Transcription
By the time the 1990s rolled around, Cadillac was really in some dire financial straits. And General Motors leadership faced a tough decision with respect to Cadillac. More specifically, what should they do for a division that was really having challenges when it came to profitability? There really were three different scenarios being evaluated at the time.
Closed down Cadillac entirely, which is seemingly hard to believe, but a decision that, as an example, Ford was evaluating for Lincoln back in the early 1960s. So, that was one option. A second option was to sell Cadillac off to a buyer. And the third, which was the most preferable, but also very challenging, was to restore Cadillac to its greatness and do so and keep it in the fold of General Motors divisions.
Of course, the corporation wanted the lattermost option as the one to work out, and the task then fell to many different individuals within Cadillac to achieve this mission. One group that would play a pivotal role was the design team. And the design team at this point was led by an individual named Dick Rosen, who worked with a talented team to create the 1992 Seville and Eldorado. Two cars that really were ones that put Cadillac back on the map in terms of prestige and luxury and frankly even a bit of sportiness.
Both the 1992 Seville and Eldorado were successful and frankly doubled the sales volumes versus the previous generation cars, with the 1992 Seville selling almost 44,000 units and the Eldorado selling almost 25,000 units. Both figures were roughly double what the previous generation sold. And for the Seville in particular, the sales volumes of the 1992 variant were really some of the best that the Seville had had in many years. In fact, they stacked up relatively favorably with the first generation Seville that was sold from 1976 to 1979 and was deemed a complete success by Cadillac Division and its leadership.
This video will be part of a multi-part series on the design of the 1992 Seville and Eldorado. And we will discuss with Dick Rosen, through a live walkthrough of my 1994 Seville STS, the design of the car as well as the aerodynamics that will be a different part. And we'll also sit down with him in his home to discuss the design process for the car and the background in more detail.
Dick was the chief designer of Cadillac during this time frame and a number of talented designers participated in the creation of the Seville, including Dick's assistant at the time Dennis Little, as well as Scott Wasel, Larry Ericson, Gary Smith, and later Ben Salvador. There were also other individuals who brought the Seville to fruition, including clay modelers and studio engineers. In other words, many people were behind its creation.
I should also mention that Dick has recently published a book called Designing Dreams, which is really a series of essays discussing the design process, the history of design at General Motors, and has a particular focus on the 1966 Toronado. He even allowed me to author a chapter, chapter 26, on the history of the Toronado. It's the ultimate chapter in this book. You can find the book for sale on Amazon and other places. It's published by Veloi Publishing and retails for $29.99.
Let's now head outside with Dick and discuss the design of the 1992 Seville.
All right, so here we are outside with Dick and my 1994 Seville STS. And Dick, this is your baby, I guess. Right. Right. Right. I'm very familiar. Lots of blood, sweat, and tears. Yes. And amazing how contemporary the design looks still all these years later, you know, 30 plus years later. So why don't, uh, what are your feelings when you look at it again? Does it excitement? Is it, uh, like memories of the pain that the team went through or?
No, no, you, you tend not to, you know, think about all that stuff. Um, I think what's great about it is, you know, of course, uh, what's great about it is that, uh, it looks so good, uh, uh, so far ahead in time. We don't think about that when we're doing a car, you know, but I would have to say that, um, I always tried to do sketches of cars that were not trendy, but would would look, but be long-lasting. The design would be long-lasting. And I, I can look at my sketches and see that some of my in my sketches. So that's what I tried to do.
And even though there are a lot of people involved, you know, we had, um, um, Dennis Little, Scott Wasel, Larry Ericson, Gary Smith, Ben Salvador came later, and Brian Baker came later after that. Even though a lot of people involved, um, whoever is running the studio kind of sets the tone, and they're learning, too. Sure. They're learning. So, but, um, this is really, this was a wonderful car. I, I only drove two of these.
Well, why don't we take the camera off and walk around it and we'll talk about some of the details. Yeah, let's do that. All right. Okay.
