Quote:
Originally Posted by ChalkLine
C'mon Web, give us your reasons  |
Cadillac Gage has most of its production facilities along the Gulf Coast of the US, though some major ones are also found in Southern California, and some major sub-assemblies were made in the Far East. (HQ is Slidell, Louisiana; I've been there and it's basically a "big little town). In 1994, Cadillac Gage merged with Textron.
I'm not sure if the 1994 merger would have taken place in the T2K timeline. Cadillac Gage had a lot of slumping sales for its products, especially its armored vehicles -- yet continued to pour mountains of money into R&D and prototype vehicles and products (those technicians and scientists, as well as its research database, is what made Cadillac Gage attractive to Textron). In 1993,
Forbes called Cadillac Gage the fifth worst performing major company in the world.
However, in a T2K timeline, Cadillac Gage might have seen its sales go up stating around 1991 or so, and
way up starting in 1994 or so. So it may have been able to continue on as its own entity. A lot of countries would have been in the market for inexpensive armor that was still decent in quality. The US may also have been looking for a company to make less expensive vehicles to supply to allies in sort of a Lend-Lease program.
Had the merger with Textron taken place, however, they may have also had some of Textron's facilities to work with. They are headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, and have manufacturing facilities all over the US, as well as in several other countries (again, with a lot in the Far East). Textron also has under its umbrella AAI, Bell Aerospace, Cessna, and Lycoming Engines, as well as some smaller non-defense related companies. That's a lot to work with -- there's something to be said for decentralization of facilities.
In either company's case, there could be quite a bit of surviving and possibly operational facilities in T2K. Cadillac Gage's vehicles were also known for their simplicity of manufacture and maintenance, and it could be "outsourced" to other places relatively easily compared to other companies' products.
I don't know if that's what you meant, Web, but I thought it would be good info.