Re: IML: Is it a Old Man's car or Prestiage driving?

I don't think you can put an exact date on it. The big three auto manufacturers made a concious decision not to improve their designs for those bigger, more expensive cars that were being bought by the older generation. I guess they thought that a 55 year old man would be satisfied driving an old slug design and wouldn't drive a sporty looking car.
The way I see it (my humble opinion), the quality of mid-70s American cars was in the toilet. The foreign car manufacturers knew that there was some stiff competition in the American car market so their offerings had to be of better quality, design, dependability, and economy, in order to win the upper middle class, middle aged buyers. The foreign cars were sportier looking, and those people in "mid-life crisis" were looking for just that. You must admit that those big Caddies, Town Cars, and Imperials weren't very sporty looking. Chrysler, GM, and Ford went through that same cycle back in the fifties. Some say they basically missed their mark with the 1949 through 1954 model years, with few exceptions. It wasn't until the introduction of the 1955 models when car designs changed drastically for the better (can you say Forward Look?). Maybe they were watching Studebaker, with their really neat designs, head for the dunk tank.

The bottom line is that most peoples' perception of the ones who could afford to buy these big cars are older, empty-nesters who have accumulated some extra disposable cash, and thus, could spend more on a car. Those who bought the Fury or Polara in the sixties wanted to move up to a Newport, New Yorker, or Crown, in the seventies. But by the eighties, those cars were competing against the foreign brands and many times the foreign ones won. In addition, the seventies foreign offerings were more fuel efficient, and that was critical during the Arab oil embargo in 1973-74.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: mamrom@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 6:59 am
Subject: IML: Is it a Old Man's car or Prestiage driving?

My Question: When, exactly, did Cadillacs, Lincolns and our beloved IMPERIALS go 
from being a prestige car to an "old people" car, at least in the eyes of 
reviewers. Surely the prestigious people that bought them as late as 1974 could 
not all have reached old age by 1987!?! I cannot believe fuel economy is the 
cause either, after all the 1980s Broughams can get 20 mpg on the highway, not 
too shabby for the 1980s! When did successful people switch from Cadillacs to 
BMWs and Lexuses, and what was it that did it? Because surely a successful 40 
year old in 1975 would buy a CaddyImperial or Lincoln , not a BMW. What made him 
decide that by age 50 Caddies/Imperials were too "old man?"

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