Give your opinion on automakers and marques that you think could have done better and how they could have done it.
More Successful Auto Companies
- Thread starter Chris Triangle
- Start date
Saab.
As for how they could've done better, they just should've settled for a niche and stayed in it. When the turbo versions of the Saab 99 and 900 came out and became the darling of the yuppies, they just should have gone full on premium instead of ending up somewhere in between premium and mid range, which I think is one the major things which hurt them and made it so impossible to get the brand back on its feet after GM sold it. And General Motors forcing them to start making little more than rebadged Opels (I'm looking at you, 2nd Gen 900!) didn't really help either. In fact, avoiding the whole GM thing as a whole would probably be benefitial in the long run, but then they'd have to get some kind of cooperative agreement with another carmaker, sort of like what they did with Lancia while working on the 9000.
Had Saab become a true premium brand it could fill roughly the same function that Audi does today, only it probably wouldn't be quite as big as Audi.
As for how they could've done better, they just should've settled for a niche and stayed in it. When the turbo versions of the Saab 99 and 900 came out and became the darling of the yuppies, they just should have gone full on premium instead of ending up somewhere in between premium and mid range, which I think is one the major things which hurt them and made it so impossible to get the brand back on its feet after GM sold it. And General Motors forcing them to start making little more than rebadged Opels (I'm looking at you, 2nd Gen 900!) didn't really help either. In fact, avoiding the whole GM thing as a whole would probably be benefitial in the long run, but then they'd have to get some kind of cooperative agreement with another carmaker, sort of like what they did with Lancia while working on the 9000.
Had Saab become a true premium brand it could fill roughly the same function that Audi does today, only it probably wouldn't be quite as big as Audi.
The final 9-5, in its brief existance, showed what saab could have been and should have been. It was the epitome of Scandinavian design. Now let's see how long Volvo van hold on.
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Indeed, and the Saab Phoenix concept car showed some great promise as well for where the brand would've gone in the future, had it managed to hold on.
As for Volvo, it's probably in for the long haul consdering that they've got the Chinese backing them, but wether they will continue to actually be Volvo is another question entirely.
If this is the concept they're basing their new models on, I'm not confident.
Scapegoating GM: they seriously mismanaged their German acquisition OPEL for most of the last half century.
In the 1950s and early 60s still, Opel had been a premium brand with models like the Kapitän, Admiral or Olympia. Additionally, they were the ones in Germany whose design leaned rather close on the iconical American lines of the day. The results were beautiful cars of a high standard.
The successful 1959 Kapitän.
In a development absolutely contrary to the one of successful brands like Audi, BMW and even Volkswagen, decade by decade Opel moved further out of the upscale market and sold more, but smaller cars. That is not necessarily a problem, but producing in a high-wage country such as Germany, it is financially the wrong way as these cars allow for less profit per unit - and increasingly so with stiffer international competition.
(The 1980s VW's top model Passat was larger than the Ascona, but smaller than a Rekord/Omega and the Senator. The Senator was discontinued in the early 90s, the Omega a few years later, the Ascona grandchild Insignia is now Opel's top product; more stylish but smaller than a Passat which is by now topped by the VW Phaeton.)
Opel Ascona C 1981-88
Add to that sometimes appallingly dull designs (Opel Ascona of the 80s, although I liked it personally, the Vectra A in the 90s) and to spice it up a growing history of quality problems, and you run a name into the ground.
Opel's market share has shrunk by now to below 7% in Germany while from the post-war-period to the mid 90s it was always between 15 and 20%. Last year they sold 212,000 cars in Germany, down from 557,000 in 1996.
In the 1950s and early 60s still, Opel had been a premium brand with models like the Kapitän, Admiral or Olympia. Additionally, they were the ones in Germany whose design leaned rather close on the iconical American lines of the day. The results were beautiful cars of a high standard.
The successful 1959 Kapitän.
In a development absolutely contrary to the one of successful brands like Audi, BMW and even Volkswagen, decade by decade Opel moved further out of the upscale market and sold more, but smaller cars. That is not necessarily a problem, but producing in a high-wage country such as Germany, it is financially the wrong way as these cars allow for less profit per unit - and increasingly so with stiffer international competition.
(The 1980s VW's top model Passat was larger than the Ascona, but smaller than a Rekord/Omega and the Senator. The Senator was discontinued in the early 90s, the Omega a few years later, the Ascona grandchild Insignia is now Opel's top product; more stylish but smaller than a Passat which is by now topped by the VW Phaeton.)
