"We Really Believe the Industry's Going to Be OK This Year"
BusinessWeek's Dee-Ann Durban had the pleasure of attending the Chicago auto show to get a feel for how the suits are feeling about the future. And the answer is… great! "We're beginning to see, after six quarters of declines, the beginnings of some pent-up demand," opined GMNA Prez Troy Clarke. "You could make a case that the second half of the year could be significantly better." Marketing Mark LaNeve agrees with his co-worker's "Annie" analysis. "We really believe the industry's going to be OK this year," LaNeve said. "We've had a fairly weak car market for the better part of two years. Economic weakness is being experienced in other places right now. We've already been in it." Ford's President de las Americas, Mark "Tool Time" Fields, was also optimistic, in a plausible deniability sort of way: "We do see opportunity in the second half." While you can easily file all this spinnery under "What else are they going to say?" one could make a case that when the going gets tough, Pollyanna should go away. Sense of urgency. That sort of thing.
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Kevin: 16 million vehicles may be sold this year, but 15.9 million may be Honda and Toyotas (a slight exaggeration I admit), but what good is it for the 28 if 16 million are sold if they keep losing market share, losing money and have to pay people big money to take the products? Another subject: why is there always some suit standing infront of the new vehicles? Isn't there any photos with some hot babe in front of, on top of or beside the vehicle? Please.
These suits are just clueless. They keep denying that they even have so much as a scratch, while they lose massive volumes of blood from the severed limb. Reminds me of Jim Carey's portrayal of that fireman on "In Living Color", oh, 20 years ago. hltguy : Another subject: why is there always some suit standing infront of the new vehicles? Isn’t there any photos with some hot babe in front of, on top of or beside the vehicle? Please. Well, I'm most pleased know that I'm not the only one who was thinking of this very same thing when I saw the original article and picture. Once in awhile, post a picture that I might actually want to click on for a larger image! Please! :)
hltguy and zoomzoom, I suspect that RF would prefer a pretty woman in the picture when he wants to show the car, but he might as well have a car in the picture when he needs to show the suit. As for that white van the other day, there really was no need for that sort of thing ;)