Over the weekend I penned a screed calling baby boomers to task for embracing retro style over the the values that made the revolutionary cars of their era so revolutionary [editor’s note: there’s nothing like having a carburetor on your 35 year-old motorcycle magically fix itself to inspire faith in old, simple machinery]. The new New Beetle was square in my crosshairs over the weekend, but it’s hardly the only example of boomer retro-madness. Another favorite for nostalgic boomers are the legendary muscle cars that marked the high-water point for Detroit thunder, and this feverish demand combined with limited original runs have run the prices of famous muscle cars into the Barrett-Jackson stratosphere. It’s also inspired a legion of knock-off and replica manufacturers, who see huge money to be made by aligning supply with demand. They, in turn, have inspired a number of huge lawsuits from the original creators of the limited-edition legends. Carroll Shelby’s prolific legal battles against creators of Cobra replicas have given him the reputation of being a guy who never met a buck he didn’t like, and now GM has joined the Shelby legacy, suing Mongoose Motorsports for daring to produced replicas of the 1963 Corvette Grand Sport roadster.
Tag: Chevrolet
Along with flying cars and hydrogen fuel cells, the mid-engined Corvette occupies the most spurious level of automotive rumor-mongery. GM has a deep, rich history of flirtation with the idea of a mid-engine ‘vette (too deep and rich for us not to commission a forthcoming brief history from Paul Niedermeyer), but even in the last three years the engine configuration of the C8 Corvette has attracted intense speculation. In October of 2007, Motor Trend kicked off the modern era of mid-engine ‘vette rumors with a lengthy piece which “revealed” that
GM vice chairman Bob Lutz reportedly has been pushing for a mid-engine C7… We hear Lutz is backing down from his support of a mid-engine C7, though other powerful GM execs reportedly still favor it. Those at GM who prefer an evolutionary, front-engine C7 are facing a tough battle.
Almost exactly a year later, MT took it all back. With GM facing bankruptcy and bailouts, plans for a new Corvette were put on hold and the RenCen pendulum was swinging back towards an evolution of the front-engined C7. And yet now, with bankruptcy still less than a year in GM’s past, the mid-engine Corvette rumors are bubbling back up again.
(Read More…)
In a recent Fastlane livechat, GM’s North American boss Mark Reuss revealed that:
Chevrolet re vamp in ads is well under way with Susan Docherty–you will like it a lot–shows the car, and uses “excellence for everyone”….you will really like it.
When asked if he was saying that “Excellence For Everyone” would be the new Chevrolet tagline, Reuss replied in the negative. Which makes it… a pickup line? Just a line? With “May The Best Car Win” having failed to make much headway, and “American Revolution” a pre-bankruptcy artifact, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this “Excellence for Everyone” briefly become Chevy’s main tagline. If only to give Reuss and Whitacre an excuse to fire Docherty when the campaign collapses under the weight of its own vacuity.
With rumors of another GM executive shakeup flying thick and fast, we expected a downright miserable sales performance from The General in February. By the year-over-year numbers [full release here, sales numbers in PDF format here], there’s no such flow of red tape, as GM’s four “core brands” gained 32 percent and total sales (including Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn) were up 11.5 percent. But that’s in comparison to February of 2009, when GM’s sales were down 53 percent from the year earlier. In short, GM appears to have hit bottom in terms of volume, but it still has yet to recover to anything close to 2008 volume.
(Read More…)
We at TTAC, (well, me, only) have said that since everyone is raining a storm down on Toyota other recalls are slipping by without equal scrutiny. So when I read this article, I thought it fair, in the interests of journalism, to blog it. Not because of who it is, but the reasoning around it.
Cadillac relaunched [release in PDF format here] its perennially disappointing European effort last week, revealing that a new sales and import firm, Cadillac Europe, had been formed. Why would Cadillac double down on a market that it until recently blighted with its ill-advised Opel Vectra-based BLS (which bizarrely still appears at the cadillaceurope.com website)? Caddy boss Brian Nesbitt explains:
Europe is an important market for Cadillac. Re-establishing distribution of our premium offerings is good news for those who seek import exclusiveness
Except that Europe and America are fundamentally different markets, with different tastes in luxury. Unless the Cadillac boffins have some kind of alternate explanation for why Lexus sells like hotcakes in the US, but can barely move the needle in Europe and is resorting to Euro-specific models to make headway. But apparently success in the US luxury market is just a few European sales away. Really.
Kicking Tires calls these “the first official photos of the production version” of the next-generation Chevrolet Aveo. They show a subcompact that’s definitely less showcar-ish than the Aveo RS concept from NAIAS, but is still in the computer-generated “uncanny valley” between the realistic and real. Or maybe I’m just getting used to the idea of a halfway-appealing Aveo.
Corporate fleet sales were back with a vengeance last month, as GM admitted that these lower-profit fleet sales made up a full 29 percent of its total sales in January. Those total sales, including the winding-down Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and HUMMER brands were up only 13.6 percent. Core brand sales were up 30 percent in total, but again, most of those gains were in fleet sales, as core brand retail sales gained only 3 percent over GM’s moribund performance in January 2009. Zoinks! Full release in PDF format here, details after the jump.