Opel Ascona C 1981-88
Add to that sometimes appallingly dull designs (Opel Ascona of the 80s, although I liked it personally, the Vectra A in the 90s) and to spice it up a growing history of quality problems, and you run a name into the ground.
Opel's market share has shrunk by now to below 7% in Germany while from the post-war-period to the mid 90s it was always between 15 and 20%. Last year they sold 212,000 cars in Germany, down from 557,000 in 1996.
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Well, it would seem that Opel is moving upmarket at this point. Perhaps the best thing for GM to do would be to have Opel take on a more upscale role while the cheaper and smaller cars could simply be sold under the Chevrolet brand.
I am surprised that sales would be so low considering the quality of the product.
I am surprised that sales would be so low considering the quality of the product.
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Personally, I would like to see a timeline where some of the smaller U. S. manufacturers survived the Depression and continued to the current time. Just imagine a 1967 Cord roadster (maybe a competition version competing with the Corvette, Ferrari, etc . . . ). . . Or a 1993 Franklin minivan . . . or, a 2012 Duesenburg (spelling?) Town Car . . . or . . . . ??
bobinleipsic
bobinleipsic
Opel has a Lot of Potential IMO but would Need Major Investments and re-thinking out of the box. At this Point of Time a Lot of Potential customers Fear to Be stuck with a Car from a Dead Brand in a Few Years Time. This is a Kind of Self-fulfilling prophecy.
If, for example, they just slightly modified large GM limousines for the German market, slap the Opel Flash on them, and sell them at American prices (passing the weak $-gains on to the Customer)? My wife would grab me by the collar and drag me to the next Opel-Dealer. After five years of Opel-crisis, Germans are aware that it is an US-owned company and also that not all Opel factories are in Germany. It would be a sign of life to expand the model palette. Of course, US-built cars would not make huge sales here, but some people would like them, and a lot would be curious.
[My wife loved the Pontiac Grand Prix we drove in the US in 2008, but also the Impala we got there last year. Now the latter is sold from 25,860$ upwards in the US, which is less than 20,000€. The Insignia is sold from 24,575€+ (Passat 25,075+) in Germany, thus an Impala could be sold at -say- a comparable price with a good load of equipment.] As it would be a rather "exotic" car, it would IMHO not hurt the Insignia in particular, but get its share of customers from across the board.
The other way round, GM doesn't allow itself to profit from the image of the "Power of German Engineering" on the US market. Introducing the Opel brand itself (instead of or rather next to brandishing e.g. the Opel Insignia as Buick Regal) might get them a small share of the booming market for German cars in the US (all German manufacturers achieved a record numbers of sales on the US market in 2012).
WE THOUGHT HE HAD PASSED AWAY
BUT ACTUALLY, HE JUST SPENT A LONG TIME IN AMERICA.
OPEL ADMIRAL. HE'S BACK:
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Selling US built, inch measurement, cars in metric Europe would be a tough sell. Youd HAVE to take them back to the dealership for all repairs.
Hans's Garage wouldnt have the tools.
Hans's Garage wouldnt have the tools.
I think you're right about Buick, and I bet you GM would agree with you, except for one fact: the Chinese have a great affinity for the Buick. As far back as the 20s and 30s, the Buick brand was considered top of the line in the Chinese market, and if that weren't the case, the Buick badge would have gone in the same dustbin as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Saturn (their previous US Opel/Vauxhall rebadge).
The problem with these companies is that especially after WWII the cost of jumping into the car business got pricey in a big hurry. From 1949 or so until the 1970s, models changed shape and design every 2-3 years, which also made for enormous costs in marketing and design, as well as replacing tooling every so often. That fact is why American Motors came to be, merging the efforts of two moderately successful companies (Nash and Hudson) into one firm in an attempt to compete with the big boys - and that eventually failed too.
