Dead on Arrival: New Models That Don't Have a Chance
June 23, 2008By Bill Visnic
One bizarre fallout from the wild-ride shift in consumer tastes is a spate of new or soon-to-be-released models that were designed and developed under assumptions about the U.S. market that now are absolutely invalid.
The result: a slew of white elephants designed when gasoline was $2 per gallon (or less) and Americans were still buying 800,000 F-Series pickups and everything else that looked big, sucked gas and telegraphed that you had arrived at that special entitlement heaven espoused by Rush Limbaugh and everyone else who insisted cheap energy and cheap mortgages are an American birthright.
It might be almost laughable if the U.S. domestic auto industry weren't in such disastrous shape -- and had the luxury of time to once again make amends for decades of single-minded product-development choices.
Here's a short list of our favorite vehicles that, thanks mostly to the new rules governing the auto industry, suddenly look titanically dumb:
BMW
X6: Most everybody admits: Great car to drive, probably one of the silliest "packages" currently on the market. It's a jacked-up but road-oriented crossover that weighs 5,000 pounds yet is a tight fit for four occupants, much less their gear.
Get a good look at this one: it's like it was concocted in the Jurassic Park lab, a premium-octane-slurping freak of nature that really has no business in the BMW lineup (which Monday launched ads boasting BMW's mpg) -- except that three years ago it probably seemed like a totally cool idea.
CHRYSLER
Dodge Challenger: Just months ago, Chrysler was chest-thumping about how you'd have to be an idiot if you weren't hot for the V8-powered Challenger coupe. Now all the carmaker wants to talk about is the "value" of the Challenger with a V6.
Dodge Ram: An all-new one's coming this fall. By that time, India's Mahindra & Mahindra may be launching it, though. For the rest, see Ford F-150 below.
FORD
F-150: Did anybody have even the slightest trepidation about a bigger footprint, V8s only, seven (!) trim levels, power running boards? Apparently, they all thought the proliferation never needed to stop: "We don't need no stinking V6s!"
Overnight, the F-150s gone from the franchise to the product they'd rather not mention -- much less have to launch this fall in the shadow of Exxon station signs. That unnerving intro, by the way, now has been postponed by two months, purportedly to clear out ballooning stocks of the old model -- but probably also to buy marketing some time. We figure they'd love to just cancel the mindlessly Bigfooted new F-150 and just soldier on with the current one, as General Motors has announced it will do with its pickups and big utes.
Here's a fun quote from the press materials attributed to Mark Fields, Ford's president of The Americas, that Ford's PR crew might want to run through for updating:
"With Ford's product-led transformation in full swing, the new F-150 could not have come at a better time -- for Ford and for our customers."
Flex: All right, we might accept this mildly intriguing mutation of a station wagon and a minivan -- as a niche experiment. And if the price of this slab wasn't laughable: A semi-decent one starts at $32 grand and the Flexi they've been handing the press are $40,000-plus.
Ford pissed away its once-considerable minivan volume. We can't see the Flex's "daring to be different" and Sync bringing that back. While we're at it, 4,640 pounds and 16 mpg in the city isn't exactly a recipe for success, either.
Lincoln MKS: We hope Lincoln doesn't really believe its own bluster on this car. Semi-modern styling and a few dashes of "tech" on the equipment list aren't enough to make this reincarnation of the last Continental (R.I.P. 2002) anything vaguely desirable -- or competitive.
The profile is crisp enough but could be anything, the grille's more than a little overwrought and the interior looks like Bette Midler's idea of hip.
Notes to Lincoln:
1. Acura's already doing this better, and it can't sell it.
2. The terms "flagship" and "front-drive" still don't mix -- just ask Acura.
3. Don't brag about "8,600 orders" before the MKS even hit the showroom. We saw Alan Mulally out back of those dealerships threatening to hand out an old-fashioned Irish butt-whipping if they didn't order a bunch.
GM
Hummer
H3T: It took $4-per-gallon gas to get GM management eyeballing this dead-end division?
The company says Hummer's place in the corporate cosmos is "under review." What oughta be under review are the goofballs who convinced themselves GM needed Hummer in the first place. And just so you know, this isn't a case of Monday-morning quarterbacking -- we've been saying this since GM acquired Hummer in '98 and gas cost WAY less than it does today.
Now GM's got no choice but to launch the H3T. A Hummer pickup would have been marginal in the go-go late '90s, but the T is the product of the "we have to get Hummer more product" rationale that, abetted by the quickly changing market, only underscores what a misguided decision Hummer was in the first place.
Cadillac
CTS-V: Yet another example of GM arriving at the party 20 minutes too late. What's left of this market in two years will wholly belong to the Europeans. And that's if they can get the dollar-euro seesaw balanced again.
HONDA
Pilot: Everybody looked uncomfortable when the lightly disguised concept was revealed, and now the '09 production version is just plain embarrassing. No matter how Honda tries to spin it, the decision to green-light the boxy SUV styling -- the look would have been pass a half-decade ago -- was a serious strategic mistake.
