Busy days indeed

It looks as though Chrysler’s been busy shuffling people around again (see http://www.allpar.com/news/ ). Don Knott appears to have dropped from sight, though he was honored with being head of the famous SRT group - which seems to have responsibility for the Viper as well as the higher-powered sedans. We’re not sure what’s going on there, but your comments would be appreciated. The other changes seem fairly dense to outsiders as well, but shifting marketing and communications folk is probably the result of continued underperformance in the advertising and marketing arena. That is, Chrysler’s efforts seem to continually de-value the brands instead of pushing them forward and upward.

Part of the problem remains the absence of Plymouth “or equivalent.” The Eagle brand, though it has its followers still, was defined by its competitors: it was there to take import-car lovers, either through simply selling rebadged/rebodied foreign cars or by retuning authentic Mopars (Eagle Vision) to have a more European feel. But Plymouth was, for decades, the heart and soul of Chrysler Corporation. We don’t really blame Daimler for ending the brand; it was a domestic decision, we suspect. After all, efforts to move up into Mercedes territory were nixed because DaimlerChrysler already had Mercedes. (And soon it will no doubt have Volkswagen too.)

But what did Plymouth really do, other than sell (for most of its life) relatively bland cars that admittedly featured advanced engineering and outperformed competitors in just about every way? Well, that’s what it did. It was Chrysler’s Toyota, so to speak - the brand that people bought when they wanted endurance and reliability. Plymouth was one of America’s biggest brands for decades, on the strength of its known reliability, safety, and capability. The flat-head six started out as more powerful than Ford’s famous V8, and though by the time it was finally dropped it had long passed its prime, in the early days Plymouth offered more for the price than anyone else. Even in the 1970s and 1980s, you could look to Plymouth, if not for excitement, then at least for value.

Plymouth lovers point to a variety of “demise indicators,” such as the 1957 models that shook even stalwart fans’ belief in Chrysler’s quality, or the A-body Dodge Dart stealing Plymouth’s niche at the bottom of Chrysler, or for that matter the Valiant being spun off as its own brand in its first year. Then of course there was the Breeze, the afterthought Cloud Car. But perhaps the big problem really was the famous, incredible Plymouth Fury that set those speed records and provided an incredible package of speed for the price, because from that point on, Plymouth was into racing, and the brands started to get confused. While it’s true that Dodge stole the Valiant, Road Runner, and Duster from Plymouth, it’s also true that Plymouth stole the Superbird from Dodge, and the brand identities were never clearly defined in the muscle-car days. Someone in what we laughingly call Chrysler leadership should have stepped in to figure out where the racing was most appropriate. Perhaps NASCAR for Plymouth and all other venues for Dodge, or something like that… or vice versa. Certainly the Road Runner was the ideal Plymouth muscle car, but the GTX should have been a Dodge. Having a C-body Fury - a big luxury Plymouth? - was confusing enough.

A Dodge was in essence a Plymouth that cost $100 more and provided more space or more features. Chrysler was still readily identifiable until the Cordoba and, far worse, the LeBaron K-car and Town & Country minivan, which were all too obviously Plymouths with nicer grilles.

But what about the Plymouth haters, those who think the brand isn’t needed any more because, let’s face it, for 20-30 years, a Plymouth has been nothing more than a downmarket Dodgesler with a softer suspension?

Well, how on Earth are you going to give each division a strong identity if you don’t have Plymouth?

Chrysler is supposed to be attainable luxury, but the first vehicle in Chrysler’s lineup is the PT Cruiser, a car that’s all too obviously a Plymouth Truck, selling discounted for $14,000 with a manual transmission and windup windows. Not the sort of thing American buyers look for in an automaker that also sells $40,000 vehicles. Likewise, the Chrysler 300 with the small V6… the equivalent Dodge Charger starts out with a 3.5 liter V6 (but has to sell the 2.7 to fleets) and so beats Chrysler in features in the same car.

