#branding

Now that Bob Lutz is lounging on the beach and catching early-bird specials (between Lotus board meetings and GM dog-and-pony shows), it’s good to know that there are still a few good men left to sprinkle The Detroit News with a few double-take-inspiring quotes. Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics is a reliable source of controversial gems, and thanks to one particularly context-free quotation, he’s provided the perfect place to kick off an age-old debate: Vette or Viper. But Hall wasn’t talking about either car’s performance, instead forwarding the thesis that:

The designer of Cadillac’s recent ULC city car concept seems to think so. Niki Smart tells Autocar

The time is ripe for Cadillac to make this car. We need a bigger spread of models, particularly for Europe. The Mini’s success is proof of people’s open-mindedness.

Whether or not Cadillac needs a subcompact car in its lineup, Smart’s point that the MINI is proof of consumers’ “open-mindedness” is worth examining. Specifically because MINI was launched as a unique brand, its success is more of a testament to the brand’s slick marketing than any consumer “open-mindedness.” After all, BMW made certain to launch the MINI as a MINI before bringing out a BMW version of its front-drive chassis… and when it does bring out a BMW-branded version, it can probably expect a certain amount of pushback from hard-core fans of the brand.

When Porsche introduced the world to its first production SUV in 2003, it set off an intense, polarized debate that continues to this day. For some, the Cayenne was a crossing of the Rubicon (no pun intended) leading to the dumbing-down of a proud marque… for others, it was a new, more accessible way to experience the brand. Sure enough, sales of the Cayenne have been good (significantly better than the Cayman and Boxster combined), but Porsche seems to have let passion for its brand run out of control.

Since the Cayenne controversy, every V6 Panamera and Cayman S has given the anti-Cayenne faction evidence of the slippery slope of brand destruction they saw coming with Porsche’s first SUV (and which Jack Baruth traces back as far as the 914). And now, as if to confirm the worst fears of even some of its own executives, Porsche is throwing rocket fuel on the fire in the form of a new, smaller SUV. The question this time: after the Cayenne, Pana V6, and various sins against the fanbase (some more deadly than others), are the purists still fired up enough to rage against the Cajun?

Ask the average motorist what they think of when they think of Audi, the word “headlights” will come up mighty quickly. And not coincidentally either: Volkswagen’s premium brand even spearheaded last year’s holiday marketing campaign by inviting consumers to “ have the best lights in your neighborhood.” But one of the biggest challenges of the multiple-brand strategy is the constant pressure to take whatever works for one brand and apply it to the others, which is apparently just what Volkswagen has done.

Just two short years ago, Volvo’s press flacks were talking a big game about Volvo’s luxury aspirations, saying things like

We want to continue to compete with Mercedes, BMW and Audi. We’re working to improve the premium-ness of the brand and our products.

Even as recently as this year, Volvo execs have made much of the need to “not damage the Volvo brand.” But, having been bought by the Chinese automaker Geely, the Swedish brand has changed its tune. Autocar quotes Volvo’s new CEO, Stephen Jacoby, saying

Let’s ditch this talk about premium. It sounds like a pricing strategy and it’s got an expensive ring to it. We need to focus on elegant Scandinavian simplicity, our own unique identity, and not copy our competitors.

Luca di Montezemolo testing the New Stratos from New Stratos on Vimeo.

Ferrari Chariman Luca Di Montezomolo recently got a spin in Michael Stoschek’s homage to the Lancia Stratos, possibly one of the rarest treats in the car game just now. And even though it’s neither a Lancia nor a Stratos, anyone would be thrilled to drive one before they’re all locked into some climate-controlled bunker somewhere. But that’s not all Luca has to be thankful for: with a disastrous 2010 F1 season behind it, Ferrari is the center of speculation that Fiat will sell it off as it moves towards closer ties with Chrysler Group. Freedom from Fiat might mean an end to Lancia-branded one-offs based on Ferrari platforms, but given the depth of Fiat’s gamble on Chrysler, Ferrari would probably prefer to watch from a distance anyway. In fact, the only thing Luca probably isn’t thankful for this week is direct competition from the McLaren MP4-12C, which is launching at almost the exact same price as the 458 Italia.

…and this is Fiat’s. The Italian brand left the US market in 1982, but it has returned with a first ad that seems like it was made sometime in the late 1990s. It’s a good thing the 500 has been relatively well– received, because it isn’t cheap and it clearly doesn’t have a fraction of the MINI’s marketing mojo. Between this, the “my tank is full” Ram ads ( not to mention the entire first wave of “New Chrysler” ads), and the hallucinogenic Caravan spots, it seems like Chrysler’s Olivier Francois should be up for some kind of special award this year…

We all knew that Bob Lutz wasn’t going to spend his retirement circulating between the golf course and the early bird special, and when Lotus rolled out the most ambitious re-boot of any car company since GM, we should have known Lutz would end up involved somehow. After all, Lotus’s CEO Dany Bahar has bragged at length about making Lotus the “Real Madrid” (think Miami Heat) of the sports car industry… and if there’s one high-profile prima donna in the car industry, it’s Mr Robert Anthony Lutz.