” as a competitive advantage. In the turbulent 1930s, an increasing number of buyers wanted up-to-the minute styling.
It was more likely younger buyers of all races who propelled Cadillac to the forefront. Packard dominated sales of the custom-bodied cars likely to be driven by a chauffeur. One would expect to see a contemporary of the Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey in the back seat. By the mid-1930s, younger buyers – especially women – did not wish to have their vehicle broadcast that image to the public. They wanted to drive themselves, and do it in easier-to-drive cars that were also stylish. (Higher taxes during the Great Depression also discouraged even the wealthy from employing a chauffeur in the first place.) The Series 60 Cadillacs fit the bill, particularly the 60 Special.
Good points all. It strikes me that Cadillac was in an enviable position in the 1930s despite its struggles in the early part of the Great Depression. None of the other major auto manufacturers were in a very good position to take the lead in the luxury-car market, e.g., Henry Ford was too busy running his company into the ground.
Among the independents, only Packard stood a fighting chance of making the pivot to more popularly priced and mass-produced luxury cars. We can debate how well they made that pivot but even if they had navigated the 1930s perfectly, Packard would still have faced an uphill battle — particularly after World War II — in maintaining leadership of the field. They simply didn’t have the economies of scale of General Motors.
One other factor that worked against Packard was . . . its prior success. As you say, management was too hesitant to shift with the times.
While “coach-built” Packards were distinctive and stylish, by the late 1930s, Packards were stuck in the 1930s, while G.M. (Harley Earl and his disciple, Bill Mitchell) were evolving Cadillac out of the 1930s and into the 1940a. Mitchell’s 1938 Sixty Special pointed the way.
I believe that everything that happened in the late 1930s/just pre-WWII for the luxury car segment set up what happened in the 1950s.
The American makers in this segment all went down market for volume. The 12s and 16s along with the cars that they represented would no longer represent their brands in this market (short exception for Lincoln). One might ask to what degree this moving down market would eventually hurt the brand image & exclusivity in future years.
Packard was stuck trying to have their old line traditional buyers who were dying off.
Cadillac had the style and with the new V8 a modern “going forward” viewpoint that was not one’s parents and grandparents car.
Going back to the original point of this article, did the black buyer of Cadillac make a meaningful contribution? Don’t know but I would suspect that there were some significant incremental sales in certain markets that managed to keep some Cadillac dealerships open in the darker days of the depression.
It could be interesting to imagine what if Packard had decided to imitate Cadillac moves during the 1930s?
Which moves? Selling to the African Americans?
Would the clientele of Packard, considered to be more old school, than Cadillac have been accepting of that? Did the black community even desire a Packard instead of a Cadillac? The story only mentions what that group was doing vis-a-vis Cadillacs; maybe it was more than Cadillac that they were trying to buy.
By the late 1930s Packard was no longer the style leader, excepting for the Darrin.
Cadillac and even Lincoln with the Zepher and Continental had taken the style mantle.
In hindsight there is a long, long list of things Packard should have done differently to allow them to survive.
Ah, but Packard was a standalone brand, which may have not mattered as much between 1930 and 1941, but helped sowed the seeds of economic destruction in the inflationary post-war years after 1946. Add Packard’s decision to take the 1941 Clipper and make it an envelope body that was an clumsy inelegant bathtub on wheels, if you wanted to score points at the country club or in one’s neighborhood regardless of race, the 1948 Cadillacs were this country’s style leader. Then came the ohv V-8 and the hardtops, Packards had to be viewed by most luxury car buyers after 1950 as past their prime. If Packard had picked up Hudson as the medium class car in 1947 or 1948 with the war profits, then maybe Packard could have had a more attractive luxury car by 1949 or 1950. “The path not taken…” I still don’t know is a Hudson-Packard hookup would have saved either brand after 1958.