By Jeff Bennett
Cadillac luxury car sales show no signs of decline amid the auto
maker's ongoing ignition switch recall, suggesting General Motors
Co.'s biggest automotive brands may be sidestepping most of the
recall fallout, a GM executive said.
"This is the good thing about having strong brands," said
Cadillac Chief Marketing Officer Uwe Ellinghaus following a speech
in New York on Tuesday. "The recall has been of little issue in
customer discussions at least when it comes to the Cadillac
brand."
For the past two years, the nation's largest auto maker has been
striving to distance itself from its GM initials, choosing instead
to focus marketing around its top brands--Chevrolet, Cadillac,
Buick and GMC.
While media coverage of the troubled recall has focused on the
vehicles and models involved--most of which are no longer sold or
belong to discontinued brands such as Saturn and Pontiac--consumers
would be hard-pressed to find GM logos in dealer showrooms.
In March, the first full month of sales following the
ignition-switch recall, company's U.S. operation sold 4% more
vehicles than a year earlier, a faster pace than rival Ford Motor
Co. While Cadillac unit sales were roughly flat with the same month
in 2013, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC were all higher.
Wall Street analysts and shareholders will be closely watching
GM's April auto sales for any sign of consumers reacting to the
steady flow of bad news. GM is at the center of several
investigations of its handling of a recall of 2.6 million vehicles
linked to 13 deaths. A year ago, the company sold 237,646 vehicles
in the United States during April, an 11% increase over the same
period in 2012.
Cadillac global chief Robert Ferguson is now spending most of
his time working on Capitol Hill as the company maneuvers through
the congressional process which includes answering legislator
questions and responding to data demand from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration.
Chief Executive Mary Barra intends to keep Mr. Ferguson in the
public policy position and hand the Cadillac leadership position to
Mr. Ellinghaus, people familiar with the matter said. He declined
to comment on such a move and said he is currently there to help
Mr. Ferguson.
"We are a team here and if he [Mr. Ferguson] is needed
temporarily somewhere else then I am there to offer help," Mr.
Ellinghaus said.
Write to Jeff Bennett at jeff.bennett@wsj.com
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