Having A Good year

My first experience being inside of a car, where I KNEW it was more than just metal and 4 wheels, was inside my dad’s early-90s Jaguar XJ. My dad is a welder by trade and my mom was working for Macy’s at the time. We did not have a lot of money. Our socioeconomic status growing up was the shrug emoji. However, my Pops had what he called a “good year”, and found this used example of an automobile at a local mechanics shop in 1995. That was the most comfortable car I had at that point and, even to this day, will ever sit in.

When someone talks about being “comfortable” and all of the auxiliary qualities attributed to that word, I think of that car. It rode like the pock-marked streets of northern New Jersey were made of glass. You felt, and heard, nothing from that car while it was in motion, unless you had the misfortune of hitting a small child hard enough to spill your Grey Poupon. However great that car felt to drive or ride in, there was a problem, which lie in the fact that it was British luxury sedan, built in the late 80s or early 90s. Reliability was a four letter word.

Side note: If there is a used British luxury sedan being sold second hand from a mechanic in New Jersey, run. Run away fast. Trying to keep that car running was like trying to maintain a relationship with a lion. All of the power and majesty in your relationship comes at the price of being hyper aware that it could eat you (or your wallet) alive at any time. You dealt with it, because of that feeling. That intangible...something...that had you believing that you made it. You won. Instant gratification on four wheels. 

That feeling is deeply American and, in turn, a big reason why black people have had a love affair with a different luxury brand, an AMERICAN luxury brand: Cadillac. I’m not even talking about rappers/musicians who use them as entourage shuttles. I’m not generalizing here. We disproportionately buy American cars dating back from the Great Migration to the roots established in cities like Detroit. The style, design and general brand identity is deeply ingrained in the Black American experience. However, that wasn’t always the case.

When it debuted in 1903, Cadillac was the “Standard of the World”. The brand was at the forefront of expensive taste, style and luxury. If you owned one, it was because you had reached the pinnacle of what America could offer you at the time. It was then what a Mercedes Benz kinda is now. However, after the Depression, GM and the Cadillac Brand were down bad. The automobile market was shrinking and the luxury car segment was on the verge of total collapse. It was so bad in fact, that by 1933, Cadillac was in the midst of an 84% drop in sales and was holding meetings to consider killing off the brand entirely. Enter a guy named Nicolas Dreystadt.

See, Dreystadt was a German immigrant, and was working in the Cadillac Service Division. During that time, he would go across the country and check the quality conditions of Cadillac service bays and improve or address any issues, knowledge gaps, etc. He started noticing something strange. There were A LOT of black people having their Cadillacs serviced in their shops—nationwide. Now, this was odd for a very specific reason. There was a company-wide policy that stated Cadillac employees could not sell their products to black people. They wouldn’t even let them in showrooms. They felt it would tarnish their image because of course it would, this was America in the 30s and associating your brand with black people was, and still is, a no-no.

Dreystadt realized that black folks with means (doctors, lawyers, business owners, ministers, etc) wanted in on the luxury game too, and in order to acquire the vehicles, they were paying white people $300 (which is like the GDP of a small island nation in 1930s money), to buy cars for them. This guy Dreystadt then decided to invite himself to a GM board meeting. He knocked on the door—no really, look it up—he apparently just knocks on the board room door with the confidence of a man holding four “Draw-4”s and a “U-Turn” card during a game of UNO and tells them he has an idea.

He says he can make Cadillac profitable in 18 months and save the brand, but there’s just one catch. The plan would require selling their cars (pause for dramatic effect) to black people. The Board decides, what the hell do they have to lose and goes along with his idea. This created one of the first large-scale diversity marketing campaigns in American Corporate history. Shocking only to the generic white business men of the era, by the next year, Cadillac sales increased by 70 percent. Smartly, in 1934, Dreystadt was made Head of Cadillac. 

So, why tell this story? Especially for my first feature here at Olney Magazine? Well, it was not because of some inner need to teach or to expunge American’s racist past with a story about how people “evolved” to a better state of being. I just think it’s a poignant story about inclusivity and how there is opportunity to advance if people would embrace that which they tend to fear. An American stalwart was on the brink of collapse before it decided, in a moment of desperation, that black people’s money was “good enough”. If that alone isn't a big enough signifier of how we should not operate, I don’t know what is. I’m not saying everyone should go out and buy an automobile that is the same price as a small home, and also gets the gas mileage of an Abrams tank, but the feeling that comes along with having a “good year” and wanting to have a little slice of personal heaven doesn’t have to be as exclusive as it has always been. 

I also just think that racism is stupid and I like telling stories about it, and this is one of the best “People were so racist they almost bankrupted themselves” stories of all time! See you next month, readers!