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Well-heeled wine connoisseurs Cadillac hopes to attract stroll the Auction Napa Valley in California.Moving more upscale, Caddy courts super rich
High-end division goes to Calif.'s wine country to establish its brand with wealthy prospects.
Cadillac provided free test drives in its vehicles -- from an Escalade to the SRX and XLR -- to auction guests at the tony Calistoga Ranch.
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NAPA VALLEY, Calif. -- Wine connoisseurs who attended a multimillion-dollar wine auction here last month didn't flinch at bidding up to $650,000 for four bottles of wine and a dinner. But some in the high-brow group at Auction Napa Valley had questions about spending far less on a Cadillac.
Martin Katz, a Beverly Hills "jeweler to the stars," asked if Cadillacs were made in U.S. plants and whether stories of American workers sabotaging vehicle quality were true.
Katz, who grew up in South Bend, Ind., and has bejeweled actresses Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt, Kim Basinger and Ashley Judd, among others, has a stable of vehicles but wasn't sure about today's Cadillacs, said Jim Taylor, general manager of Cadillac.
Cliff Marriott, a General Motors Corp. product specialist who accompanied many auction guests on free Cadillac test drives in the wine country, said it was a well-to-do woman doctor from the San Francisco Bay area, not her husband, who preferred her everyday car, a Ferrari, to Cadillac's powerful and arguably more comfortable CTS-V.
The unpredictable reactions wealthy consumers have to GM's upscale brand showcase the challenge that Cadillac faces as it seeks to re-establish itself as America's pinnacle car brand of luxury and prestige.
While there has been plenty of publicity about Cadillac's ability to attract trend-conscious hip-hop artists and pro athletes, particularly to its Escalade SUV, Cadillac needs "to get the brand into the hands of a more stable market of consumers," said Wes Brown, partner at Iceology, a marketing firm in Westwood, Calif.
With bold plans to go further upscale with more expensive and powerful models, Cadillac is in a race to draw more well-heeled buyers willing to support the brand for years.
But the ultra-moneyed folks who paid $7,500 per couple just to get into the famous 25-year-old Napa wine auction, and who can buy whatever vehicles they want, are perhaps the most difficult buyers to bring into the fold.
Many, such as Sheldon Laube, a San Francisco Bay area executive for PriceWaterhouseCoopers, hadn't been in a Cadillac in years. He came away impressed with the CTS-V.
"It was absolutely terrific," Laube said. "I drive a Ferrari and a Town & Country, and I'm still looking for a four-door car. (At the auction), I got to see the new STS-V, too, and it looked gorgeous. This changed my mind about Cadillac."
Napa Valley Vintners, which puts on the wine auction each year, declined to discuss the demographics of its guests, but the event is known to attract top business executives, successful restaurateurs, lawyers and investment bankers, among others.
All "are passionate about wine," spokeswoman Tori Wilder said.
M.K. Koo of Hong Kong, a top executive for an Asian electronics manufacturing company who had the top bid of $220,000 for three bottles of rare wine last year, was back in Napa this year.
Other auction patrons have included Silicon Valley venture capitalist and wine collector Gary Rieschel, defense attorney Edward Weltman who lives in the Hamptons on New York's Long Island, and Fred Carl Jr., CEO of the Mississippi company that makes high-end Viking kitchen ranges.
"There's growth there, in the high end of the luxury market," said Jeff Schuster, who leads the auto forecasting group at J.D. Power and Associates. "There's image there, too. If you can get even one of these people to drive a Cadillac, it can have a ripple effect."
But affluent buyers worry about their image, Iceology's Brown said. They want brands that reflect their success, not suggest that they're old.
That's how the Escalade, an SUV that tapped into Americans' taste for brawny, go-anywhere, vehicles, helped lead the way for Cadillac's resurgence in recent years, Brown said.
But full-size SUV sales are declining, which means there's more pressure on Cadillac to get people into the brand's cars. While overall Cadillac sales are up 15 percent this year, demand for the division's SUVs has dropped 10 percent.
Mike Jackson, manager of GM's western U.S. sales region, was undeterred. As the only automaker at the annual, three-day Napa event that draws affluent wine aficionados from all over, he said GM had a rare opportunity to meet and learn from these buyers and was making the most of it.
The only other carmaker involved in the auction was Italy's Maserati two years earlier, said Stacey Capitani, managing director of marketing and promotions for Napa Valley Vintners. Maserati displayed vehicles.
GM first participated last year and expanded its role considerably this year.
The company said it put at least 100 people into Cadillacs -- everything from an Escalade to the SRX and XLR -- for test drives at one of Napa Valley's newest and toniest resorts, Calistoga Ranch.
There were no salespeople, just product specialists who could explain every feature. Drivers weren't rushed or pressured, and while some auction guests had appointments, others merely showed up if they found some free time in their schedule.
"You have to go far and wide to find these people as well as to get them in a vehicle," Jackson said, adding that it's important for vehicles to be available when these buyers have leisure time.
"Not many of these people would go to a car dealership," Cadillac's Taylor said.
GM also brought some star power. Actors Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell served as the company's guests at auction activities.
Romijn, who starred in "X2," drives a complimentary Cadillac SRX. "I love it," she said.
O'Connell, who stars in television's "Crossing Jordan," recalled that his father, who's British, vowed to "buy a Cadillac, a big one" if he got enough money after he moved to America.
Today, O'Connell said he passes his Cadillacs to his dad after driving them for a few years.
Cadillac provided more than a dozen complimentary vehicles and drivers to the auction's top bidders to use during the event.
Officials said two or three XLRs were sold in Napa after last year's event because Napa residents, who normally see Mercedes and BMW cars in the wine country, were intrigued by the two-seat Cadillac convertibles spotted on area roads during the auction.
"These people," Taylor said, "have to see you (the brand) in the right places."
Ann Job is a California-based freelance writer.
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