Well, on the front, uh, it's a no-brainer. I mean, Cadillac fronts, even today, uh, you can do Cadillac fronts all day long. It's, it's easy. And so, we knew what it had to look like, but then the question is, how is it going to be executed? How are you going to shape it? Uh, you've got bumpers to deal with, bumper offsets to deal with. Uh, Cadillac had a long history of having bumper guards, and customers liked the bumper guards. I see. Now, the Seville was the only one with the bumper guards, right? The Eldorado didn't.
The Eldorado did not. On the Eldorado, we were able to, um, the Eldorado bumper was about this high, so we were able to come right across. But this car, we wanted this dropped in front end. So, um, we had the bumper guards had to be there. And the fact that Cadillac customers liked them, you know, Cadillac customers did not want their cars damaged. They didn't want them bumped. They didn't want, they wanted a body side molding standard. They didn't want to, you know, no chips, no bumps, nothing. They didn't want anything done on their cars. We learned that in clinics. And interesting.
What about the grille here, Dick? Being an STS, this is, is this the same grille as the base Seville, but just not etched? It's body colored. Yeah. Yeah. No, they, it's the same grille as the base, uh, Seville grille. It's been painted body color and we relocated the emblem. The Seville has, uh, bring has a stand-up emblem here. Yes. That leans, supposed to lean back a little bit, and we relocated and made larger this emblem here. And you wanted it larger to be more authoritative or? Got it. Yeah. Stronger.
And, um, and what about it's here? I think this is the first instance I've seen of the Cadillac logo where it doesn't have any color. It's, That's right. We took the color out. Um, and because, you know, the, I think we started on the Eldorado. There's a little emblem, beautiful emblem that's on the sail panel on the Eldorado, and we want, didn't want to take any, we didn't want to have any emblems on the car. Dealers were taking all the emblems and gold-plating them. That's right. I remember they were taking the lettering and gold-plating it. So what we did, we put all the lettering and all the and everything into the moldings. Ah, so they couldn't remove them to have them gold-plated, and they were very upset about that. They didn't like that at all. Ah, okay. That was tricky. That was very tricky of you.
Now maybe point out what describes to you and just maybe point out on the hood form. What describes a Cadillac front end to you? What makes it a Cadillac and not something else? Uh, if you think about those, uh, Cadillacs, you know, those great cars that were done in the '60s and '70s, the hood always stood proud. Yes. Right. And, um, so we have some of that here representing that. We, And those cars had a chrome grille and they had, uh, usually what we call a header. That, that piece of chrome that was here that went across the top. Yeah. We left that off. And that was when we were doing the, we're doing the Seville, we're putting it together for the first time, and Dennis just said, "Let's just leave the header off." I said, "Okay, that's it." That's how it happened. So that, and the car looks so good without it that it went away. Didn't have it anymore.
I love how you've got the lights that just wrap around the side too, continuously. There's no break there between the headlamp, the turn signal, the cornering light. And, and you know, I think Cadillac was doing, uh, some special new technology for lighting that was pretty fairly long, so it was difficult to package it. Um, but yeah, we, and I think we were putting, we didn't do it on this car. We did it later on the, uh, Fleetwood. We put the little Cadillac emblem in here. Ah, okay. You were still in the, uh, no emblem of reducing the? Well, well, yeah, that's how, yeah, that car seemed like the appropriate thing to do. And then, of course, this has its own bumper. Um, the shape, the lamp down there. Uh, there, you know, a lot of aerodynamic work down there.
Now, one thing I never really noticed before, but it's interesting is that, you know, this feature line here that runs the length of the car actually blends into and forms kind of the leading edge of the hood, right? And it does the same thing on the Eldorado. Uh, although the Eldorado fender is totally different. It, it comes up and comes down. And I had that on a, I had that on many sketches. That was something that we did in the wind tunnel and it worked really well. But we wanted the cars to be different. So this is now in terms of the side profile here. This car also has, you, I think about the Allante where the front end has no plan view tapering to it. You know, it kind of looks like it hit a brick wall, pretty flat. Yeah. And this is pretty, pretty, uh, extreme.
