In the thirties, the race against Packard was decided. Both companies had established sub-brands. At Packard, this were real differences to the core brand. And 'La Salle' was not a cheap brand of Cadillac. At comparable quality pretty, slightly smaller copies were made with eg somewhat lesser performance. At the end the difference was so little that the sales figures clearly moved in direction Cadillac.

But the aim was reached at the beginning of the fourties and was probably not lost sight of up to the competition from Europe 50 years later. There was another important person not being entirely uninvolved in this success: Harley Earl. Before he became chief designer and vice president at GM, he was first employed by Cadillac and resolved gradually the design weaknesses. Lawrence P. Fisher from the coachbuilders family, CEO of Cadillac at the time introduced Earl.