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While waiting for video of the Kia Soul to show up in the ol’ inbox, I decided to give the one press release I do have a read. And to be honest, I’m kind of regretting the decision. I fully understand that one should never be surprised by what might happen when asking a company to describe its own product. Still… well, let me show you what I’m talking about. The first thing you learn is that the Soul is a “brand defining” addition to the Kia lineup. Fair enough. Kia’s brand needs definition only slightly more than my rapidly aging, 26 year old blogger physique does. But instead of heading for the branding gym with its most promising product to date, Kia (like myself) is whipping its image into shape by texting and playing Wii. For example, did you know that Kia’s formula for its hip whip name reads “Soul = Style + ValU + SafeT”? No? Well the brand definition continues apace with the puzzling non-sequitor “L8st head-trnr will impre$ w/ personality & gr8 options ☺.” I kid you not. At this point I’m expecting Soul owners to receive a steady stream of text messages from their “attractive and customizable vehicle” suggesting they skip fourth-period history in favor of Cartoon Network and bong rips.
Even Detroit’s fiercest defenders allow that The Big 2.8 should have thought a little further ahead than a single financial quarter– although they’re sure that Wall Street’s responsible for the shorter-termism. Hey! Anyone remember when Cerberus said they’d be better owners for Chrysler than anyone ’cause they didn’t have to report to Wall Street? You know: we’re quick! Less bureaucracy! More selling! Turn on a dime! Well, a dime’s about all they have left and former ToMoCo Prez Jim Press has dibs on that bad boy. Anyway… even though Toyota isn’t $30b in debt, the Japanese automaker is in full crisis mode. Yesterday, the Prius plant plotzed and they shit-canned executive bonuses. Today, we hear that the diesel engine project with Isuzu is DOA– minus the “OA.” You know that $1m ho’ down the Toyota used to throw for its dealers in Sin City? Gone. Seriously, talk all you want about misplaced Tundras, but these guys don’t dance this mess around. Just-auto {sub] reports that Toyota’s UK Managing Director reckons it could be as long as five years before the automaker’s biz recovers to last year’s level. “We have our forecasts for the next 24 months,” Miguel Fonseca revealed. “But it is very difficult to forecast further. After two years I think there will be a slow recovery, but my own belief is that it will be five years before we are back where we were.” And here’s something The Big 2.8 might have said, I dunno, ten years ago…
I discovered Michael Furman’s photography whilst covering the Ralph Lauren car exhibit at The Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The two men were made for each other. Furman’s photographs portray automobiles as perfect objects: gleaming, seamless sculptures that exist outside the confines of entropic reality. Lauren’s collection IS perfect, restored to a level of flawlessness that makes an airbrushed cover shot of Britney Spears look like a photo booth snapshot. And then painted to a gloss to shame Adriana Lima’s luscious lips. When I talked to Furman about Lauren’s collection (Furman shot the catalogue), the artist showed an encyclopedic knowledge of GM’s design heyday. And now, here it is. The publisher was kind enough to send me a couple of copies [full description of the book after the jump]. One goes to Eddy for his birthday (today!). One goes to the commentator who can best tell me, in ten words or less, how GM can turn around its business. Thank you, in advance, for your submissions. [NB: to see the horizontal images properly, please click on them a second time]
It seems scarcely credible that GM and Chrysler’s fate– or lack thereof– now rests entirely in the hands of The President of the United States. Or, more precisely, his staff. Who, according to The Wall Street Journal, “spent the weekend poring over the auto makers’ books to assess their financial needs.” Which, to my mind, is a bit like saying they’re pawing over the automakers’ entrails. Of course, I would never stoop that low, busy as I am wetting my metaphorical finger and sticking it into the rarified air of the autoblogosphere, trying to divine which way the Divine Wind is blowing. Ominously, The Journal reports “The administration is trying to determine how much money it will take to help the car companies, and is discussing a rescue totaling $10 billion to $40 billion or more.” Sneaking in $14b or so from the remaindeer [sic] of the much-vilified $700b Troubled Asset Relief Program by executive fiat to shove this mess on Messr. Obama’s plate is one thing. Finding 40 billion dollars or more for the failed automakers is quite another. In other words, there are only two ways this thing can go. Either a short term “bridge loan to nowhere” or…
I stood there with a look on my face as if I had been bitch-slapped by a Charlie’s Angel. What was this glorious ode to a time when spandex was the cutting edge of fashion and posters of Xanadu were still on theatre walls? I couldn’t get over the swoopy Mustang II knock-off lines, the flared nostril quad headlights, and the paint; the glorious, sparkling gold paint that arced through the black body, complete with matching gold rims. I had stumbled upon something most people have forgotten, a 1977 Buick Nighthawk, a special edition Skyhawk, parked beside Route 66, begging for someone to take her home.
