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It seems like discussion of the many car brands/companies is taking place in several threads across AI, I thought maybe it would be good to have its own dedicated thread. Common themes and perceptions include: Toyota has lost its way Mazda is the new Honda Honda is the new Toyota GM makes trucks out of steel and raw heterosexuality Lincoln: what the gently caress. Or as my sister put it, does Matthew McConaughey know he's driving a Lincoln? This has an American perspective because that's where I am from, and also because it's the best country in the god drat world.  I'd like to begin by discussing some of the brands that I think have huge potential that is being criminally under-utilized: Cadillac recently hired Johan de Nysschen away from Infiniti. During Mr. Nysschen's approximately 2 year tenure at Infiniti, he turned the company from a near-luxury also-ran into a world-class aspirational brand by replacing all the model prefixes with the letter Q, moving the headquarters to Hong Kong, and paying Sebastian Vettel an rear end-load of money to associate his name with some pretty hideous vehicles. http://www.infinitiusa.com/now/future-vehicles/infiniti-fx-sebastian-vettel-version.html Infiniti, as you may know, is owned by Nissan and for much of its history has been rebadged, slightly nicer versions of Nissan products (see: Acura). However, Infiniti has had several models which set it apart from the mainstream lineup, particularly the RWD Q45, M35/45, and the G35 sedan and coupe. The Q45 has long since been discontinued, the M is still around as a Q-something and the G35 became the G37 became the Q-something else. I refuse to look it up. They also have a monstrous SUV called the Q56 based on the Armada that looks somewhat like a bloated Escalade crossed with a catfish. Should Infiniti approach me offering vast sums of money, the first thing I would do is get rid of the Q-nomenclature except for the SUVs. I feel like the G at least had decent brand equity and they have always been good looking cars. They had a system that worked as far as G/M/Q and displacement. It immediately tells you almost everything you need to know about the car, no need to complicate it. Second, I would put the VR38DETT in various states of tune into almost everything. Low-displacement turbocharged motors in performance vehicles are all the rage now and this would give Nissan a chance to recoup some of its development costs and work towards a reliable mass-produced motor. Infiniti has already stuffed this engine into at least one concept sedan so they may be heading this direction already. This would give the brand a high-profit margin performance halo model in several classes, and would sell itself as the 'GTR-engine' much like describing a vehicle as having the 'Corvette engine' does. I know there is an "IPL" which first of all is a lame-rear end nomenclature for a performance brand (here's looking at you Lexus "f") and second of all currently only has one model, the vehicle-formerly-known-as-G37 IPL which stickers for about $50,000 and has about 15 horsepower and a body kit over the regular version. Weak. Cadillac observed Infiniti's record-breaking sales and profit growth and immediately thought 'how can we copy the Japanese who are copying the Germans?' Which, come to think of it, is probably not the worst way to go about things. Just like at Infiniti, Mr. Nysschen has already moved the headquarters of Cadillac from Detroit to New York City and decided to name the new Cadillac flagship sedan the CT6. Now, personally I feel this is an issue. Cadillac is probably currently best known to most Americans as the brand behind the Escalade, that most American of vehicles and a massively profitable truck for GM. Other models include the ATS and CTS, which are respectable vehicles for when you want a flashy car but think BMWs are too much car for the money and Mercedes hold their value too well. They also make the XTS, which the company has publicly stated is a stopgap vehicle until they can make something respectable and which caters to the demographic who wants a $75,000 Impala. Just to be sure to offer an overpriced car in every segment they also make the ELR, which is an $80,000 rebadged Chevy Volt. Needless to say these have not exactly been flying off the dealership lots and other than the Escalade which just came out with a full redesign for the 2015 model year and is back-ordered for weeks, sales are down. The thing that gets me about Cadillac is that there is so much potential there, and GM in other areas has been capturing that potential well. For example, the new Camaro has been a sales success and resurrected a famous name with retro design cues in a modern interpretation. The Corvette Stingray is another great example. Now, I don't mean 'retro' as in Chevy SSR or Chrysler PT Cruiser retro, but Cadillac is over 100 years old. You have a lot of inspiration to choose from. Instead, they seem to be dead-set on trying to create a domestic 3-series and 5-series. Mr. Nysschen has also stated that he is going to keep Cadillac pricing high and that sales volume is expected to continue to decline as he doesn't want the brand to have the 'discount luxury' image but instead go toe-to-toe with the Mercedes S-class. Good luck with that. The CT6 could very well end up being a badass car, but it needs a better name. You know, like DeVille, or Eldorado, or Escalade Sedan, or Catera. Most people probably couldn't pronounce Calais so that's right out, and we also don't appreciate being forced to do math so when you make an American luxury car keep it simple and give it an actual name instead of a model number. The new CTS is a handsome vehicle, and so is the ATS, but its fairly obvious that they are trying extremely hard to be European. That's simply not what Cadillac is about. Someone do Lincoln, I recommend a Mustang chassis 3.5L Ecoboost GT called the Zephyr with at least 400 horsepower and 460lb/ft of torque from 2000 RPM.
