When Pontiac’s infamously retina-searing Aztek pops up in popular auto industry analysis, it’s usually as little more than a throwaway punchline. So credit Thebigmoney.com’s Matthew DeBord for trying to leave the Thesaurus entry for “ugly” out of a recent piece dedicated entirely to one of the great modern styling miscalculations. Unfortunately, his admirable restraint serves only to further a wholly unsupportable thesis:

GM needs to remember the Aztek, because it represents the kind of risk-taking design that the post-bankruptcy firm will need to go forward. The temptation for the New General will be to copy successful market formulas, rather than try to define new market segments.

(Read More…)

Yesterday Daimler announced that McLaren would be buying out Daimler’s interest in their joint venture Formula 1 team. Many, including board member Erich Klemm, thought this made all kinds of sense. “In the (car) factories, every cent is being turned over three times. The employees are feeling the financial crisis with shorter working hours and loss of income,” he continued. “In these economically difficult times, the company should invest in better marketing of its real cars.” My, what a novel idea!

(Read More…)

Ever get the feeling that the car game is dealing with some malaise? Dieter Zetsche sure seems to. “The definition of luxury will be somewhat different,” Doctor Z tells the Wall Street Journal. “It will be fewer CO2 emissions and more modesty in appearance.” And this from the company that sells cars on the back of a brand dripping with immodesty and ostentation. But no matter, the decision has been made: Zetsche wants to chase what the WSJ terms “Americans’ growing interest in downsized models that offer upscale features and finishes.” Wait, growing interest? The MINI sells decently, but the A3 (fewer than 3k units sold year-to-date) and 1 Series (fewer than 10k units year-to-date) are hardly setting the luxury segment on fire. Damn the torpedoes, people want green modesty, and Zetsche’s going to give it to them with four compact models planned for the US sometime after 2011.

For sure, there will be another B-class, which will be pretty similar, address the same customer as the B-class today. The three other body styles clearly intend to target additional and different segments from the one that we can target today, including gender barriers.

Smaller, greener and more identity-politics-y. That sounds like just what the luxury market has been begging for! And we haven’t even started in on the cost-cutting yet.

(Read More…)

You need to go to your toughest market. The state of California is the biggest nut to crack for Buick. Californians love their Toyotas, they love their luxury cars, their BMWs and their Priuses, Buick is not even on their radar screen. These people don’t know this Regal. Picking the L.A. Auto Show demonstrates some confidence we have in the product and in the brand.

So says GM’s Susan Docherty in the Detroit News. Of course, it also shows how screwed the Buick brand is. California on its own is one of the largest markets for cars in the world, and it’s also home to some of the most virulently anti-domestic-brand sentiment in the country. Which explains why Buick is trying to win over the Golden State with its first-ever imported model. But as Docherty says, “One car doesn’t transform a brand. You have to have a series of successes so one, plus one, plus one equals more than three.” Meanwhile, while Buick tries to convince Californians that they don’t actually want a Lexus, everyone who thought they knew and loved the Buick brand will just be confused.

If you’re like me, you spent most of the weekend huddled under a blanket, half-watching television and praying for the flu agony to be over. And nobody who watched a considerable amount television this weekend could have avoided the latest flight of heavy-handed ads from Jeep and Chrysler’s new Ram brand. “My Name Is Ram” and the  E.E. Cummings-inspired “i am. Jeep” campaigns are blitzing airwaves across the country as the New, New Chrysler gears up to make its wildly optimistic sales goals. After five months of total silence coming out of bankruptcy, the ads are coming out in earnest, and they’ll be running non-stop in hopes of catching up with the $100 per retail sale ad spend goal for 2009.  Next year, Chrysler’s ad spending will go up to $170 per projected sale, peaking in 2011 at $210 per planned retail sale. And this increase in ad spending appears to explain why Chrysler’s sales projection charts swing wildly upwards after a dismal 2009. After all, if throwing upward of a billion bucks per year won’t change consumer perceptions, what will? Well, besides new product, anyway. There’s many a slip twixt the PowerPoint and the profit.

(Read More…)

Last week Toyota followed the lead of Renault, Honda and BMW and bid adieu to Formula 1 racing. The Financial Times pins Toyota’s decision not only on financial belt tightening, and on the notion that racing just doesn’t move the metal in times of increasing environmental concern. When Leonardo DiCapro becomes the inspiration for an electric car and NASCAR talks about moving from carburetors to fuel injection to save some gas , you know something is afoot. Automakers and part suppliers have been backing away from the racing for many months now. Earlier this year both Subaru and Suzuki exited World Rally Championship racing and Bridgestone recently announced it’s giving up being Formula 1’s exclusive tire supplier.

(Read More…)

The Brits have an expression for this situation: “When you’re in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.”

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a statement today correcting inaccurate and misleading information put out by Toyota concerning a safety recall involving 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles:

A press release put out by Toyota earlier this week about their recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles inaccurately stated NHTSA had reached a conclusion “that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.” NHTSA has told Toyota and consumers that removing the recalled floor mats is the most immediate way to address the safety risk and avoid the possibility of the accelerator becoming stuck. But it is simply an interim measure. This remedy does not correct the underlying defect in the vehicles involving the potential for entrapment of the accelerator by floor mats, which is related to accelerator and floor pan design. Safety is the number one priority for NHTSA and this is why officials are working with Toyota to find the right way to fix this very dangerous problem. This matter is not closed until Toyota has effectively addressed the defect by providing a suitable vehicle based solution.

(Read More…)

Are you seeing a pattern here? Although Olivier Francois is in charge of the most damaged brand in the Chrysler Group (and yes, that’s saying a lot), at least he’s been here before with Fiat’s problem brand Lancia. So it’s no surprise that Francois’s branding video for Chrysler is remarkably similar to a Lancia ad: it projects a kind of sophisticated sexyness, with lots of celebrities, architecture and passionate-sounding classical music. The only real difference is the copy that goes on and on about the good old days when Americans arrived in style. And unlike Ralph Gilles’ Dodge presentation, Francois’ vision of Chrysler’s brand actually works. But vision is only a tiny part of the battle for the Chrysler brand, and the rest is execution. On that front, things aren’t looking quite so good

(Read More…)

The problem with branding exercises like Chrysler’s decision to split Ram from Dodge, is that they tend towards abstraction. Luckily, the back-from-the-dead Nitro is a good case study for how this split will play out. You might think that based on its aggressive styling and upright stance that it would make sense as a Ram-branded vehicle. But you’d be wrong. It will actually be positioned as a youth-market vehicle, within the Dodge brand. Hit the jump for an official concept of the Nitro’s possible repackaging.
(Read More…)

Ram is brand. According to the new Ram CEO Frank Diaz, the Ram was “overshadowing” Dodge’s non-truck products… never mind that Dodge’s truck-cued car styling made that phenomenon unavoidable. There’s not much to say about the new Ram brand, except that it will include pickups, heavy-duty trucks and commercial vehicles (read: no SUVs), marketed with the usual John Wayne, hard-working, never quit attitude. Think of any truck ad you’ve ever seen, and you’ll understand everything there is to know about Ram’s branding.
(Read More…)