Tweet
GM is late to the Pony Party - again.
Detroit. Timing is everything, but the concept of time has its own peculiar cadence in the automobile business. After all, this is an industry that spends its entire life in a professional Twilight Zone-like haze called "lead time" - working on products that are two, three and even four years from introduction. An industry that regularly launches new vehicles to market - while their replacements are only months from being "locked-in" to the final engineering and design phases. And, as if all of that weren't strange enough, it's an industry that thinks nothing of introducing products that are tagged with the following calendar year, nine months before the current model year is scheduled to run out. Timing in the auto business can make or break a product or even make or break an entire company, depending on the circumstances. And right now, the Ford Motor Company is on the very profitable side of fortuitous timing.
The new-generation Mustang is a flat-out "hit" by any conceivable measure. It's the right car, at the right time for the market - and it's the right car at the right time for Ford. How crucial is the Mustang's success to Ford right now? It's literally carrying the entire company on its back.
But as much as timing plays an integral role in the car biz, there's another factor that can dominate the business too - and that's the feverish notion that if one company defines a "hit" - the "copycats" won't be too far behind. Nothing grates on car companies more than watching a competitor steal thunder with an overnight success. It drives them crazy, as a matter of fact. Such was the case with the original Mustang introduction back on April 17, 1964 - to this date the most successful car launch in U.S. automotive history. Ford created a new segment from out of the blue, and they were off to the races with it. GM was caught flat-footed with the Mustang's success and came up with their "me too" version of the "pony" car almost three years later - the '67 Chevrolet Camaro - and added the Pontiac Firebird after that. And then Chrysler joined in with their own versions of the "pony" car - the Plymouth Barracuda and the Dodge Challenger.
It looks like the importance of timing is surfacing again in the auto biz, as history, apparently, is repeating itself. Now that Ford has a huge hit with their new-generation Mustang, the "late-to-the-party" contingent is showing up. Chrysler is said to be working on a shortened-wheelbase Coupe version of its next-generation "LX" rear-wheel-drive platform - to be called the Challenger - but it won't make its debut until 2008. This was after the company slammed its critics (me included) when they introduced the new-generation Charger as a four-door sedan, declaring the Coupe market dead in the water in the U.S. and suggesting that "nobody buys Coupes anymore." My, how things have changed. A red-hot Mustang seems to have brought clarity to Chrysler's thinking of late. For all of Chrysler's posturing as the car company that creates "segment-busting" products, they miss more often than they hit. And they missed the Mustang phenomenon, big time. But as easily as Chrysler's miscalculation can be explained (they're so permanently lost in the "daze" of their HEMI/300C success out in Auburn Hills that they're having difficulty functioning), GM's late reaction (or inaction) is inexcusable.
Now that Ford is selling upwards of 18,000 Mustangs per month, the rumblings are coming from within GM that there will be a next-generation Camaro one day too. But questions linger, as in why did it take GM to see the efficacy of a properly rendered Mustang in order to understand that they needed the Camaro? Why did it take Ford's belief in its franchise car - the Mustang - to teach GM that they had something special to believe in with the heritage and the history of the Camaro?
The ultimate question is this: Why is GM always reacting instead of acting?
It takes no time at all to count the number of vehicles that GM has pioneered since the '50s that were not responses to a competitor's product, but rather were the result of reaching deep within and coming up with a product idea that demonstrated confidence and genuine vision. The Corvette. The Pontiac GTO. The original Buick Riviera. The front-wheel-drive Olds Toronado and Eldorado come to mind, to name a few.
The reason given for GM letting the Camaro die in 2002 was ostensibly because of budget considerations, but insiders know the real problem was that the "old-think" GM was still alive and well - and that the enthusiast faction within GM was still being suppressed and throttled from envisioning great cars at every turn. A new Camaro could have and should have been making its debut this coming fall, but now GM will be lucky if they can be back in the market with one by the 2008 time frame.
GM should be embarrassed that they got caught flat-footed by the Mustang. In this era when great product can make or break car companies, a hot Camaro would have done wonders for GM and Chevrolet. At the end of the day, the Camaro name was and still is one of the bright lights in the GM/Chevrolet portfolio and one of the most recognized American car brand names out there - one with a tremendous amount of brand equity and residual goodwill in the marketplace. The original Camaro, though a "me too" entry to the segment Ford invented, was always the most worthy competitor to the Mustang, and the fact that GM walked away from it, even for a model year, is unforgivable.
Don't be surprised to see a future Camaro concept unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show next January. But in the meantime, every month that the Mustang continues to pile up double-digit sales, it should be a painful reminder to GM and Chevrolet executives that when you have the potential for a hit product sitting right under your noses, you don't let it languish or flounder - or die. Instead, you nurture it, hone it and make it better than ever.
Because on top of all of the other factors looming over this industry right now - including the brutal competition, the fragmenting of segments, the health care and legacy costs, etc., etc. - playing catch-up in this business is a bitch.
