Automotive brand shepherds must get bored from time to time. How else to explain out-of-left-field cars such as these? Pumping out car after car all pulled from the same basic mold gets tiresome, so someone decides to move in a different direction with a particular product.
To predict the success (or failure) of six of the latest brand-benders, we looked at them in the context of automotive historys best and worst precedents, weighing our expectations for sales success against an admittedly subjective good idea factor. How well we think each car will balance these two goals is reflected in its accompanying graphic.
Lexus LFA
With the exception of the IS F, Toyotas luxury brand has never done performancecertainly not the $375,000, carbon-fiber-bodied exotic kindand neither Toyota nor Lexus has any supercar-building experience unless you include the decade spent developing the LFA. By all accounts, the LFA is an excellent car and a capable Ferrari 599GTB fighterwe pedaled it to 60 in 3.7 secondsbut its existence in the Lexus lineup is inexplicable. Its hard to imagine that Lexus owners were clamoring for a supercar and equally difficult to picture an IS F driver trading up to a car costing almost six times as much, let alone an RX buyer adding one as a weekend toy.
If success is measured by sales, the LFA will almost certainly succeed, as the company plans on building 500, and most are already spoken for. But Lexus still will lose money on every one10 years of development costs will see to that. So whats the point? Its not likely to act as a turning point for the brand. Were it our call to make, Toyota and Lexus would instead spend this kind of time and money exorcising the boring out of their volume models.
Hyundai Equus
Speaking of Lexus, it appears Hyundai is poised to attempt its own full-luxury press, la LS400. One year after launching its ambitious Genesis, Hyundai is preparing to take the next step with the $50,000 Equus, a slightly larger and more luxurious V-8 Genesis sedan with a funny name. Hyundai already sells the car in Asia and, for the U.S. market, simply removed the gaudy (albeit freakin awesome) hood ornament.
Hyundai will set the Equus buying experience apart from that of the Genesis by making sales calls to perspective buyers homes or offices and throwing in an iPad as owners manual, but that likely wont be enough. (Unless theyre targeting the self-important-Apple-nerd crowd.) VW made its luxury-sedan mistake with the Phaeton, a car that was too big and too expensive too soon. Just as the Phaeton saw success only in Europewhere it is actually still quite popularwe see the Equus confining its sales party to Asian markets.
Ferrari 599GTB HY-KERS Hybrid Concept
Ferrari is being practicalpossibly for the first time. Fuel-hungry V-8s and V-12s arent going to meet tightening fuel-economy standards on their own. If the answer to Ferraris continued existence is the addition of a battery and an electric motor, well happily welcome the prancing horses new hybrid overlords. Throw in the facts that Ferrari has used the hybrid transmission to fine-tune brake balance and traction control and to help fill the divots in the engines natural torque curve, and were sold.
Ferrari has anticipated a shift in the way things are going to be in the future and is doing what it can to adapt. This kind of reaction and adaptation worked for the Audi R10 TDI; refueling less often during a long-distance race pays serious dividends. Not so much for the Vega: Rushing the compact to market meant more spent oil from the fire engines rushing to put out the flame-tastic early models. For Ferrari? Judging by the brands success in embracing other technologies in the pursuit of speed and salesread automated transmissions replacing the beloved three-pedal manualwe predict hybrid Ferraris will work just fine.
Porsche Panamera
The Panamera isnt as much of a departure as the Cayenne was, especially since the companys first SUV blazed the non-standard-Porsche trail. Besides, its stretched-911 looks likely have more to do with its controversial reception than those blasphemous rear doors. Porsche's first sedan is a serious grand tourer with a beautiful interiorstay inside where its less bulbous, and youll like it a lot moreand in Turbo guise it can shoot to 60 mph in a memory-erasing 3.3 seconds. At least the engineers nailed the dynamics. Styling aside, Porsche got the sedan right on its first try.
Whether you like the car or not, it seems the Panamera is here to stay. In April, Porsche sold 678 Panameras in the U.S., almost 75 percent more than the number of 911s that went out the door in the same period. Like the Cayenne before it, this brand oddball is poised to become a Porsche cash cow. And not insignificantly, the Panamera comes at a time when SUV sales are suffering across the spectrum. Keep buying Panameras and Cayennes, and Porsche can keep building 20 different 911 variants.
Aston Martin Cygnet
Aston Martins have a sense of occasion about them. They are exclusive, fast, stunningly gorgeous, special. A $14,000 Toyota microcar is none of these things. Which is why weand, no doubt, many Aston Martin loyalistswere less than pleased to learn of the Cygnet, a mildly reskinned Toyota iQ posing as an Aston Martin. A big-mouth grille and a leather-drenched cabin supposedly justify the baby swan's sticker swelling by about $25,000.
This type of obvious brand dilution doesn't make sense to us. Aston maintains its owners want something small and efficient to drive instead of works of vehicular art. Apparently, these owners still want to broadcast that they've spent a good chunk on their conveyances, so they cant just buy an iQ, a Smart, or any other intelligent-sounding small car. A more likely reason for the Cygnet is that Aston foresaw a fleet fuel-economy benefit, but we don't think this ugly duckling is going to be worth the negative brand image that's sure to accompany a Toyota-built Aston, although [insert unintended-acceleration joke here].
Buick Regal GS
An all-wheel-drive Buick sedan with a turbocharged engine and a manual transmission? Sounds batty, sure, but its just the thing to help the brand that's trying to erase its stodgy old-man image. Plus, what better way to emulate a European sports sedan than to rebadge one that has already proved successful on the Continent? Buick's version of the Opel Insignia OPC could bring enthusiasts back to its showrooms for the first time sinceremember when?
The average age of Buick buyers is already dropping, and the brand recently invited us to take a spin in a base Regal on Germanys Nrburgring, if that tells you anything about its confidence level in the car. If the GS doesn't work out, Buick can claim it was originally planned as a limited-run car, just as Ford did with the debacle that was its LS-based Thunderbird.
[C&D]
