I’d be hesitant to use Mini as the example of the successful creation of a new car brand. Sure the car itself is successful, and the branding as a separate identity from BMW is smart, but how long will the Mini ‘brand’ last?

The Mini is a novelty item – just as the PT Cruiser and the VW new Beatle were. Where do you take them after the thrill wears off the original?
Sure, there’s the Mini convertible, and the Clubman, but what is there in 5 years? The brand will die. Either the replacement models of Mini will be too much like the old ones, or not enough like the old ones. Watch for BMW to sell off Mini before this happens.

As for the return of Alfa – we agree. Front wheel drive has killed the deal. I’m not going to give up the 3-series (ugly as it is) for an FWD Alfa.
I used to be an Alfisti – I owned a series of them in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I’d seriously consider a RWD poor-man’s version of the Alfa 8C, but that’s not going to happen.

Finally – There are still too many people alive who remember Renault to let anyone but orphans and idiots whose parents won’t speak to them buy a Renault.

Peugot has a chance, if they bring a simple bullet-proof car and are willing to lose money for 5 years.

-or-

Design it in Europe, have the parts made in China and assemble it in Mexico.

I don’t want to buy an import that badly – we need the jobs and the business here. Just want the big three to sell a larger variety of their own GOOD products available in other markets HERE and take pride in their smaller products instead of looking down on them.

Yep my career with the big three would last under a month I’d predict… VBG!

When we quote prices on TTAC for European cars not sold here – does this include the myriad of European taxes they have to pay?

My doctor friend in Naples, Italy once explained that that he had to pay a ~30% new car tax when he bought his car. Then there were annual roadtaxes (registration) on the order of several hundred dollars depending on the type of fuel the car burned and the size of the engine. Then there was $5+ gas (early 90s), insurance, maintenance, tires, etc.

Really began to wonder how he could afford a car in the first place – doctor or not. He was a gov’t employee and at the time it equated to about $35K a year.

This is the key point.

But why should they ?

They all sell cars priced at almost $26K for a car the size of a Chevy Cobalt. How could they do that in the states and make the same money ?

Exactly. US laws regarding safety, pollution controls, etc., for cars are completely different than Europe’s or anybody else’s. Not neccessarily more strict, but just different. This keeps all the riff-raff out. It’s really expensive, and really difficult, to Federalize a car. This is one of the reasons there are no Chinese cars sold in the US yet. Chinese cars are sold in Europe, for example.

Now, the US market is so huge, that if a company is large and well-run enough, it’s worth the effort, but it certainly does limit competition and acts as a defacto protectionist barrier for less funded and less well-run companies.

http://japanoid.com/

Right over the border, just two hours away from 50mpg and a unique car.

But let’s remain on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_b_platform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_c_platform

Look up the Renault Mégane and it cross references to the Nissan Tiida which is sold as the Versa in the US markets.

I look forward to the demise of the large American sedans and do hope they are replaced by smaller clever vehicle… It’s what America needs faced with tighter resources and higher prices.

Chris

The Versa is based on a different Renault platform, the one the “B” Clio (1998-2005) was based on, only with a longer wheelbase.
Another car on that platform is the Dacia Logan.

That platform is 100% unrelated to the one the Megane uses. The Megane is on the C-platform, like the Sentra and Rogue.

YMMV…

It’s a Renault Mégane.

It’s not. It’s not even on the same platform.

Nevertheless, Americans have very high expectations of reliability, and any brand that isn’t up to Japanese stanadards will be punished: see VW. And in Europe, VW’s have better than average reliability scores.

It’s a Renault Mégane. Last I heard they were fine cars for their intended purpose – a general purpose commuter car.

Fiat, which also has a bad rap in Europe, is made in Italy. You don’t have cold winters in Italy so the need to make sure that it will start in the winter isn’t that pressing. The same is true of rust. In Italy you will have a lot less trouble with rust due to the weather

That might be true of far southern Italy but north of Rome it still gets plenty cold. South of Rome like in Naples which I called home for several years the weather only dips to freezing occasionally. Any of the higher elevations (even south of Naples) or regions north of Rome gets snow and thus freezing temperatures. These winters range from Michigan winters to Tennessee winters depending on what part of Italy you call home.

Rust is also a concern b/c the whole country is a pennisula except for Sicily and Sardegna which are islands. That’s alot of people living along the salty sea coasts. I’m not sure but I think they also use salt on their mountain roads in the winter.

Look – a modern Fiat is not the same as your 1973 Fiat 131. They’ve got modern designs, modern materials, modern rustproofing, and cars capable of cruising at 100 mph+ for hours. Those early Fiats were just like the VWs – reliant on the chassis paint to lock out the rust. All it took was a few stone chips to break that barrier. Still for many Italians early Fiats represented a real step up up from their previous rides – the city trolley, a scooter, or a bicycle. Fiat in the 50s and 60s were selling to people who after WWII had very little of anything – food, money, or possessions.

I think the modern FIAT is plenty capable of competing with American traffic just fine. Any reasons American’s might not like Fiat might be grounded in their styling, Fiat’s preference for manual transmissions, small engines and small vehicles. That is to say that you can still get a car without air and crank up windows if you like. They also have cars that are Honda nice too.

We Americans too often think we need to drive a living room with seating for a kid’s baseball team to truly have enough vehicle which is truly BS and a complete lack of concern for the economics situation our country is in today. I’d certainly buy a Fiat.