Detroit. Timing is everything, but the concept of time has its own peculiar cadence in the automobile business. After all, this is an industry that spends its entire life in a professional Twilight Zone-like haze called "lead time" - working on products that are two, three and even four years from introduction. An industry that regularly launches new vehicles to market - while their replacements are only months from being "locked-in" to the final engineering and design phases. And, as if all of that weren't strange enough, it's an industry that thinks nothing of introducing products that are tagged with the following calendar year, nine months before the current model year is scheduled to run out. Timing in the auto business can make or break a product or even make or break an entire company, depending on the circumstances. And right now, the Ford Motor Company is on the very profitable side of fortuitous timing.
The new-generation Mustang is a flat-out "hit" by any conceivable measure. It's the right car, at the right time for the market - and it's the right car at the right time for Ford. How crucial is the Mustang's success to Ford right now? It's literally carrying the entire company on its back.
But as much as timing plays an integral role in the car biz, there's another factor that can dominate the business too - and that's the feverish notion that if one company defines a "hit" - the "copycats" won't be too far behind. Nothing grates on car companies more than watching a competitor steal thunder with an overnight success. It drives them crazy, as a matter of fact. Such was the case with the original Mustang introduction back on April 17, 1964 - to this date the most successful car launch in U.S. automotive history. Ford created a new segment from out of the blue, and they were off to the races with it. GM was caught flat-footed with the Mustang's success and came up with their "me too" version of the "pony" car almost three years later - the '67 Chevrolet Camaro - and added the Pontiac Firebird after that. And then Chrysler joined in with their own versions of the "pony" car - the Plymouth Barracuda and the Dodge Challenger.
It looks like the importance of timing is surfacing again in the auto biz, as history, apparently, is repeating itself. Now that Ford has a huge hit with their new-generation Mustang, the "late-to-the-party" contingent is showing up. Chrysler is said to be working on a shortened-wheelbase Coupe version of its next-generation "LX" rear-wheel-drive platform - to be called the Challenger - but it won't make its debut until 2008. This was after the company slammed its critics (me included) when they introduced the new-generation Charger as a four-door sedan, declaring the Coupe market dead in the water in the U.S. and suggesting that "nobody buys Coupes anymore." My, how things have changed. A red-hot Mustang seems to have brought clarity to Chrysler's thinking of late. For all of Chrysler's posturing as the car company that creates "segment-busting" products, they miss more often than they hit. And they missed the Mustang phenomenon, big time. But as easily as Chrysler's miscalculation can be explained (they're so permanently lost in the "daze" of their HEMI/300C success out in Auburn Hills that they're having difficulty functioning), GM's late reaction (or inaction) is inexcusable.
Now that Ford is selling upwards of 18,000 Mustangs per month, the rumblings are coming from within GM that there will be a next-generation Camaro one day too. But questions linger, as in why did it take GM to see the efficacy of a properly rendered Mustang in order to understand that they needed the Camaro? Why did it take Ford's belief in its franchise car - the Mustang - to teach GM that they had something special to believe in with the heritage and the history of the Camaro?
The ultimate question is this: Why is GM always reacting instead of acting?
It takes no time at all to count the number of vehicles that GM has pioneered since the '50s that were not responses to a competitor's product, but rather were the result of reaching deep within and coming up with a product idea that demonstrated confidence and genuine vision. The Corvette. The Pontiac GTO. The original Buick Riviera. The front-wheel-drive Olds Toronado and Eldorado come to mind, to name a few.
The reason given for GM letting the Camaro die in 2002 was ostensibly because of budget considerations, but insiders know the real problem was that the "old-think" GM was still alive and well - and that the enthusiast faction within GM was still being suppressed and throttled from envisioning great cars at every turn. A new Camaro could have and should have been making its debut this coming fall, but now GM will be lucky if they can be back in the market with one by the 2008 time frame.
GM should be embarrassed that they got caught flat-footed by the Mustang. In this era when great product can make or break car companies, a hot Camaro would have done wonders for GM and Chevrolet. At the end of the day, the Camaro name was and still is one of the bright lights in the GM/Chevrolet portfolio and one of the most recognized American car brand names out there - one with a tremendous amount of brand equity and residual goodwill in the marketplace. The original Camaro, though a "me too" entry to the segment Ford invented, was always the most worthy competitor to the Mustang, and the fact that GM walked away from it, even for a model year, is unforgivable.
Don't be surprised to see a future Camaro concept unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show next January. But in the meantime, every month that the Mustang continues to pile up double-digit sales, it should be a painful reminder to GM and Chevrolet executives that when you have the potential for a hit product sitting right under your noses, you don't let it languish or flounder - or die. Instead, you nurture it, hone it and make it better than ever.
Because on top of all of the other factors looming over this industry right now - including the brutal competition, the fragmenting of segments, the health care and legacy costs, etc., etc. - playing catch-up in this business is a bitch.
.
Comment