The Night Of The Living Dead Brands
TTAC has long interpreted the industry’s trend towards global product lines and component-sharing as requiring a few strong, focused brands rather than the scattershot approach defined over several decades by General Motors’ mess of poorly-defined brands. But the industry wasn’t always marching to the beat of the fewer, better brands drummer. Once upon a time, the American car market teemed with foreign and domestic brands of all sizes and persuasions, offering consumers a nearly unfathomable level of choice. And though we know we’ll never return to the days that saw Borgwards and Crosleys sold alongside MGs and Matras, we do sometimes long for a return to those Wild West days when there were more brands than anyone knew what to do with. And since we’re approaching the corpse-exhuming-est holiday of the year, we’ll go ahead and ask: if you could resurrect a dead brand through a dark and unholy ritual, which would it be and why?
Would you rather have giant, coffin-nosed Cords rolling around, or would you like to see Chrysler reboot its small-car program by dusting off the old Rambler name? Or perhaps you’re hoping BMW uses the Isetta nameplate for its forthcoming city car, or that Fiat adds to its burgeoning brand portfolio by draping a Hemi-powered Challenger in sexy Italian metal and calling it the Iso Grifo. Whatever your unholy brand resurrection dream might be, this is the time to share it. Because you just can’t keep a good zombie down…
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Edsel. The perfect car when a Mercury is too plain and a Lincoln is just too flashy. A real untapped market.
I'd rather see the Federal government get out of the car business. Less government would equal more choices. Get that cleared up first, then we can pine for specific marques.
Mercury. Although just recently deceased, if Ford were smart, they would keep Fords inexpensive, Lincolns REALLY expensive (and worth it) and just a few models of very nicely appointed Mercurys between the two. Personally, I'd love to see a revived Mercury Cougar with "heritage" styling similar to the current Mustang. In a perfect world, Pontiac AND Oldsmobile, too. Pontiac came real close to working out, with the Solstice, G6 and G8 as a nice progressive model line up. But I'm sure with CAFE regs, they had to offer the G3 and G5 to keep the mileage numbers up. Similar to the Ford-Mercury arrangement mentioned above, this time Pontiac would only be hi-po cars, no Chevy SS models. Oldsmobile, I would like to think of as the Mercury counterpart, at least in domestic terms. Again, no luxury Chevys or Pontiacs for that matter, but still a cut below Buick and Cadillac. Of course, all dealers would become "GM" dealers, too, so that a customer would be able to see all of the models all at once. Try and get that to work with state franchise laws! However, it seems to me the reality is that the current car market could not sustain all of these cars coming back, the way we remember them and with autonomy necessary to create truly outstanding vehicles. Additionally, other (foreign) makes have taken over the territory these domestic US brands used to occupy. Like someone else posted, every car line is now a full line, there is no reason to have all of the different divisions. So, farewell Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Mercury, et al. With that in mind, I will get in my Oldsmobile-powered Pontiac and go for ride on this sunny November day.
Rambler. We are living in a Rambler age. If AMC stuck with it's Romney mission, and kept their compacts and subcompacts competatively healthy and modern, it would have survived. Jeep would have been their SUV brand during the small car market drought, and when the SUV boom finally popped, been right there with another practical Rambler. A Rambler minivan would have been a natural with it's reputation for wagons. As would the Subaru 4 wheel drive market, calving off from Jeep in that market. Rambler would have been there for the Hyundai and Kia markets. Like what has been written here before - when our daily auto brands go in search of a rebirth, they end up with a version of the 1957 Chevrolet, 1963 Fairlane, 1976 Accord, a Corolla, a Camry - a Rambler.