85ZingoGTR, while I wouldn’t defend the Cimmaron or the decision to produce it, I don’t think Cadillac’s image was as severely beaten by it as you suggest. It certainly didn’t help and obviously caused many to chuckle or even laugh. But during those years serious Cadillac buyers were shopping for El Dorados, Sevilles and Fleetwoods. While at that time even those models were in their final years of supremacy, in my opinion, it was mroeso the 1985 Sedan DeVille that marked the start of the company’s serious decline than the Cimmaron. The Sedan DeVille was to supplant their premier, bread and butter, market. But it missed the mark. Completely. They sold like gangbusters simply because, up until then, people bought what Cadillac and Lincoln sold to them thinking it was best. Unlike the Cimmaron, which was primarily Cadillac’s failed niche-response to a need for efficient vehicles, the newly shrunken Sedan DeVille struck at the base of their image. Then the ill-conceived micro-sized El Dorado and Seville replacements came out for 86 and nearly completed the un-Cadillac-ing of Cadillac. They didn’t seem to understand WHY they needed to reduce the size if their cars, they just did it, rather than putting forth an honest “standard of the world” effort. The cars felt big but were small and suffering in quality. That’s the legacy I see as having seriously hurt Cadillac’s image. But that was a quarter of a century ago and I believe they began repairing their image almost as soon as they hurt it. And I think everything they’ve done since has been in the right direction (or at least an honest attempt to, i.e., the Caddy that zigged). Sometimes it was baby steps, sometimes it was by leaps.

With that said, I am seriously excited to see what Cadillac has planned for this ATS. They’ve been doing everything right lately and I think they are indeed headed back to being able to, with a straight face, lay claim to the standard of the world.