Looking to reestablish itself as a global player in the luxury car->ke505 segment, Cadillac->ke18 has already moved its headquarters from Detroit to New York, but the brand’s president wants more segregation. Johan de Nysschen recently announced plans to create a separate business unit for Cadillac by 2017 to give the brand “a far higher degree of autonomy and self-sufficiency."

Such a plan would help Cadillac retain more profits, as de Nysschen also stated that the luxury division “makes a very sizeable contribution to the overall profit” of GM->ke1024. And with a goal of almost doubling sales by 2020, Cadillac would be able to build up quite a nest egg. As far as new product goes, he said there will be a slight lull in launches following the upcoming rollout of the SRX->ke1735-replacing 2017 Cadillac XT5, but a “massive product offensive” will commence in 2018.

In a more obvious move, Cadillac will also be splitting its dealerships apart from other GM brands, and said dealers might have the freedom to focus less on monthly sales and more on building long-term Cadillac customers. This part of Cadillac’s future makes perfect sense, especially since you don’t see new Audis->ke14 and Volkswagens->ke94 being sold under the same roof. But it will be interesting to see how this aspect of the plan plays out just six years after the GM bankruptcy dropped many franchises and forced more brands under the same roofs that were left.

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Why it matters

More autonomy and higher profits will allow Cadillac to focus on once again becoming a global standard for luxury, while also creating new, innovative production vehicles – hopefully based on the 2013 Cadillac Elmiraj concept.