Launching the new Pilot exposes one of the Japan Inc.'s only flaws: reluctance to backtrack once a course has been set. Maybe after gaging the early reaction, if somebody with power had been able to say, "This stinks, and we need to try again -- even if it means delaying our precious launch timetable," the Pilot might have been redeemed. But Honda didactically marched straight to Badville with the second-generation Pilot. It's a true turkey.
Accord: Fat, heavy and overstuffed. The world didn't need a bigger and more luxie Accord, but that's what Honda uncharacteristically decided was best for the latest generation. Incentives appeared immediately, which also is aberrant for any new Accord.
Granted, when broad assumptions about Honda's most important car were crafted five or six years ago, the world was a different place. But the Accord already had grown so much, it's hard to fathom how famously imaginative Honda got itself to a place that said more size and more stuff was the best route for "improvement." The new Accord seems to be evidence of lazy or indifferent developmental initiative -- it's a relentlessly un-innovative package, and that's the true disappointment of the new Accord.
INFINITI
FX50: If you must have a V8, it should be 5 liters, and that's what the new-gen FX50 crossover flaunts.
But wow, the last thing the ultra-niche FX line (2007 total sales: 20,727) needed to expand the sales base was a larger, 390-hp V8 that yields, uh, 14 mpg in the city. Yep, that's 14 mpg -- and premium unleaded's required. That scraping sound you hear is hari-kari swords a-sharpening.
TOYOTA
Venza: "Fat, dumb and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Tell us where Toyota's going with the Venza that Chrysler hasn't been with the blubbery Pacifica and Mercedes with the blubbery R-Class?
All we can add is this thing had better be a lot lighter than it looks, because while Toyota's at least got a four-cylinder penned into the mix, we can't imagine the car actually moving much with it. This is what happens when you try to invent too many things from too few platforms.
VOLKSWAGEN
Routan: Somewhere between the time VW decided it needed a badge-engineered minivan for the U.S. and this fall when it's actually available, Germany missed the memo that nobody wants a minivan anymore. To make matters worse, quality-challenged VW enlisted even more quality-challenged Chrysler to build it.
By the way, when will they stop it with the hideous names?
Tiguan: Decent enough cute-ute savaged by the ruinous currency exchange rate. How bad is it? The cheapest Tiguan is $23,200 for a front-driver. The equivalent Honda CR-V (the segment's best seller) is a rollicking $2,500 less. The most you can spend on a CR-V is $28,400. That's $475 less than the entry-level all-wheel-drive Tiguan.
And stop it with the hideous names, already.
http://www.autoobserver.com/20....html
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June 23, 2008By Bill Visnic
One bizarre fallout from the wild-ride shift in consumer tastes is a spate of new or soon-to-be-released models that were designed and developed under assumptions about the U.S. market that now are absolutely invalid.
The result: a slew of white elephants designed when gasoline was $2 per gallon (or less) and Americans were still buying 800,000 F-Series pickups and everything else that looked big, sucked gas and telegraphed that you had arrived at that special entitlement heaven espoused by Rush Limbaugh and everyone else who insisted cheap energy and cheap mortgages are an American birthright.
It might be almost laughable if the U.S. domestic auto industry weren't in such disastrous shape -- and had the luxury of time to once again make amends for decades of single-minded product-development choices.
Here's a short list of our favorite vehicles that, thanks mostly to the new rules governing the auto industry, suddenly look titanically dumb:
BMW
X6: Most everybody admits: Great car to drive, probably one of the silliest "packages" currently on the market. It's a jacked-up but road-oriented crossover that weighs 5,000 pounds yet is a tight fit for four occupants, much less their gear.
Get a good look at this one: it's like it was concocted in the Jurassic Park lab, a premium-octane-slurping freak of nature that really has no business in the BMW lineup (which Monday launched ads boasting BMW's mpg) -- except that three years ago it probably seemed like a totally cool idea.
CHRYSLER
Dodge Challenger: Just months ago, Chrysler was chest-thumping about how you'd have to be an idiot if you weren't hot for the V8-powered Challenger coupe. Now all the carmaker wants to talk about is the "value" of the Challenger with a V6.
Dodge Ram: An all-new one's coming this fall. By that time, India's Mahindra & Mahindra may be launching it, though. For the rest, see Ford F-150 below.
FORD
F-150: Did anybody have even the slightest trepidation about a bigger footprint, V8s only, seven (!) trim levels, power running boards? Apparently, they all thought the proliferation never needed to stop: "We don't need no stinking V6s!"
Overnight, the F-150s gone from the franchise to the product they'd rather not mention -- much less have to launch this fall in the shadow of Exxon station signs. That unnerving intro, by the way, now has been postponed by two months, purportedly to clear out ballooning stocks of the old model -- but probably also to buy marketing some time. We figure they'd love to just cancel the mindlessly Bigfooted new F-150 and just soldier on with the current one, as General Motors has announced it will do with its pickups and big utes.
Here's a fun quote from the press materials attributed to Mark Fields, Ford's president of The Americas, that Ford's PR crew might want to run through for updating:
"With Ford's product-led transformation in full swing, the new F-150 could not have come at a better time -- for Ford and for our customers."