The weaknesses I saw in the old Fiats were common to any car with carburetors back then. Fiat had a very developed engine with multiple carbs in some cases, DOHC engines that would rev to the moon, and sometimes exotic designs with engines in the back or the engine in the front with the tranny in the back (Alfa). These were space ships compared to some of the Conestoga Wagons that Detroit sold year after year (like 150HP V-8 engines in the 5-6 liter range). So the carbs had to be just right to get the most out of the engine and not just any corner mechanic named Larry could adjust them using skills he learned working on a Ford Falcon six. These cars needed tuned a couple times a year. A $20 repair.

The Italian examples did rust and the Italians would patch these cars up time after time in a car’s 20 year lifetime. Rocker rust was common but easily fixed. The real problems came when the A-pillar would detach at it’s base where it connected to the firewall. Nothing like jacking up a Fiat 131 and watching the front box droop. The car I am thinking of was 20 years old and got very little TLC during it’s lifetime, sat outside the entire time and got no love. The driveline was still A+ though. I drove several that had synchronizer problems too in 2nd or 3rd gears. Nothing I would sell a car over – just fix it and you were good for another 100K miles. Balljoints were another issue but that is likely related to the poor roads than the design. Again cheap to fix.

Fiats are alot like scooters and motorcycles in America. In Italy you could buy and maintain a small motorcycle or scooter for cheap. In America these are luxury items and parts are incredibly expensive. Counter-intuitive to me. In Italy Fiats are also cheapo to maintain. Over here you’ve got to make some aftermarket retailer connections to find parts cheap. I’ve had to do the same with my VWs and they are quite cheap to own as a consequence.

Let’s try hard to move beyond the confusion between “I dislike this brands’ cars” and “this car is truly crap”. Okay a car might not be your favorite but that does not automatically make it crap.

For me – I want a reasonable amount of refinement and durability. If it’s going to break from time to time I at least want it to be easy and cheap to repair myself. Not a $3K repair like the CVT tranny in my in-law’s 80K mile Saturn Vue.

Yes the Forbidden Fruit, very appropriate for the subject, it always looks better than it tastes. While the exotic and unusual was what led many Americans to buy foreign, after their first drive in the summer without an air conditioner made by one of the big three they returned to what Detroit did best. As I recall my Mother saying, “Pretty is as Pretty does!” This sort of sums up the current state of the auto industry.

Today, if you want some thing distinctive, you can get a Lotus for a eye watering 60K, that’s about it. Mini lets you customize their product, and I like them, but at the end of the day it’s a Mini in drag. Good effort tho.

There is not a single Japanese car that looks distinctive – there used to be – there is not a single German that does, except the ostentatious Mercedes coupe – sedan. That’s 100K.

Porsche has done a nice job with the Cayman, but sadly out of my price range.

I like the Mustang, but they insist on putting huge engines in them. Won’t do 20 mpg combined these days. Need 40.

Geeze.

I know that an Alfa will break down every 30 ft, but every time I see one, I can’t help but stare at how gorgeous it is.

And they drive better than they look!

You must ask yourself, do you want a moody Italian supermodel or a Japanese soccer mom? The choice is yours.

Mercedes did for the 6.9.

I largely agree with that. But to the extent that there would be an opportunity for a niche personal import market, the federalization requirements completely kill that off.

The US used to have such a niche, which produced a wide variety of cars ending up on our roads. Twenty years ago, there was a small but thriving gray market in the United States, and federal regulations killed those off at the behest of the domestic automakers and Mercedes, the latter of which did not particularly like competing with itself.

The only way to play in the US now is to play it big. That requires selling very expensive cars that are worth federalizing (the exotics), importing mass produced cars in large numbers or becoming transplants located somewhere in the NAFTA zone. An ironic byproduct to these protectionist laws is that they ensure the Big 2.8 that their opponents are the strongest in the jungle.

Renault found a workaround to this — they bought Nissan. Not much point in bringing Renault-branded product to the US, when it floundered the last time and when they already have Nissan to do the job.

About reliability. I believe that this has a lot to do with eating your own dogfood. The people who work for Volvo’s drive Volvo’s so they will make sure that they start in the cold Swedish winter. Fiat, which also has a bad rap in Europe, is made in Italy. You don’t have cold winters in Italy so the need to make sure that it will start in the winter isn’t that pressing. The same is true of rust. In Italy you will have a lot less trouble with rust due to the weather

About Far Eastern reliability:
It is much easier to make a rustproof, reliable car for California than it is to make a rustproof, reliable car for the North East with it harsh, cold winters.
The Japanese started their dealer network in California and used that place to crank up their reliability after which they went after the North East

Ok, is mostly in developing world. But the car was a hit in Europe too. And I think it was jointly developed with the first generation Yaris, but not sure on that.

Alfa… after they made the 156 things started to look a LOT better. Alfa gas engines are different from Fiat’s. Of course they share a lot of componentry but that’s not bad per se. On this, I agree with you, it’s a shame they went FWD.

Fiat… they’re hella better now.

Renault… cars became “conventional”… at least mechanically

I have to agree with psarhjinian’s comments. Americans have different ideas about reliability (reality based) and most of the French and Italian makes simply wouldn’t make it here. They’ve palyed around in our market before and ruined their reputations.
Talk about perception gap – I don’t care how good a new Renault is, they have to overcome the Reliance and the Dauphine. When your product is seen as less reliable than a GM car, you have some very tough selling to do.