People buy cars they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t like. That’s why hardly anybody in Europe is buying the Chevrolet Cruze, which has been on sale over here since last summer. It’s an affordable car that you might need but you won’t want, and which won’t impress anybody at all, because it’s just not that desirable. Allow me to explain…
The Chevrolet Volt dancing debacle was pretty embarrassing. So embarrassing that GM felt inclined to step in. Fox News reports that Maria Rohrer, the marketing manager responsible for the “dancing on taxpayers’ money” débâcle has been reassigned to become director of Chevrolet truck advertising. David Darovitz, GM’s PR spokesperson (the poor sod who had to explain the dancing spectacle to the public), confirmed that Maria Rohrer had been transferred but added that “The move had nothing to do with recent events in LA”. Which brings a couple of interesting scenarios. 1: Did GM think she did a good job and promoted her to director of Chevrolet Truck advertising? or 2: Or do GM value the Volt so much, they place it above their lucrative truck business? The Tweet by GM’s VP for Global Communication pictured above certainly indicates the latter. Either way, I’m filing this along with “Cadillac Cimarron”, “Saturn division” and “An American Revolution”, under “GM marketing disasters”.
This week saw the Volt’s price point issues return to the public eye, as GM’s Chairman and CEO made it clear that he takes the government’s $7,500 tax credit for granted. But Whitacre’s dissembling revealed once again GM’s fundamental problem with the Volt: getting people past the sticker shock. Though GM’s short-term viability doesn’t hinge on the Volt selling like gangbusters, it’s clear that the Volt’s initial success or lack thereof will be a crucial factor in GM’s ability to hold a successful IPO and extricate itself from government ownership. Which, according to The Big Money‘s Matt DeBord, is one of the reasons the government should expand the Volt’s credit of $10k. Another reason: the Volt’s competition is too good!
with the base Prius selling for just over $20,000 and the base Honda Insight hybrid for under $20,000, the feds may have to start thinking about how to enable innovative electric and gas-electric plug-ins to survive. The EPA mandate to raise fleet fuel-economy standards to average of 35.5 mpg by 2016 looms, and a component of that target should be EVs and plug-ins. Otherwise, carmakers may abandon the tech, leaving it stillborn to cynically massage their fleet numbers by importing small cars from foreign operations to North America—cars they know Americans will only grudgingly purchase and that may force the government to chuck the 35.5 requirement.
In case you were wondering, Ed Whitacre’s assessment that the Volt will “make a margin” at a price point “in the low 30s” is the GM Chairman/CEO’s second big lie in as many weeks. Well, lie might be a bit harsh. Gross and willful misrepresentation is probably more accurate. GreenCarReports‘ John Voelcker got in touch with a GM spokesman who confirms what we all pretty much knew from the get go: GM “has not officially announced final Volt pricing, a price in the low 30’s after a $7,500 tax credit is in the range of possibilities.” In other words, we’re back to the same old $40k-ish number that GM execs have been throwing around for ages. Unless GM is talking about the electric-only (non-range-extended) Volt that Bob Lutz recently confirmed. But what about the margin thing?
Grand news for owners of 1999 model year and later Pontiacs! Buick-GMC GM Brian Sweeney tells Automotive News [sub] that “one of our most important tasks is keeping [Pontiac owners] in the database and keeping them as service customers until such a time that the Buick portfolio has developed fully.” The plan: send owners of 1999 model-year and later Pontiacs coupons for free tire rotations and oil changes. GM sales boss Susan Docherty has spoken about the importance of these “free agents,” or GM buyers orphaned by the cutting of their brands. As well she should: it’s more cost effective for any business to keep existing buyers than win over new ones. But is it free oil change easy? If GM thinks it can make Buick believers out of the jilted Pontiac faithful, what does it say about the cynicism with which it approaches branding? Once again, GM’s need to build lost Pontiac volume for the Buick-GMC dealer net leads to the willful suspension of common sense.
It’s been a widely-shared opinion among TTAC’s writers for some time that GM should have used its bailout and bankruptcy to cuts its brand portfolio to Chevrolet and Cadillac. We’ve already sussed out the negative side effects of trying to hold onto the Buick-GMC dealer net, the biggest of which is that without Pontiac, Buick is being forced into volume-chasing. With the debut of the Granite “Urban Utility Concept,” we’re seeing the same brand-diluting volume-hunting taking place at the “Professional Grade” brand. GM’s attempt to bring more youth and volume to its GMC brand is starting with a Youtube-heavy, family-oriented marketing campaign, pointing the way for the brand to betray its “Professional Grade” raison d’etre. But GM’s marketing plan for the Gamma (Aveo)-based Granite will be the final nail in the brand’s coffin. Because to save the brand, GM must destroy the brand.
Recent Comments