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Sep 26, 2014 13:14
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Is Schreyer the guy from Audi who designed the Optima? Because that's a really good looking car.
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Sep 26, 2014 16:11
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I'm not sure if I agree with people when they say that about Toyota. My understanding is that some think they let their quality slip because they got too comfortable. Did this actually happen though, or is it a consequence of the bad press from the unintended acceleration debacle? See also: GM. This was being discussed in the news thread but I felt it would just be better to have a dedicated thread for it. Edit: they do make some boring poo poo though. heated game moment fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 16:33
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The only late-model Buick I see with any regularity is the Enclave crossover. Buick is a strange brand to me...like I get why they kept it simply because of China but I don't see what the point of the brand is in the US. They used to have the 65+ demographic then Lexus ate their lunch. I have literally never known someone who owned a Buick other than a hand-me-down or expressed the slightest interest in buying one. I mean their whole advertising campaign right now is about how people don't recognize the car they are looking at is a Buick. They have to fool people into looking at the cars, not that they are necessarily terrible. heated game moment fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 22:15
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Throatwarbler posted:The MKZ is fine for what it is, just focus on making them properly, the MKS can stay a rebadged Taurus, and update when the Taurus does, at this point the sedans just aren't important enough to warrant much attention, all resources need to go 100% to the SUVs with the Navigator at the top of the list. There is no point in having a 3 series competitor or a Linoln Mustang when the Navigator and MKX aren't already topping the sales charts. Given the profit margins involved I agree that focusing on the SUV is the single most important thing for them to do. GM is just killing it with the full-size SUVs. I definitely don't think they need to go down the Cadillac road of trying to have a BMW competitor but they should have some kind of unique vehicle. Lincoln is another example of a brand that is better suited by bringing back model names versus the current alphabet soup, I had to go look up what all these MK-s were. Current lineup from biggest to smallest: Large SUV - Navigator, needs some design changes like you talked about especially to the rear end. Will probably be replaced in the next year or two with an all-new model. Like you said, its good on paper but when you are ready to throw down $70,000 for a new SUV it's hard to pick a Lincoln over a new Tahoe LTZ/Yukon Denali/Escalade in my opinion. Or the aforementioned Q56, I see those things everywhere. Current MSRP $61,000 Lincoln MKT - big crossover. I guess this is based on the Explorer but the proportions seem different? It looks so bizarre. "Although sales have been "less than stellar" at under 715 units in January 2010, that was over 10 percent of Lincoln's sales for the month. 2010 sales for the car were about one-third of the smaller MKX." Also according to Wikipedia they are trying to re-brand this to livery businesses using the Towncar name. Making this an AWD-only Explorer that slots in above the current Explorer Sport in price and features would make sense, it already stickers for $43,000. Call the new one the Aviator again. MKX - medium crossover based on Edge $38,500 MKC - Small crossover based on the Escape, $33,000 MKS - Large sedan based on Taurus $41,000 MKZ - Midsize sedan based on the Fusion $35,000 Someone in my neighborhood drives a Mark LT Lincoln pickup but these are apparently discontinued again (remember the Blackwood which was supposed to compete with the Escalade EXT?) Probably for the best since Ford already has at least 2 different luxury trims on the trucks and Lincoln isn't bringing anything unique to the table here. The Navigator stands out like a sore thumb, Lincoln has basically set themselves up to be a company of re-badged crossovers and FWD sedans. It's like they can't decide whether to compete with Acura or Cadillac. Ford doesn't have a single RWD platform other than the Mustang so this complicates things as I think they would benefit from bringing back a flagship Continental with styling similar to the concept as well as more of a grand-tourer oriented coupe Linconstang again with similar design language to the concept. People LOVE retro poo poo and its better than the quite frankly bizarre styling they currently have, although I do think the front-end of the new Navi looks good.