Well, it's, it's still pretty rest, I mean, you know, it, it's easy to make something really a lot stronger. But what happens here, you got packaging problems for the corner. You know, there, there's stuff under here, and, um, so you can't just push this back. And then here you can come forward, but you're limited by how long the car wants to be. You know, it wants to be a certain length, weight comes along, cost comes along. So, you end up with somewhat of a break enough. And then this, this, this nice little shape here that keeps the hood proud. You know, the body side, we needed, we needed something, uh, we wanted the car, this car to look long, even though, you know, it's not nearly as long as the Cadillacs that preceded it. So it was logical to do two things. One is the break in the body side, mid-body, that, uh, really changes the shape of the, the body completely. And then that detail up at the top near the belt. And, uh, this is a very natural thing to do to sweep this belt line in, cuz what happens is, there's a, um, you can see it here. There's, there's dimension here. Here it's all flush, but down here you got, I see. And so we tried to eliminate that.
Oh, so you got like a little, Yeah, it's glass is pushed in. So we tried to eliminate that here. And one of the ways to do it is to roll this line up, which is what we did. I think other GM cars like of the previous era had that where the belt line dips below the hood. Um, but here it's, it's so contemporary. It, it looks contemporary, too.
Now, this is being an STS has different cladding on the bottom here. The base had the rub strip that ran around and, Yeah. The Seville has a sheet metal door that goes all the way down and it's got that step that comes out. Well, that's under here. So, you disguised it. It's the same door. It's the same door. It has a cladding over it that changes the lower shape and it hides that step that's here. And then all we wanted, I mean, this, this car was put together in about two days. Uh, I was working in the wind tunnel and Dennis and, uh, Scott and Larry, and I think Larry did the body side. They knew what they knew what it was going to be. I mean, you didn't even have to say anything. Everybody knew what this car was going to be. It was going to be super simple, dramatic, you know. And so I came in, I was over there. I came in and they're all standing around. There it was. It looked great. That was it.
It's got, I mean, compared to the previous generation, too, so much more tumble home and then, you know, section to the surfacing too, right? Would you say is, yeah, the previous cars, uh, unfortunately, what happened with the pre, the small, if you think of Cadillacs going back 10 years before this car, before and say a couple years before the smaller cars, you had huge lowers and tiny uppers, right? That was a Cadillac, these dramatic proportions. So then when they did the small cars, they had a small body and the design is of a big upper with the opposite. And what happened, the reason they got there was they had to find an identity different than the N cars. The N cars had a more normal proportion. So they're fighting to get identity. So they ended up with big windows, which made the roof look big. So they, they ended up with a small body and a big roof, which was the opposite of what Cadillac had been traditionally. And those customers were still there, right? Yeah. They're still looking. And, uh, um, but yeah, so then by bringing this out, we got more, a little more tumble home. So everything is bal, there's nothing extreme about this car, yet there's a lot of subtlety. And I'd say the, the execution, the way it's done is the really the important thing here. And to your point, it's got the more, it has more, uh, tumble home, so it sets up the glass to the, the wheel relationship better than the previous cars, too. Yeah. Yeah. It appears like it's got a better stance. Yeah. And that, and we were, and we really worked with, uh, the engineers to try to get the wheels out as far as possible. And I know on the Eldorado, we kept working with them and and they kept saying, uh, well, we can put a notch in the molding, and then in the end they didn't do it. They didn't have to do it, which meant the wheel could have come out a little more if they had done it.
It's amazing, by the way, today to see how low the hood line is on this car compared to, you know, all the crossovers that you're used to. Yeah. Um, and here's your your elevated deck lid that kept getting built up and up and up, right? We kept going up and up and up with it. It's in a perfect spot here. And, you know, this, this has a lot to do with the, the roof profile, but in in the back end, you know, you're, you're restricted really. Um, we wanted big lights that looked expensive and, um, but you're limited by what's called a lift-off over when you put things in the trunk. If this, if this line is too high, you have to raise everything up higher. So, that's a limitation. That's why the, the, this is part of the trunk deck lid. Some of the viewers may not know, right? This doesn't stay stationary. This moves with the deck. It comes down. And down here. And, and you had a different light on the STS than the base Seville to accommodate a wider license plate area here. Like the base Seville had a wider light. Yeah, the STS is, is made to to accommodate the European plate. Uh, basically the German plate, that long thin plate. Uh, and then we had, I think some amber bulbs and or amber lighting and whatever.
