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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. Jan 21, 2008 - Car AuctionsIt's that week again. That week in January where I plop myself down in front of the tube with an A-Treat soda in one hand, pretzel sticks in the other, and both eyes glued to the Speed Channel for another 40 hours of auction coverage...the Barrett-Jackson auction from Scottsdale. Back in 1990, FNN (the Financial News Network...now CNBC) covered this auction for one Sunday afternoon and it was wonderful. Watching some of my dream cars like the Ford GT40 roll across the block and sell for, as I recall, right around a million dollars each; there were two that sold to the same person for a combined total of $1.9 million. And this was in the days before the Muscle Car boom. Now the true classics and exotics have been replaced by 1950s American classics and 1960s muscle cars. It's still an exciting event, especially now with SIX DAYS of coverage. But I wish the hosts were better at describing the vehicles (they sometimes don't know details that they should know before the car reaches the auction block like what engine's under the hood) and I wish the directors showed more cars instead of long boom shots of people parading in and out of the auction. And I wish the vehicles were more interesting. Sure, a Hemi Cuda is a great car just like a Yenko Nova or a Shelby Mustang. But on TV, it's just a Plymouth or Chevrolet or Ford. The occasional Packard or Kaiser Darrin or pre-War anything stands out above these modern vehicles that were basically everyday drivers with rare powertrains. But this weekend, I actually got up from my easy chair to see a live auction. Not too far from home, an auction featuring a variety of oddball and interesting vehicles was held. About 60 vehicles in all were there. And not one featured a 426cid Hemi V8. Actually some of them featured engines with substantially less than 60 cubic inches of displacement. I don't get up early for many things, but a good car event will make be part from my bed. And this one required that I get up around six...something I don't even do for work. The early start was required to see the auction items before the 9 o'clock sale. We arrived at the auction site only to find that the cars were at another site about a mile away. We checked out the parts and automobilia that was on sale which numbered in the thousands! There were pallets and crates of stuff...parts and tools and supplies collected over many decades. Steering wheels in various states and doors dating back to the 1920s and various parts that only a model specific expert would be able to identify. After quickly checking out the parts, we headed across town to where the vehicles were stored. The Hatfield Auto Museum had about 50 cars on display and ready for auction. Only two or three looked to be in a state to be driven away and the rest would have had to have been hauled. The relatively common vehicles were a late-1990s Ford Taurus SHO, 1970s-vintage Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and a 1960s Mercury Comet Caliente. Oh, and there were the two Volkswagen Beetles, two Volkswagen Buses, and one Volkswagen Vanagon, none of which could be driven in their current state. But the reason I was there was to see the oddball cars. And this place had them: four Isettas, two Bianchinas, a Saab Sonnet III, no fewer than seven "bugeye" Austin-Healey Sprites, a Mini Moke, a Goggomobil, and a Austin Bantam van, just to name a few. Oh, I was in heaven. Maybe it wasn't heaven since I would have bought one or ten in my heaven, but it was a fun Saturday afternoon. If you're a fan of odd little cars, check out my pictures from the auction. I'm trying to find out what some of these vehicles sold for but I'm not entirely sure if I want to know. What if I should have purchased one? The license plates at the auction site which ranged from Connecticut to Virginia and the fact that the auction was being offered on eBay as well makes me think that nothing went cheap.