We hear via Jalopnik that Car and Driver Editor-in-Chief Csaba Csere has resigned. No word is immediately available on his reasons for departing the magazine he has served since joining as Technical Editor in 1980. Former TTAC and C&D scribe Brock Yates was unaware that his former boss was departing, but had only kind words for the man who once trekked to the Yates family kitchen to fire him. “A nice fellow,” is how Yates describes Csere. Csaba was “not a particularly good writer, but a good editor,” Yates told me this morning, as I was awaiting a shellacking for identifying myself as part of the TTAC team. He had “strong ties to Detroit,” according to the Cannonball legend, but was a “nice fellow” all the same. Apparently it bore repeating. So what if, as Yates wrote in his first TTAC editorial, “Car and Driver had become a pale shadow of its former self,” and “like Detroit’s carmakers, Csere and his team had refused to recognize reality.” When all is said and done, people remember people. Not a debilitating addiction to comparo tests, a blindering enthusiasm for all things Detroit, or an embarassing public nap. No, regardless of any perceived shortcomings (and man, do we all have them) Csere is a giant figure in American automotive journalism. If nearly 30 years of high-profile print journalism happen to have left Csere with the urge to express his feelings on the industry in a more open, free-wheeling environment, we invite him to send his thoughts our way. We will always have room for an experienced industry-watcher with a mind for truth-telling.
I have no idea why, but Kia’s PR say they’re ready to bless TTAC with exclusive pics and video of their new Soul. So you have that to look forward to today, along with the predictable punfest. Has TTAC Souled out? Are we Souldiers of fortune? Have we Souled our Soul to the Devil? Or is this car better than the Pontiac Soulstice? As the dealers’ parts department would say, stay tuned.
The ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service gets, well, a bit moody about the “bankruptcy is no option” outlook favored in certain Detroit circles. Moody’s says the odds are 4:1 against that happening, Automotive News (sub) reports.
Moody’s said there is about a 70 percent chance of a prepackaged bankruptcy coupled with government assistance. Moody’s graciously places these odds on all three Detroit automakers.
A government bailout without a bankruptcy, Detroit’s favorite, is given just a 25 percent chance.
Detroit will find solace in the fact that Moody’s sees just a 5 percent chance of a “freefall” bankruptcy without a prepackaged plan.
“We think it’s most likely that a prepackaged bankruptcy filing coupled with government financial assistance will be needed to restructure the Big Three,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Bruce Clark said in a statement.
“In Woodhaven on Friday,” The Detroit News reports, “someone punctured the tires of five foreign cars — a Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Toyota and Volkswagen — and used a marker to scrawl ‘Buy USA’ on the sides of the vehicles, in the lots of Lowe’s and Kohl’s stores near a Ford plant.” As TTAC’s publisher, I decided not to blog the story. There was no proof that the a Ford worker had carried-out the attack. As an isolated incident, I felt the vandalism didn’t deserve what Margaret Thatcher called “the oxygen of publicity.” We can debate the ethics or wisdom of that decision all day long. But today’s DetN story is flat-out incendiary. “Backlash brews in wake of Big 3 bashing” is strong beer. With that kind of headline, the onus is on scribe George Hunter to prove that Detroit is about to erupt into violence– the clearly implied and then directly stated premise of the piece. “After a month of Detroit-bashing in Washington and nationally,” Hunter writes. “some say a backlash is forming among Metro Detroiters, annoyed by the attacks on their lifestyle and angry at their neighbors’ choices of vehicles. Some fear that simmering resentment could turn to outright hostility.” Some? You mean like some people you specifically rounded-up to prove your inflammatory central thesis? Yeah, like that.
Important visitors today in Angela Merkel’s chancellery in Berlin: A delegation of German Opel dealers. They present a plan for a truly German future of Opel. The title of the plan: “We believe in the future of the Opel brand.” What the dealers and the German government don’t quite believe in is the future of the US bail-out package. Everybody is preparing for the worst, the defeat of the General, and (in their eyes) the best: Opel, German again.
