Nathan Bomey

USA TODAY

DETROIT – For many Americans, Cadillac is an adjective used to describe something luxurious.

But does it still apply to the cars?

Despite Cadillac's aura of refinement, the General Motors premium brand has been losing customers for the last several years – and now it's embarking on yet another turnaround plan.

The latest roadmap calls for scrapping struggling cars, investing in electric vehicles, introducing new body styles, redoing ads and moving the brand’s headquarters.

At the Detroit auto show this week, GM introduced a new three-row Cadillac crossover called the XT6. It comes as the automaker discontinues two sedans, the Cadillac ATS and CTS, hoping to capitalize on a preference for SUVs over cars in today’s luxury market.

Cadillac must remake its image in the eyes of shoppers who aren’t even considering the brand right now despite better-than-ever products, analysts say.

Measured in total U.S. sales, the brand lags luxury rivals Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Tesla and Acura, according to Kelley Blue Book. Cadillac sold 154,702 vehicles in the U.S. in 2018, trailing luxury leader Mercedes' 354,144 and just ahead of Nissan luxury brand Infiniti's 149,280.

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Steve Carlisle, Cadillac’s new global president, said the comeback must start with an honest assessment of the brand's missteps.

“If you look back over the long history of Cadillac, which I have – 116 years of it – where we’ve done best, where we’ve thrived, is when we’re leading,” Carlisle said. “We stepped away from that for a long time.”

Sales slump

Cadillac began to end a quarter-century drought in appeal around the turn of the 21st Century, Carlisle said. Vehicles like the ATS and CTS won acclaim from critics in the last decade.

But it hasn't paid off in the form of U.S. momentum. In China, the brand has flourished, leading Cadillac to its best global sales ever in 2018. But in the U.S., sales fell about 15 percent from 2013 to 2018 despite a 10-percent increase in overall industry sales.

GM CEO Mary Barra ousted Carlisle’s predecessor, Johan de Nysschen, in April after his turnaround plan didn’t generate enough results during his four-year tenure. The de Nysschen plan included moving Cadillac from metro Detroit to New York City, marketing Cadillacs to urban coastal customers, and adopting a letters-and-numbers naming strategy used in German luxury brands.

The problem is Cadillac “doesn’t need to be a German luxury brand. It needs to be an American luxury brand,” said Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst at Portico Analytics. “They have great products in the showroom,” but the marketing was “completely unrelatable” and failed to break through.

For example, she said, advertising images of Cadillacs in New York City's tony Greenwich Village were out of step with the brand's core customers.

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After replacing de Nysschen, Carlisle pivoted quickly to move the brand back to metro Detroit to be closer to engineers and decision-makers, and to begin overhauling the marketing strategy.

Cadillac must find ways to appeal to “people who have false impressions of who we are” and “people who don’t know us at all,” including millennials, Carlisle said. The brand has the features of industry-leading luxury vehicles, but many people don't know it, he said. Cadillac will focus on new technology and new models that fill gaps in the lineup, he said.

It will deliver a remade or new vehicle every six months through 2021. That includes the XT6, which is smaller than the hulking Escalade SUV but larger than the XT5. It will also include a redesigned Escalade at some point soon, GM President Mark Reuss hinted last week.

“They need more SUVs," said Stephanie Brinley, auto analyst at IHS Markit. "They’re adding the right products, but they’re adding them a few years too late in the sense that several other automakers have already done that.”

The future

Next up: Cadillac will become GM’s “lead electric vehicle brand,” Barra told investors last week.

It’s too early to tell how that plan will shape up. But Carlisle said it’s likely to involve advanced self-driving capability in vehicles available for sale at dealerships, not ride-sharing networks.

That continues a trend of GM debuting its most advanced technology in Cadillacs.

GM picked Cadillac for its recent introduction of automated highway driving technology called Super Cruise, which has impressed critics with its high-tech functionality and safety features. Enthusiast site Autoblog named Super Cruise its 2019 Technology of the Year. The system steers, brakes and accelerates on its own in highway driving, and keeps a camera trained on the driver's eyes to alert them if they become sleepy while relying on the autonomous technology.

One looming question is this: Will Cadillac tap its packed cupboard of discontinued models to revive interest in the brand and capitalize on a wave of nostalgia?

Luxury rival Lincoln, which is owned by Ford, has already revived the Lincoln Aviator SUV, for example. And Lincoln has gained ground on Cadillac in the sales race.

Past vehicles waiting to be dusted off could include the Cadillac Eldorado or the Cadillac Fleetwood.

Carlisle said he’s “very open-minded” about resurrecting the brand’s historical names.

“But I think we’ve got to be really good custodians of where we apply those names,” he said. “You don’t want to just throw them out there.”

But he hinted that past could be prologue.

“Special cars or engines should have special names,” he said.

The question, however, is whether Cadillac itself remains special to car buyers.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.