Daily Podcast: A Giant Bowl of Stupid?
I love The Autoextremist. What a great name! Sure, it’s better suited to a championship wrestler than an automotive analyst. But it’s also entirely, deliciously misleading. Peter DeLorenzo’s views on car sales, marketing and branding are about as “far out” as Brooks Brothers’ plaid pants. Even though Motown execs must surely view Peter as the nutter in the attic, DeLorenzo is always pulling for the home team. But I think he’s gone too far this time. In rant Sweet Pete’s sweet on the Bavarian outside the gates. Specifically, BMW NA Prez Jim O’Donnell. After doing the WTF routine on the German brands’ model proliferation, DeLorenzo lauds the Bimmer suit for trimming imports by 44k, cutting leases by 10 percent, reducing spending on incentive marketing and spiking the marque’s blow-out December sale. (We’ll see about that one.) Supposedly, all these moves indicate genius. DeLorenzo reckons O’Donnel wants to return BMW to its upmarket– or is that four-cylinder downmarket?– roots: “hallefrickinluja.” Meanwhile, back in the real world, O’Donnel is doing sweet FA to trim BMW’s bloated product portfolio or reposition the brand and the measures Pete describes are a reaction to declining market conditions and the credit squeeze. If the Autoextremist wants to give credit where credit’s not due, he should applaud GM CEO Rick Wagoner for putting GM dealers out of business trimming The General’s dealer count. In other words, if the truth doesn’t hurt, it may not be the truth.
More by Robert Farago
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Road Kill is a ridiculous addendum on a motoring site, but at least he's a racing enthusiast, so he can't be ALL bad!
Hey, enjoying the podcasts but have a request, could you clean them up a bit before posting? It's three in a row i think that have a loud phone keypress or some other loud noise in the middle. Something like audacity, http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ free, open source sound file editor would be all you need to find and remove such noises. Can also play with the levels as needed. Thanks!
@Domestic Hearse: And I gotta ask, who is Dr. Bud E. Bryan? This is perhaps the most pressing point of Autoextremist.com. Where did they find this guy - his writing, and his adventures are priceless! In fairness, while Peter does cheerlead for Detroit and perhaps over-celebrate their salad days, he has had some excellent commentary throughout the life of TTAC's GM Deathwatch series. His viewpoint is different, but then again his experience in the industry is also different.
I'd like to suggest that this site engage in more writing about cars and less "flaming" other bloggers. You folks have no corner on the "truth" - you have an opinion just like everyone else. Folks who read the various autoblogs are smart enough you know the difference between opinion and truth. Based on past experience, I do not expect this will see the light of day, 'cause, heaven forbid, no one is allowed to call you all to task. Only you can do that.