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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. May 25, 2009 - Ringing in the New SaturnSaturn lost its way. General Motors had a great idea to revolutionize the way it built and designed cars and this became Saturn. The original Saturn SL sedan wasn’t a class-leading vehicle by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a good American car at a good price. Saturn dealers built up stand-alone showrooms with haggle-free sales and salespeople on salary instead of commission. Saturn owners became a cult. They would return to dealerships for service and get a free car wash. They would return to dealerships as if they were family members joining a reunion with hot dogs and hamburgers. They would even make the pilgrimage to Spring Hill, Tennessee, to visit the “birth place” of their beloved cars. Any uniqueness designed into the original Saturn models and dealerships faded as the 1990s passed. The “reunions” ended and dealers dropped the car washes. Eventually, products were built outside of the Spring Hill plant in regular General Motors plants. Models shared platforms and engines with other GM products, diluting the characteristics that made Saturn “a different kind of car company.” Toyota tried to create the cult of ownership with its Scion brand. The distinctive (for the US market) design of the Scion xB and the fun, sporty nature of the Scion tC have generated their own sub-culture, similar to where Saturn started. Had Saturn created some unique vehicles and continued family-like feeling among its owners, the brand could have become a success. Which brings us to today, nearly two decades after the first car rolled off of the Spring Hill assembly line. General Motors believes that it cannot make Saturn work. With more than 400 dealers who have spent millions of dollars for scratch-built showrooms, General Motors can’t affordably walk away from them, most of which are strong non-Saturn GM dealers as well. GM has already announced the end of production for Saturn vehicles, but still intends on selling the dealer network. Among the most interesting potential buyers for Saturn is the Penske Automotive Group. Automotive News reports that Penske is negotiating with Renault Samsung Motors of South Korea to supply products. Current Samsung products could directly replace each of the existing Saturn products (aside from the niche Sky roadster and the large Outlook crossover). And since all Samsung products are based on Nissan products, getting the vehicles up to US specs wouldn’t be a stretch. Penske’s Saturn could have a compact and mid-sized sedan as well as a compact SUV ready for launch not too long after the papers are signed. But could they make it a success? Just like Saturn’s current lineup of the compact Astra, mid-sized Aura, and Vue, the Samsung SM3, SM5/SM7, and QM5 are good vehicles without much to distinguish them. They lack the “fun” of a Scion. They lack the image of a Subaru. And Saturn lost the cultiness of a Saturn many years ago. Penske’s group has been very good at managing the automotive business. From racing to sales to fleet management to service, they’ve done a great job. Even as the sole importer of Daimler AG’s Smart cars, they’ve been a success. But the purchase of Saturn would graduate Penske to a whole new level of “full-line” marketer. Even with the help of Renault (and their wizard leader Carlos Ghosn), the Penske/Saturn/Samsung combination would be a long-shot bet. General Motors built this brand up from scratch with billions of dollars invested and only had a few quarters of profits in nearly 20 years of existence. Even with dramatically lowered investment cost, making Saturn a success now will be nearly impossible. This will either be Roger Penske’s greatest achievement in the automotive realm (and he just won his 15th Indianapolis 500) or the move that tarnishes his automotive business legacy. Sadly, the latter is more likely.
Jan 14, 2008 - The Downside of Putting the World on WheelsAs countries develop, they all seem to go through similar stages. These stages may take progress quicker or slower, depending on the country and/or culture, but they all tend to follow a similar pattern. And part of this development encompasses their automotive industry. Car companies are a sign of an economy's arrival. The US, France, Germany, and the UK all developed their automotive industries beginning in the late 1800s and other regional countries followed. As each economy develops around these car-related businesses, specific automotive needs are found and met. Trucks and buses and luxury cars are among the first. Later comes the car for the masses. The US developed their first "people's car" as the 1901 Olds but it was the 1908 Ford Model T that really set the global standard for such a vehicle. It was simple and rugged and could carry a family (or livestock) as needed. And it was inexpensive..a key component for a "people's car." France had their Citroen. England had the Austin Seven. Italy had the Fiat Topolino. Germany had the Volkswagen. Each developing nation brought their idea of the basic car to the market. In the early 1980s, India started to bloom and basic transportation was needed there. Suzuki of Japan came to India and worked with the local firm Maruti Udyog to produce a knock-off of the Japanese market small car. Maruti's little car was wildly successful in India and 20 years later, about 7 out of 1,000 people in India had a car. While 0.7% of over a billion people is still a large number, a large untapped market still remained. The global conglomerate made up of Renault and Nissan developed a little car through their Romanian subsidiary just a few years ago. The Dacia Logan introduced basic, reliable, and modern transportation to Eastern Europe in the early part of the 21st century. So well suited to the modern developing world was the Logan that it became an overnight success wherever it was introduced, including India. But the Logan was still priced high for the poorest of markets since the car was designed to be the €5,000 car; quite a bit of money in the Indian economy. Indian truck market Tata entered the car field in the 1990s with a compact car called the Indica. It was a luxury car compared to the basic Logan, but Tata had other plans. And after years of planning, Tata finally showed the fruits of their labors last week when the Tata Nano was shown to the public. And throngs of reporters rushed the stage at the car's introduction. Why would such an extremely basic car with average looks engender such a reaction? Mainly because the Nano was designed to break the Rs 1,000,000 barrier...the equivalent of $2,500! Nobody expects this little car to take over the world with its 33hp two-cylinder engine and lack of nearly every feature expected in the West. But it is the right car to take over the streets of India. For good and bad. Global oil supplies are being tapped by all of these emerging automotive markets. China is experiencing amazing growth in car production and sales. India's growth may be slower, but it's still growing at an alarming rate. And adding a basic car, albeit one that gets 50mpg, will put added pressure on the global supply of oil. It doesn't help that Americans are taxing the world's oil supply with (relatively) gas guzzling six- and eight-cylinder engines while much of the rest of the world is using four-cylinder gas and diesel engines as its primary source of power. It doesn't help when the American people see affordable gas prices as their RIGHT no matter how much they use. And it doesn't help that nobody is really doing anything to stop this demand for oil. Sure, the next generation of the automotive industry will bring about alternative fuels, but we've been waiting for that to be "right around the corner" since the early 1970s. Car companies have been working on fuel cell vehicles since the 1960s and electric vehicles since before 1900, but we're not going to see these (or any other alternative fueled vehicles) anytime soon. Between necessary infrastructure change for fueling these vehicles that nobody's funding to a significant lack of desire by car and oil companies and government agencies to push these new technologies, we'll be lucky to see any of these new vehicles hitting mass market prices before oil prices reach $200 a barrel...or more. I want to remove myself from the problem, but I can't afford to. My best move reduce my intake of oil as radically as possible. I hope to have my 100mpg moped available for my daily commute by spring time. On bad weather days and when the seasons change, I'll be back to my 25mpg sedan. Part of me wants the people of India to enjoy the thrill of driving their own car. Part of me wants Tata to drop the whole Nano project right now to limit the number of potential drivers further eating away at the finite petroleum resources available. I'm torn. But there are thousands of Indians, right now, anxious to get their hands on their first new car. Many of them ready to bring cash to a Tata dealer for a car that won't be availble until the fall. I'm happy for them...but sad for every car owner (and potential car owner) around the world.
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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