The delegation is led by representatives of several well-heeled dealer groups. As early as November, plans had surfaced that a consortium of dealers is ready to take over Opel if the previously unsinkable should go down. The Opel works council has openly supported the plan. Opel management is giving tacit approval, without sticking their necks too far out. Recriminations from Zurich or Detroit can be swift. There is an update:
The Geo Metro. One Liter. Three Cylinders. A near-car that represented automotive nirvana for tree-huggers and penny pinchers throughout America. Except not anymore. Gas is down 60 percent from its zenith; the Metro has once again become as fashionable as OJ Simpson at a Jewish family reunion. I bought one today with only 95k miles on it for only $500. White. Base. Nothing special. But then again, what is these days? I’ll tell you what is. Toyota and Lexus SUVs. These things are getting bought with price premiums that would make a Kuwaiti Mercedes dealer blanch. Spied a 2001 Toyota 4Runner Limited in Blue loaded up with 178,524 miles. It sold for $6800. A same year Lexus RX300 with, get this, 236,499 miles, sold for the same price. Why? Well a mint condition Toyota SUV is apparently worth its weight in lead (which is still expensive these days) if you’re willing to press the mileage ‘reset’ button. Meanwhile, a 2005 Toyota Celica GT with 100k miles sold for $7k. No one seemed to care. Young buyers are becoming an endangered species with the credit markets flipping the bird to the young and equity deprived. Also, it’s a complete bastard these days to get financing approved for any late model vehicle with over 80k.
In the West, SUVs are dog meat. News of this hasn’t reached the Middle Kingdom quite yet. Tired of announcements of falling car sales? Lusting back to the bad old days where there was no replacement for displacement? In China, people buy SUVs as if they are going out of style – or not, as our Dear Leader Farago fancies to say. From January to November, SUV sales in the Chinese market rose 33.7 percent. That according to data released by China’s Association of Automobile Manufacturers, cited in a Gasgoo report. The November sales of SUVs in China totaled 40,300 units, up 9.49 percent from November in the prior year. In the same month, sales for all cars in China actually dropped 14.56 percent. Compared to the market, the Chinese appetite for off-road fare is still ravenous. Biggest sellers amongst the big bad boys are the Honda CR-V, the Great Wall Hover, and the Chery Tiggo. If you still want to enjoy your freedom to burn gallons and churn up dust: Come to the SUV-God’s own country, China. About a third of China is desert, and 40 percent are scrubland.
For quite a while, Dongfeng, China’s third largest automaker, had been rumored to be interested in taking over GM. Now, Dongfeng has lost all interest in the deal, China’s Securities Daily reports via Gasgoo.
It’s very interesting what Xie Dashun, a publicity officer at Dongfeng has to say. Yes, there were talks. And no. Dongfeng doesn’t like what they saw, or what they were not told: “Even though Dongfeng has contacted GM, the results are not available yet. Personally I don’t think Dongfeng has the ability to save GM, a company that neither its CEO or the U.S. government is able to save.” Strong words from the usually very polite Chinese, and from a company that is mostly owned by the central government. Even Gasgoo can’t help themselves from mentioning that GM’s “problem is far beyond the money value.”
Gasgoo cites an industry analyst who said that “it’s still early to talk about the acquisition of GM by a Chinese auto company before the U.S. automaker files for bankruptcy. Almost no Chinese enterprise has the might to buy out the U.S. auto giant, and the cash flow of Dongfeng Motor is far from enough to buy an American company like GM.” Note the “before the U.S. automaker files for bankruptcy.”
European car buyers show solidarity and join the worldwide buyers’ strike. November sales in the EU fell 26 percent to 932,500 units, Automobilwoche (sub) reports. That, people, makes the EU the world’s largest car market. And we aren’t even counting “light trucks” here. Western Europe sank 26 percent to 854,700 cars. For the year, Western Europe is down 8 percent. Biggest losers: Spain (-50 percent,) UK (-37 percent,) Italy (-30 percent.) Even the new EU countries, previously the only places where there was growth, are no longer immune. Except for Poland (+11 percent) und the Czech Republic (+2 percent,) sales are down everywhere. Rumania even imploded to the thumping tune of minus 53 percent. Car sales in the new EU countries are down 23 percent to 77.800 cars. Nobody is an island, even Central Europe ain’t.
As far as brands go, GM is the biggest percentage loser with -37.5 percent. They sold 76.383 units in November, their market share shrunk from 9.7% to 8,2%. Toyota lost a third of their sales, their market share is down to 4.7 percent from 5.2 percent. Ford gets a gold star. They lost only 19.6 percent and increased their market share from 9.5 percent to 10.3 percent. And it gets worse …
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