Dec 17, 2007 - My Car Sales CareerMy car sales career was quite brief. In that 100 day period, I learned quite a bit; not the least of which was that I'm not cut out for car sales. I also learned that car sales people are a breed unto themselves. A breed which I both envy and hate. Oh, I know car sales people. And they're personable enough to be friends with. That's hardly the problem. The problem lies with the fringe elements of this group. And, to be honest, they're among the BETTER people in their field. While that's how it works in most types of sales, car people are somehow different. I worked with Dennis. He was probably twice my age (or so) and seemed to be waning in his car sales career. If you were to meet him, you'd notice that he seemed to be more of an old school used car sales guy than a modern new car guy. A little portly and walking with the slight limp that can come with older age, Dennis was a friendly guy who no longer had that drive needed to turn 10 sales a month. But he could still sell rings around me since I didn't have 10 sales in my career. My first sale was to a friend. Jimmy walked onto the lot and, since we were friends, I was given the courtesy to sell him a car. He purchased the car I nicknamed the "Alabastard." It was a Mercury Cougar, Alabaster in color, that had been on the lot so long that it needed to be jumpstarted each time. Other than the battery problem, it was a great car and Jimmy gladly traded in his beat up (and I'm not exaggerating there) early Ford Escort wagon. Jimmy was glad to gain three speakers (only one of the Escort's four worked), power everything (versus power NOTHING), and air conditioning. Late in my career, a woman drove onto the lot with an older Ford Festiva. This car had somewhere above 100,000 miles on it (the speedometer stopped working), no radio (the wires were dangling from the hole in the dashboard), no air conditioning, and a non-overdrive 4-speed manual transmission. She loved this car and drove it about 200 miles every day. But she saw newer versions on our lot and thought it was time to move up. The newer cars were leftover rental units and we had about 10 of them. They had air, 3-speed automatic transmissions, and cassette stereos. Oh, and they had about 20,000 to 30,000 miles on them along with working speedometers. She was impressed with the little cars and seemed like she wanted to buy, but not that day. My boss informed me that she didn't buy because "her husband wasn't with her." I was a novice at this and raised in an environment where women didn't buy cars without a man's (husband, boyfriend, father, brother, uncle, some man) approval. But I still didn't see the connection that THIS woman, who had purchased the old car by herself and had a job where she could afford the car by herself, couldn't and wouldn't buy a car on her own. A few days later, she returned to the dealership and purchased one of the former rental Festivas....by herself. One day, a gentleman and his 30-something son came into the dealership. He was driving something sporty and I steered him to a supercharged Mercury Cougar XR7 that, I felt, was a great deal, This $23,023 car was blazing red with a black leather interior and came with a $5,000 discount! I couldn't understand why it hadn't sold but I found a man who was a perfect match for the car. And he agreed after the test drive. We negotiated on price for quite some time, but came to an agreed sum. He was about to sign the papers when he asked that the rebate be taken off of the negotiated price. All along, our price discussions had included all rebates and that fact was not hidden, but he still wanted another $500 taken off of an already low price. Nothing would change his mind and this $500 difference broke the deal. I was later told that he had been in this dealership a number of times over the years and the reason why I couldn't sell him a car was that I was male. It seems that sex discrimination works both ways....and from both sides of the desk. My best sale, however, came late in my career. One Saturday afternoon, an older couple drove onto the lot. They were very nice and I showed them exactly what they asked to see: a Mercury Grand Marquis that had been marked down dramatically. We drove it up and down the road and they liked it, but they also told me that they were retiring and moving to Florida. I told them that I thought everyone should have a really nice car once in their life and that the step up to the even more dramatically marked-down Lincoln Town Car would be a great choice for them. We took four test drives that afternoon; one each in the Mercury and one each in the Lincoln. We got along famously and they both prefered the Lincoln. They left the lot without buying anything. My boss was steaming! One of the reasons why I couldn't sell cars was that I'm not all that pushy. They were going to buy a car, but they weren't prepared that day. I knew this, but my boss was still mad that I let them walk. I told them that they'd be back but, with years of experience, he seemed to know better. Monday the couple returned with TWO trades. They came to purchase the Lincoln and I sold it to them. They left as very happy customers with a brand new Town Car and I came away with the pride that I sold a car, even upgrading the sale, and didn't have to resort to the pushy salesman tactics for which I was being trained. That little success wasn't enough to save my flagging career and so it ended late that fall. I sold a Mercury Cougar, a Lincoln Town Car, a Ford Econoline, a Ford Tempo, a used Mercury Topaz, and a handful of other cars and trucks before turning or, more to the point, being turned toward other pursuits. I learned quite a bit about sales, car sales, and the automotive business from that job. It didn't discourage me from working in the industry, but I did keep far away from selling cars and trucks. I'm glad to have that short stint on my resume just for the experience it gave me. To this day, I still enjoy the car sales experience but from the buyer's side of the desk. To all of you salespeople out there, good luck to you! Those of us who couldn't hack the job tip our hats to you. Selling a car is still a face-to-face profession and I don't see the day coming where some personal interaction isn't necessary...atleast for most car buyers. It's a very tough job and one where you're automatically selected to be the "enemy" from your own customers. And yet you still earn a living doing it. Good luck to you!
