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Trojan horsepower; GM''s latest strategic weapon: the Cadillac XLR with a Corvette hidden inside. (Product).

Article Excerpt
GM prefers the term "common architecture" for describing two distinct products with mutual attributes and components. To gain insight into the real meaning of those words, Al selected the 2004 Cadillac XLR destined for showrooms this summer for analysis. This two-seat, folding-hardtop sports car started life as a 1999 concept car called Evoq. Upper management approved the leap from the show car to a production model in April of that year.

Shortly thereafter, the idea of building Cadillac's future flagship over Chevrolet Corvette architecture bubbled out of GM's product-planning cauldron. Marrying the most prestigious car in the corporate lineup to a feisty sports car from the opposite side of the tracks at first seems like risky business. But not according to Vehicle Line Executive Dave Hill, who's responsible for both cars.

"Actually, there's a high degree of synergy here," Hill says. "Searching for ways to use our manufacturing plant more efficiently, the Corvette team investigated the possibility of building a car for another GM division. Meanwhile Cadillac was reinventing itself by creating new products that didn't merely follow established models. So the seeds of this architecture-sharing project germinated in two different areas. John Middlebrook [GM's vice president of brand marketing and corporate advertising], served as the match maker by accepting our rationale that a new Cadillac could be created without detracting from an existing Chevrolet."

Cadillac XLR Chief Engineer Dave Leone is convinced that this Cadillac-Chevrolet marriage will thrive. "From a chassis-systems standpoint," says...