Remember The Aztek!

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

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.

DeBord’s fundamental error is his misguided belief that the Aztek was a pioneer in the burgeoning crossover segment:

The Aztek, introduced in 2001, was an attempt to do something entirely different… It’s easy to berate GM for always failing to see where the market is going. But in this instance it was the first to recognize the need for a new kind of vehicle to fill the crossover segment, which would grow rapidly in subsequent years. A crossover is basically a 21st-century station wagon. SUVs are usually built on the same platform used for trucks—and they often feel that way when you drive them. They also inhale gas. Crossovers, by contrast, are built on platforms used for cars, so they have better road manners, and they’re more fuel-efficient. There were some crossover-ish vehicles before the Aztek, such as the Subaru Forester, but these were seen as neo-wagons, or small/compact SUVs. With the Aztek, GM created something that had SUV size, minus the SUV stigma. An innovative GM? Well, yes. GM can sometimes be, for all its detractors, troublingly ahead of the curve. And the Aztek was first in this mold.

Er, no. The Lexus RX is, without question the pioneering model of the modern CUV segment (although proto-crossover precedent has existed for decades), having debuted in 1998. Had DeBord taken a minute to check Wikipedia’s “Crossover SUV” article, he might have saved his readers and ours from having to gaze once again upon the Aztek’s grim countenance. Instead, his entire thesis falls apart.

The Aztek’s emergence no fewer than three years (or one development cycle) after the RX in 2001, more than indicates that GM essentially copied the RX in concept. In fact, the Aztek’s only “innovation” was an overemphasis on “lifestyle” branding that was an unfortunate hallmark of the Ron Zarrella-era General Motors. And which saddled the Aztek with epically unlovable styling and doomed it to its current status as a rolling mark of shame. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that GM should copy innovative designs early, and steadily improve them instead of over-marketing them into niche irrelevance or worse.

Unfortunately, DeBord’s lessons from the Aztek experiment couldn’t be more different. And the implications for GM’s future are troubling.

The Aztek didn’t work, but it demonstrated that GM had the capacity to invent a product that people didn’t know they wanted. The General can still do this—the forthcoming Chevy Volt-extended-range electric car could be a game-changer for the company. But it needs to keep doing it.

And even though it might fail miserably … well, that’s the auto industry. Success is never guaranteed. But blandly hewing to what has worked, falling victim to fear rather than having the confidence to completely miss the mark from time to time, will not bring GM back to its glory days. Or even, someday, enable the company to return to profitability and pay back the taxpayer. So remember the Aztek. It may not have been great. But it gave birth to a new idea in the auto business, and that’s gold.

Or, remember the Aztek as a colossal missed experience, rife with the usual lessons of old GM… and a monstrous warning for Volt optimists.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 65 comments
  • B-Rad B-Rad on Nov 20, 2009

    Interestingly, I know a guy who thinks the Aztek is beautiful. Always has, probably always will.

  • Accs Accs on Nov 29, 2009

    Jesus... Comparing the Aztek as something GM wants to remember? Seriously?! GM wants / should to remember this?? -- Only to never forget such a bastard of design... But its being compared to ANYTHING from SUBARU?! Subbie is / was a company that only made WAGONS, WAGON, WAGONS! (Even though, they touted their stuff as SUVS). Id also like to know... How a crossover can be fuel efficient.. simply because of its frame? Isnt its inherant size / weight its main culprit for its fuel economy?! Also.. as much as I do repect Honda Motor Company... Please dont compare the Element against an Aztek. The two should never meet. Aztek is some awful mistake of design.. that should have never come to light. They canned it.. while bringing the Rendevous to fruition. Where-as the Element could easily be cheaply tweaked.. and be respectable.

  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
Next