Flex: All right, we might accept this mildly intriguing mutation of a station wagon and a minivan -- as a niche experiment. And if the price of this slab wasn't laughable: A semi-decent one starts at $32 grand and the Flexi they've been handing the press are $40,000-plus.
Ford pissed away its once-considerable minivan volume. We can't see the Flex's "daring to be different" and Sync bringing that back. While we're at it, 4,640 pounds and 16 mpg in the city isn't exactly a recipe for success, either.
Lincoln MKS: We hope Lincoln doesn't really believe its own bluster on this car. Semi-modern styling and a few dashes of "tech" on the equipment list aren't enough to make this reincarnation of the last Continental (R.I.P. 2002) anything vaguely desirable -- or competitive.
The profile is crisp enough but could be anything, the grille's more than a little overwrought and the interior looks like Bette Midler's idea of hip.
Notes to Lincoln:
1. Acura's already doing this better, and it can't sell it.
2. The terms "flagship" and "front-drive" still don't mix -- just ask Acura.
3. Don't brag about "8,600 orders" before the MKS even hit the showroom. We saw Alan Mulally out back of those dealerships threatening to hand out an old-fashioned Irish butt-whipping if they didn't order a bunch.
GM
Hummer
H3T: It took $4-per-gallon gas to get GM management eyeballing this dead-end division?
The company says Hummer's place in the corporate cosmos is "under review." What oughta be under review are the goofballs who convinced themselves GM needed Hummer in the first place. And just so you know, this isn't a case of Monday-morning quarterbacking -- we've been saying this since GM acquired Hummer in '98 and gas cost WAY less than it does today.
Now GM's got no choice but to launch the H3T. A Hummer pickup would have been marginal in the go-go late '90s, but the T is the product of the "we have to get Hummer more product" rationale that, abetted by the quickly changing market, only underscores what a misguided decision Hummer was in the first place.
Cadillac
CTS-V: Yet another example of GM arriving at the party 20 minutes too late. What's left of this market in two years will wholly belong to the Europeans. And that's if they can get the dollar-euro seesaw balanced again.
HONDA
Pilot: Everybody looked uncomfortable when the lightly disguised concept was revealed, and now the '09 production version is just plain embarrassing. No matter how Honda tries to spin it, the decision to green-light the boxy SUV styling -- the look would have been pass a half-decade ago -- was a serious strategic mistake.
Launching the new Pilot exposes one of the Japan Inc.'s only flaws: reluctance to backtrack once a course has been set. Maybe after gaging the early reaction, if somebody with power had been able to say, "This stinks, and we need to try again -- even if it means delaying our precious launch timetable," the Pilot might have been redeemed. But Honda didactically marched straight to Badville with the second-generation Pilot. It's a true turkey.
Accord: Fat, heavy and overstuffed. The world didn't need a bigger and more luxie Accord, but that's what Honda uncharacteristically decided was best for the latest generation. Incentives appeared immediately, which also is aberrant for any new Accord.
Granted, when broad assumptions about Honda's most important car were crafted five or six years ago, the world was a different place. But the Accord already had grown so much, it's hard to fathom how famously imaginative Honda got itself to a place that said more size and more stuff was the best route for "improvement." The new Accord seems to be evidence of lazy or indifferent developmental initiative -- it's a relentlessly un-innovative package, and that's the true disappointment of the new Accord.
INFINITI
FX50: If you must have a V8, it should be 5 liters, and that's what the new-gen FX50 crossover flaunts.
But wow, the last thing the ultra-niche FX line (2007 total sales: 20,727) needed to expand the sales base was a larger, 390-hp V8 that yields, uh, 14 mpg in the city. Yep, that's 14 mpg -- and premium unleaded's required. That scraping sound you hear is hari-kari swords a-sharpening.
TOYOTA
Venza: "Fat, dumb and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Tell us where Toyota's going with the Venza that Chrysler hasn't been with the blubbery Pacifica and Mercedes with the blubbery R-Class?
All we can add is this thing had better be a lot lighter than it looks, because while Toyota's at least got a four-cylinder penned into the mix, we can't imagine the car actually moving much with it. This is what happens when you try to invent too many things from too few platforms.
VOLKSWAGEN
Routan: Somewhere between the time VW decided it needed a badge-engineered minivan for the U.S. and this fall when it's actually available, Germany missed the memo that nobody wants a minivan anymore. To make matters worse, quality-challenged VW enlisted even more quality-challenged Chrysler to build it.
By the way, when will they stop it with the hideous names?
Tiguan: Decent enough cute-ute savaged by the ruinous currency exchange rate. How bad is it? The cheapest Tiguan is $23,200 for a front-driver. The equivalent Honda CR-V (the segment's best seller) is a rollicking $2,500 less. The most you can spend on a CR-V is $28,400. That's $475 less than the entry-level all-wheel-drive Tiguan.
And stop it with the hideous names, already.
http://www.autoobserver.com/20....html
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