How to Destroy a Brand
1982: The drive to cut costs results in identical cars from Chevrolet and Cadillac. In 1981 GM suffered its first financial loss in decades. Its executives exerted pressure to cut costs, and one way was to share platforms and parts across its major divisions. The experiment fell apart immediately with the appearance of the Cadillac Cimmaron, which, save for the seat covering, was nearly identical to the far less expensive Chevrolet Cavalier. The sharing strategy facilitated manufacturing but blurred GM's traditional distinctions among its five main badges that had served GM since they were put in place by Alfred P. Sloan in the 1920s. GM was never again able to explain the difference between a Buick, a Pontiac and an Oldsmobile, and corporate reorganizations in the mid-1980s only made the job tougher.