If you want these companies to succeed, you either need to make partnerships between them and one of the big three (or big four - AMC could be made to survive fairly easily) or reduce the size of the Big Three, which would mean either busting up GM or slowing its growth in the 1920s and 1930s. Assuming the big four survive (and one idea to help this might be to arrange a merger between the Nash-Hudson AMC and Studebaker-Packard in the late 1950s), you may be able to allow a handful of the companies that otherwise didn't make it through the Depression to do so. Deusenberg would be first in line and Stutz would probably be second. Auburn-Cord is also a possibility. Assuming that AMC grows to include Studebaker and Packard, the combined firm would be easily the size of Chrysler and within striking distance of Ford, and Cord and Deusenberg probably would work with them in large part because both companies shared the technological advancement of AMC. The reincarnation of Stutz in the 1960s was led by Virgil Exner (Chrysler's styling boss in the 1940s and 1950s) and the Stutz cars used Chrysler drivetrains through the 1970s, this connection is obvious. Thus, the US industry as of the early 1970s would be made up of:
- General Motors (Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, GMC, Cadillac)
- Ford (Ford, Lincoln, Mercury)
- Chrysler (Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, Imperial)
- American Motors (AMC, Studebaker, Packard, Jeep)
- Deusenberg
- Stutz
- Auburn-Cord
Errr... right. That was a modern day suggestion, not a 1980s one. Oops. Sorry.
One slight comment to Hornla: The Chevrolet Impala (your car in that picture), isn't actually made in the United States. It's made in Canada, at GM's quite-enormous Oshawa Assembly in Oshawa, Ontario, just east of Toronto. Every generation of the Chevrolet Impala (excepting the 1994-96 Impala SS, which was a Caprice with a Corvette engine and a bad-ass paint job) since 1965 has been built at Oshawa. I'm not sure if that helps the idea of selling it in Germany or not (it might - Oshawa is one of GM's better plants for assembly quality), but it's something to keep in mind.
I read your later comment, but I dare to say that modern-day cars show the terrible tendency to force you back to the dealer anyways.
Oh, I didn't contest the existence of Buick as a brand, and not just for the Chinese market. Also, I find that the US Buick versions of Opel's cars are "heavily edited", and apparently successfully so.
But I was looking for quick solutions to help GM's German stepchild, so the possibility to expand its market was tempting.
The most serious problem I see is the currency-risk. I think that the currect €-$-exchange rate rather makes the approach to sell US American models as Opels in Europe more profitable than selling European-built Opels in America as German cars. The other German carmakers have helped themselves by opening factories in Northern America, but I am afraid that if Opel lets Buick built Insignias next to Regals, GM banks them for Buick.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I read about the Canadian plant when doing research. I do not see it as a problem in this context, as Canada is not perceived as an independant car-making nation with an own image. GM is American, period.
Besides that, Germans had to quit worrying where there cars are actually assembled, too. Opels are built in Spain, Poland, Belgium and Russia, some if I am not wrong by Vauxhall in the UK, the (hybrid) Opel Ampera (=Chevrolet Volt) actually in the United States.
The situation with the other German brands is not different.
I think that in such a case, the potential number of cars actually sold that way is debatable. They'd be in competition with the Skoda Superb rather than the by now traditional makers of German Upper-Class cars like Audi,BMW,Mercedes.
But if the combination of the good old name Opel with an attractive price does some of the trick, it might be just one of the signs of new life Opel needs. It would however not hurt Opel (and GM) as they do not offer anything in that segment in Germany.
It's hard to consolidate so many brands because their products are truly different. You'd need to streamline it eventually and that would probably mean that Studebaker or Hudson's designs would dominate. I will say that since GM was so much bigger than the others, having a less dominant GM would probably make it much easier for a fourth and fifth automaker to survive.
Also, don't forget about Kaiser/Willys and Crosley!
I took the smaller GM as a given. What I figure is that the Hudson and Nash designs would be merged into AMC by the late 50s, allowing Studebaker to take a level similar to Buick or Oldsmobile or Mercury, with Packard on the top. I have Jeep as part of AMC because especially with Studebaker not falling apart, there wouldn't be the room in the marketplace for Kaiser to stay in the car business. Crosley, honestly, never had a chance, and even if they lived that long the advent of safety regulations in the 1960s would finish them off.
Well maybe they would find a home in another country.
So the original marques stay around instead of bringing in the rambler and AMC brands? Sounds more appealing if you ask me.
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I like to imagine a scenario where Chrysler goes bankrupt in 1996 and a surviving International Harvester buys up the truck/suv division to get back into the automotive market. A surviving AMC could buy up other pieces and Toyota gets the rest.
Having AMC survive well into the 1990s and beyond takes a cue from TheMann's Transport America Redux.
Having AMC survive well into the 1990s and beyond takes a cue from TheMann's Transport America Redux.