Beautiful way that this, you know, that same line here transitions and becomes this fillet, you know, where the chamfers. Yeah. This, this is, this is a really nice subtle shape. And remember that T-Bird that previous T-Bird coupe turbo? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It had something kind of like this in the back. And Okay. And this was so good. It looked so good that we didn't want to do anything else. So, we said, the heck with it. It'll be just a little bit like it if anybody notices. I don't think anybody ever did. Now they're going to notice, Dick. 30 years later.
And here on the emblem, um, they had these emblems that would hinge to the side. Yes. And kids would take them and so those, and, and it was expensive item to replace. Yeah. And so they wanted to do one without that, just with the hole. And to do that, we had to open this wreath up. Oh, you opened the wreath. So the, the guy from graphics, the designer from graphics, we had said, "Well, we can open that up a little bit and then, uh, it works." So I said, "Okay." So we did it. Well, then about a week later, Dave Ho, come in, comes in. He's got the drawing and, uh, he said, "You changed the wreath." He was the only time he ever got upset with me and he upset. He said, "I know why you did it." Said, "Uh, but don't do, don't ever do that again." Okay.
Now, you didn't make the, the crest here, Peter. It's got the color in it. That's right. Yeah, we should have, we should have done that. Yeah. Too much of a rush. I would have, I would have helped you as your finance support. That's what you look to the finance guys for.
This wraparound backlight too is had to have been a pretty costly piece because it extends, you know, well into the C-pillar here. We, you know, I, there was never any, the one thing we did, Yeah. There was never any pushback on any of the cost. Oh, okay. Because, and I think it was because they were so happy to have a great looking car that that's what they had to have. Now, we did have a slight change. Um, that, that picture I sent you of that wine-colored Seville, I think it's, uh, our fiberglass model. If you look closely, this whole thing is about 3/4 of an inch forward. It had a little faster line here, and they were worried about, um, people getting in the back seat, and so that was a compromise that we had to make, but other than that, there wasn't anything. It was just a matter of doing it, um, making it all work.
We put these on for protection. Okay. Back to your point on Cadillac owners want the, Yeah, protection. Yeah. We put that on for protection. And I remember the guy that was responsible, the engineer responsible for for this cladding was very, uh, he came to see me as soon as he got the job. He wanted to be sure, and he had these little drawings. He wanted to be sure that this chrome could tuck in there. The problem with with all these plastic pieces is they, they, um, expand and contract a lot. Uh, so, um, they need extra space for that to happen. So when he was, so surprised when we got to do it about two months later that I remembered that's this is the way we did it.
I even think it's great you look at the little details like the rocker. You've got it kind of blacked out at the bottom there, and then it's, it's fatter here than in the middle. Yeah. That, um, that takes that little swelling for the wheel. Yeah. Yeah. That just became part of this package. Yeah. It's not a huge change, the changes that were done, but it changes the character of the car. Makes it simpler, more dramatic, you know, and in character with, um, now in character with the European cars.
Now, this car was supposed to look European. The Eldorado is supposed to look American. I see. Okay. Now, they're over the same engineering, uh, uh, parameters. Okay. So, that drives them to look the same. So, how do you make them look different and one look American and one look European? So what, in looking at all those cars, looking at the, um, Mercedes, the Audis, the BMWs, they were all quite round this way. H, this way. And so what we did was we made this car look rounder this way in the body side here. If you look at the Eldorado, it looks more sheer. It's a different look. Okay. And so that, in that way, the character of the two are quite different, even though in a lot of ways they're the same. Wow.
Now, what about the interior, Dick? You were the exterior design chief. I think Marv Fisher did the interior, but I'm just curious. What are your thoughts? I think you had some interesting thoughts about the IP in particular here, the rounded form.