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Sep 27, 2014 14:12
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Throatwarbler posted:The truck that was formerly known as the QX56 (now it's the QX80 or some poo poo) See, this is what I mean. Why the hell change something that was finally getting established? It's not a logical naming scheme in the least. quote:
I wasn't aware they sold that many in the US. quote:
I completely agree with you about the RWD flagship and the return of the colored badges. Not sure about using the LeSabre or Park Avenue names when you have cool poo poo like Invicta, Electra, Wildcat, Skylark (comedy option: Reatta) etc...It's like when they were handing out cool car names Buick got all the good ones. I think using the LeSabre and Park Avenue names would also make most people think of their grandma's Buick and I'd want to do as much as possible to not remind anyone of the styling in the 90's and 2000's. Buick definitely doesn't need a sports car, let Cadillac and Chevrolet keep those. Assuming they re-badge an SS and sell it for high $40's that would take care of the sedans. Of note is that Buick is currently the only GM brand without a full-size SUV. I'm not sure where one would fit in with the lineup or indeed the image of the brand but higher profit margins never hurt. Maybe call it the Buick Estate and have it be a more....subdued version of the Escalade for several thousand dollars less.
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Sep 27, 2014 14:31
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http://m.autoblog.com/2014/09/24/sales-incentive-growth-clustered-brands-few-cuvs/?ncid=edlinkusauto00000015 Sounds like the brands without an assload of CUVs/SUVs aren't doing so well in an environment of declining fuel prices.Maybe this is the break Lincoln was looking for.
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Sep 29, 2014 00:01
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Autoblog posted:Johan de Nysschen isn't afraid of taking quick, decisive actions, even if they are criticized. Since taking the wheel at Cadillac, he instigated moving the luxury division's base of operations to Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood and introduced a new naming scheme for the future of the brand, like he did at Infiniti. The polarizing boss recently explained his feelings about the future of Cadillac in more depth on his Facebook page, but unfortunately only his friends could read it. Thankfully, Daily Kanban posted much of the strongly worded missive for the whole world to see. I get where he is coming from as far as the 'lowest common denominator' thing and I truly hope he succeeds. Mercedes has been steadily expanding downmarket with the new CLA and GLA and to be honest I've always seen them to be the true Cadillac competitor at least ideologically speaking - a brand focused purely on luxury first before any sporting pretensions. It would be great if they could produce a competitive product other than the Escalade, and the new CT6 should be an indicator of where they are headed. Wonder how long his contract is for? Spiffness posted:I don't know that there is anything more linear than a BMW turbo 3.0 BUT that doesn't make you wrong, only these engines aren't they you speak of. Is that the new M4 engine? Jesus Christ. I do agree with DV though that the NA engines are where it's at. I realize that on paper the forced induction engines are superior but it seems like all the Germans are going for turbocharged V8s now. In my opinion they should stick the massively powerful twin turbo V8s into the M-lines (make an M550i) and leave the more hardcore M cars lighter and naturally aspirated. They are turning into AMG except AMG hasn't started playing engine noises over the stereo as far as I know.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:20
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