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My work has appeared in a number of major publications either as writer, photographer, or source. I enjoy talking about all things automotive. Recent Posts
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CarSpace Hudson's BlogAll around the car world there are stories and these are just a few of them. A new blog is posted every Monday. Sometimes more often. Feb 25, 2008 - The Shaky World of Automotive InvestingUntil around 1950, there was a Wild West-like attitude in the American automotive industry. It was a frontier to be conquered. Throughout automotive history, there have been something like 5,000 individual makers of cars and trucks in the world with about 3,500 of them being situated in the United States. Companies like General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have survived, in one form or another, for over a century. General Motors turns 100 this year but its oldest parts (Cadillac, Buick, and the late Oldsmobile) are well over the century mark. Ford was founded in 1903. And while Chrysler was created in 1924 from the remains of Maxwell, parts of the company can be traced back to Rambler which dates back to 1903 as an automobile manufacturer. There are a few minor vehicle manufacturers in the US. The most prominent of them is Panoz which is slowly approaching its 20th anniversary. Outside of these tiny footnotes, there hasn't been a major successful American manufacturer founded since World War II. And even new import brands on US soil have been a rare find in the past 30 years. Rare successes like Hyundai and Kia are at odds with struggling Mitsubishi and soon-to-be-gone Isuzu. So you might have to forgive my apprehension everytime someone announces a new venture. When Bob Lutz announced the revival of Cunningham about eight years ago, I was excited. This was the first time in half a century that a new manufacturer would be coming to the US where I trusted the founder. Bob Lutz is the consumate car guy with REAL automotive experience working with the likes of BMW, General Motors, and Chrysler. Lutz even had novel, and as I saw it workable, approaches to manufacturing (which he laid out in two issues of Automotive Industries). But when Lutz was hired by General Motors, it was obvious that all bets on the Cunningham were off. So if Lutz prefered to take the corporate route instead of laying the foundation for real history, I knew new car production was truly a tough nut to crack. When people with questionable backgrounds talk about their automotive ventures, I automatically write them off in my head. People like Malcolm Bricklin, Gerald Weigert, and many others show great enthusiasm, some even know aspects of the automotive business, but most of them are just in business to make a quick buck. So ventures trying to tap the Chinese automakers for the next big thing find their way to my "skeptical" list. I understand that these people are trying to do what the Germans did in the late 1940s, the Japanese did in the 1960s, and the Koreans in the 1980s...catch the next big wave at its beginning. People like Max Hoffman and Kjell Qvale did just that, but the market was vastly different than it is today. The members of my list have included many different types of ventures. Importers of the ARO from Romania, the Proton from Malaysia, the TVR from the UK, the Citroen from France, the Alfa Romeo from Italy, and the Chery from China, among many others, have all announced their intentions in the past 20 years. Many times, these announcements have been followed by many different setbacks, some even could be just called frauds or scams. So it was of no surprise that Automotive News revealed that the head of one of these latest ventures was hiding a shady past. CHAMCO is a New Jersey-based importer who has announced that they plan on selling Chinese trucks in the next few years. The head spokesperson for CHAMCO has stated that he's simply a consultant for the company, but it seems that his wife is actually the chief stockholder of the company. And his past, according to the newspaper, shows that "he did time for fraud" in an earlier trucking venture that he controlled. I'm a huge car fan. I would love to see new and exciting choices in cars and trucks in the US. But each time a Build-To-Order or CHAMCO or ARO America is announced, I need to take a step back and see what's actually going on. The odds of any of these ventures getting off the ground, let alone becoming successful, are becoming smaller an