Well, you know, management was watching us, of course, and, uh, I think what happened, the interior was Marv Fisher in charge of interiors, and, uh, Cadillac interior was right next door to exterior, and we had these boards. If the boards were up, we could see into the interior studio. Well, once in a while they were. And one day I look up and here's a 20-foot board, and there was a guy in there. I knew who he was, but he wasn't one of the designers. So I walked in to see him, and, uh, he was laying out it was amazing. He was laying out this interior. And so he had on a drawing, he had all of this all the way around into the back on on a 20-foot drawing, he had that whole shape. And then he, so as though you took the doors and instead of them being this way, everything was like this with the panel in the middle, and it was all one shape, and it looked terrific. So I, I said to him, I said, "That really looks great." Well, then about couple hours later, Marv came in. He said, "I hear you like that panel." I said, "Yeah, I think it looks terrific. You know, I'm off doing other things." So, then, uh, the next thing I noticed a couple weeks later, I'm down in the shop and the fiberglass model is being put together. So, it's all this green thing, no glass in it, whatever. And they put the panel, and I had seen it without the instrument panel. And I went down there again, and it had the, and they had put the panel in, and boy, what a difference it made to the, to what you were looking at. Suddenly it was driver-oriented, cuz you knew this is where the driver went. And there was another thing about this theme. Uh, they had a U. Um, Bob Dorney put an Eldorado together with a Corvette engine and a four-speed. And I drove that car, and that car had this very rectangular cluster in front of it. And I noticed driving it that whenever you, whenever the car jounced, you felt the, you knew the car jounced. You could see it. This does not do that. Takes that away. And as you, as the car jumps, it's rolling on that radius. So, it makes you feel a lot more comfortable. And I think another thing they did here that this car has, um, there was a thing called the golden triangle or something, I think it was. And when you're driving on the Autobahn, there's two things you want. You want a high belt so you feel like you're in the car, not sitting on top of the car. You're going 200 km an hour. You don't want to feel like you're sure sitting on top. The other thing is you want the speedometer and tach located so that you can see the horizon without tipping your head. Your just your eyes move. You can move from horizon to t to speedometer without moving your head, because if you have to do that, your neck gets really sore. And so all that was put into this car. I mean, they really tried to make this appeal to Europeans and be a European car.
I did interview Marv at one point, and I know that he was talking about the Zebrano wood, too. He hated burl walnut, you know, which was always like, I'm not doing that. I think Mercedes used Zebrano for a number of years, but it's a great looking interior. Yeah. Yeah. And he did a beautiful job in the interior, you know, and it matches, in terms of the simplicity and drama and execution, it matches the exterior really well. And you can see what you were mentioning about this cladding and how it, it disguises the actual sheet metal. That's right. I mean, the cladding is sitting proud up here. And you can see here, here you can see the little notch. Yeah. And what would happen is when that molding was on here, you had a bright, uh, spot up here from the molding horizontally, and then you had a bright spot here from this little, um, step in the sheet metal. So it, it made the body side look really different. It's amazing to see like how, how it's changing the door. How subtle it is. How subtle it is. It's pretty awesome little trick. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great interior. I mean, they did, they did a wonderful job on the interior. It's just, I don't know how I never talked to Marv about how hard it was. But, uh, they were always kind of following us because interior gets released after the exterior because you got to make sure that the, everything matches. Okay. You have to know where the cowl line is going to be, where the belt's going to be, how that's all going to work.
Well, great. Any final thoughts, Dick, as you look at your baby here? I think you should take it for a drive, though. Yeah, I'd like you to do that. Well, let's talk about the aerodynamics, huh? Let's do that. Okay.
Now, stay tuned for part two of the walkthrough where Dick and I take a look at the '94 Seville and discuss its particular aerodynamic features. Also, be sure to check out Dick's book, Designing Dreams, available for sale on Amazon and other locations by Veloi Publishing. It retails for $29.99. It has a lot of great information about the history of design at General Motors, as well as a particular spotlight on the 1966 Toronado's design. Thanks again for watching.