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.
Aug 6, 2007 - Should They Stay or Should They Go?On one automotive forum that I frequent, there is a discussion of which car brands should be the next to leave the US market. Poster after poster lists their choices and the reasons why they believe each should no longer sell their wares in the US. Most of the opinions are based on biases formed from personal experiences with these brands…some of which are quite out-dated. But it’s an interesting discussion. My opinion, as a car fanatic, is that more is better than less. I’m an American and proud of it. I wish American manufacturers were not losing market share to the imports, but it’s not, in my opinion, completely undeserved. But I would not want any brands to go away to simply save a domestic brand name (domestic jobs, however, are another topic for another time). With the Chinese brands knocking at the door, this discussion takes on added fervor. Many of the people involved in this discussion believe that the Chinese are the next wave of automotive competition to beat up the American companies, and I have to agree. Where the Japanese were laughed at just 40 years ago, today they’re among the most admired automotive manufacturers in the world. The Korean brands were in the same boat just 25 years ago and today Hyundai and Kia are respectable names in many parts of the world. Along with a few Indian companies, Chinese companies are looking to the US for market expansion. Many people have heard of Chery since they have been in the news for the past few years while they prepare to enter the US market. Today, Chrysler is working with Chery to produce an entry-level Dodge product for the US market. And Chery will take what they learn from Chrysler to become a global brand on their own. There’s also Nanjing and Shanghai and Great Wall and Geely and a dozen others that are looking across the Pacific. Nanjing owns the MG brand and will, most likely, use that name in its global expansion. Shanghai has been working with Volkswagen and General Motors for a number of years to increase their hold on the Chinese market, but exports aren’t too far away especially since they bought out the Rover side of the former MG Rover company, but need to establish their own brand name (they’re currently using Roewe, almost pronounced “wrong way”) since the Rover name did not come with the package. Great Wall has light trucks and Geely has economy cars and both have eyes on the US market. Brilliance and Wuling and Landwind could be in the next wave as well. But, from what I’ve seen, none of these companies are ready for the US market quite yet. The Japanese entered the US market with cars too small for American tastes but quickly tailored their products with US buyers in mind…and raised their quality to class-leading levels. The Koreans learned from the mistakes made by the Japanese and brought true entry-level product to the US. Although they made their own mistakes along the way, they were competitive players in just over 25 years from producing their first car (the Japanese took about 40 years. The Chinese seem like they’re on the 20 year plan, which would bring them to a competitive nature in just a few more years. Once in a while, one of my cars impresses someone. It doesn’t happen very often, but it’s a nice feeling that someone likes your choice of car. The only person who really matters about my choice of car is me. And that’s how it should be with everyone’s choice. The fact that I don’t care for a single guy buying a Ford SuperDuty just to commute to his office doesn’t matter as long as the owner of that big pickup likes his choice. This laissez faire attitude should extend to brand names as well. If Isuzu finds enough buyers for their products, more power to them…it’s a capitalist marketplace. Not too many would be sad to see Isuzu (or Mitsubishi or Suzuki or Buick or Mercury or…) go, but the reduction in choice would be a sad thing. So here’s hoping that we see a return of Alfa Romeo (discussed for a year or two from now), Citroen and Peugeot (oft-rumored), Fiat, and MG. Perhaps then the Americans can bring back Duesenberg and Packard and Stutz and AMC and Edsel and… Okay, maybe I've gone a bit too far.
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