Sep 17, 2007 - The Demise of...MercuryBack in the mid 1990s, anyone who followed the automotive market could see the winds of change. There were brands that were heading for the door, but nobody would say anything official. It had to be that way so that the companies wouldn't lose additional sales and the dealers wouldn't sue. But everyone knew it. First was AMC. When Chrysler purchased American Motors in 1987, it was obvious that Jeep was the target but that the AMC brand and hundreds of dealers would be redundant. AMC became Eagle immediately to redefine the weak brand as a competitor with the European and Japanese brands. Rebadged Renaults (Eagle Premier and Medallion) and co-developed Mitsubishis (Eagle Summit and Talon) couldn't establish the brand properly since neither of the supplying companies were doing particularly well in the US. And so Jeep-Eagle dealers slowly merged with Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. The final straw was when the replacement for the Eagle Vision sedan was rebadged as teh Chrysler 300M leaving only the sporty Eagle Talon coupe. Eagle died with barely a notice. When Chrysler introduced the Plymouth Prowler and Plymouth Pronto concept cars in the mid 1990s, it seemed that the Plymouth brand was ready for a resurgence. It was about that time that Plymouth was oddly missed when the Chrysler and Dodge brands replaced their mid-sized models with all-new vehicles. Plymouth got the Breeze a year later, but it was lacking many options that its siblings had including the popular V6 engine. Sales lagged. Even so, the Prowler was put into production in 1997 to bring attention to the overlooked brand. Aside from the low production roadster, Plymouth's lineup included the compact Neon, the mid-sized Breeze, and the Voyager minivan. Once Chrysler Corporation's highest volume brand, Plymouth had fallen behind even the pseudo-luxury brand of Chrysler in sales. The fact that updated 2001 Voyager lacked "Plymouth" badging was the first tangible sign that the end was near. And so it went that the 2002 Voyager and Prowler became Chrysler models while the Breeze and Neon simply died in 2001. Throughout the 1990s, General Motors tried to re-establish the Oldsmobile brand. First it was "Not Your Father's" car and later became an entry-level luxury import fighter. Neither direction took with buyers and sales continued to slide. Even the introduction of a minivan and sport-ute could help Oldsmobile's slide. In January 2001, the end was announced but legal disputes with dealers kept Oldsmobile alive into the 2004 model year. Even today, not all of the legal issues have been solved but Oldsmobile's story has been basically written into the history books. A sad end for what was America's oldest car brand. Ford is not immune to these kinds of troubles. Everyone knows about the Edsel that was launched just in time for a national recession. Ford's medium-priced brand only lasted three model years before dying in late 1959. But Ford has since lagged behind its Big3 brethern in the number of brands offered. In the 1990s, General Motors had seven American car and light truck brands while smaller Chrysler had five. Ford held onto its namesake brand at the low end, Mercury in the middle, and Lincoln at the top. But Mercury was always being squeezed. Since it was created in 1939, Mercury has been "the other" brand at Ford. Almost all Mercury models were based on Ford-brand products. With rare exceptions, Mercurys were "gussied up" Ford. It helped Ford Motor Company compete with GM's Oldsmobile, Buick and Pontiac brands. It has had some significant products over the years. The 1961 Comet, 1967 Cougar, and 1978 Zephyr were big hits for the brand. But even its hits such as the 1986 Sable were over shadowed by the bigger hits over at Ford. In recent years, Mercury's only products not shared with Ford products (1990 Capri convertible, 1993 Villager minivan, 1999 Cougar coupe) have not been overwhelming successes, leaving Ford and Lincoln to carry the weight of the company. With all of these dark clouds, it's obvious that Mercury has been on the chopping block of every prognosticator for twenty years. Recent articles in Automotive News and other publications have brought this back up by pointing to Mercury's empty product pipeline as proof. But Mercury's pipeline has been quite dry for quite some time. Why is now special? Limited lineup? Mercury has three sedans (mid-sized Milan, full-sized Sable, and extra large Grand Marquis) and two trucks (compact Mariner and mid-sized Mountaineer). That alone doesn't mean much...compared to Buick or Pontiac, that's a full lineup. Dry pipeline? Milan is just a couple of years old. Sable and Mariner are new for 2008. Mountaineer's a few years old and the Grand Marquis is ancient. Sounds like the same problems that Ford has. So what is it? I say it's the new head of Ford, Alan Mullally. He's not a car guy, he's an airplane guy. He has no sense of automotive history, which is a bad thing if you're a car fan but a good thing if you're an investor (I'm the former, not the latter). Mullally needs to cut costs and Mercury is nothing but costs.
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