As for Dodge, it too suffers in its desire to have a clear, consistent reputation as the big, bold, quintessentially American vehicle. The Dodge minivan must be relatively bland; that’s what we want. But it doesn’t fit. Nor does a fleet Charger with a 2.7 V6, or a base-engine Caliber, or a four-cylinder minivan.

Plymouth does not need to be exciting, any more than Toyota does. Plymouth needs to be a value priced car with good technology and engineering and reliability, as Toyota is now and Plymouth was back then.

This is my ideal Plymouth car lineup:

1. Valiant: Caliber sedan with conventional styling. (Jeep already sells Caliber wagons.)
2. Plaza (or other name): mid-sized sedan, replacing Chrysler Sebring, which either gets really upscaled or goes away completely.
3. Fury: the cheap end of the LX, with no active suspension, limited options, and one engine, the 2.7. The fleets would love it, and then the 300 could be sold in 300C form only.
4. Voyager: return of the bland minivan.
5. Plymouth Truck - Cruiser.

Perhaps there should be a small Plymouth below the Caliber, either based on another manufacturer’s carline - as Chrysler is now proposing - or perhaps they should see about resurrecting the 1999 Neon, with the base 1.8 liter World Engine, at the lowest price point they can find. (Why the 1999? because, let’s face it, people liked it better.)

Having Plymouth around would free Chrysler to start with the 300C and go on up from there. Having Plymouth would free Dodge to get bolder and brasher without losing its huge sales base. Having Plymouth would also bring back those who will not buy a new DAIMLERchrysler vehicle, because they feel dissed by the superior-Stuttgart crew, and those who were habitual Plymouth buyers and who are leaving the fold because they are not Chrysler buyers, and that’s what they’re being offered.

Weblog news

For weblog writers, we now support Ecto. I’ve also added in some instructions about comment posting. I am surprised we haven’t gotten more comments posted; I guess we’ll have to figure out ways to direct more traffic, or post more interesting weblogs.

As for Allpar, we’re over the huge swirl of Challenger/NAIAS hits, and I must say I’m happy with the way the server handled the load - without any sign that it was under load. The extra RAM really proved its worth, and we never really got into swap memory at all. Right now we’re running at 1.7 GB used, so there’s some space for expansion before we get into swap; before we added that physical memory, the hard drive must have been constantly stressed. (Our IO-wait has gone down from up to 70% to under 1%.) We still have a huge backlog of additions, but all the little stuff is taking up a surprising amount of time; still, expect Good Things in the future. … and our new registry system is due to come on-line around February 4.

The retuned direction of DCX

Well, there was a lot of interest in the articles I’ve read on Dieter’s reorganization of DCX; the point of which is to ‘remove the hyphen’ that separated “Daimler” from “Chrysler” in the eyes of many inside and outside of the company. It’s true that there was overlap in many functional areas, but to me the biggest statement here was that the little kingdoms that exist (mostly on the Mercedes side of the aisle) are detrimental to the company as a whole. They hinder the advancement of “we” and embolden “us and them”.

I think this is a bold, but needed, step in the right direction. One of the things that has helped the competition forge ahead is the ability to (borrowing a Chrysler marketing term here, forgive me) ‘cut through the clutter’ and prevent mistakes. Organizational clutter, of course, has long been a bugaboo of “Detroit” and of late Mercedes has become fixated by the glittering jewel that is overblown electronics, resulting in quality lapses but no loss of arrogance.

Back when two guys named Dieter and Wolfgang (”Them”) came in to head what used to be Chrysler Corp (”Us”), it really looked like the continuance of the end to many, given the mess that the Chrysler Group was in at the time. The deep cuts that followed looked like the entity was being bled dry. Move ahead in time though and it turns out that the new management was fairly forward-looking given that their neighbors are currently facing the same cuts while Chrysler is in better shape than not only GM and Ford, but the vaunted Mercedes as well. Even more amazing, both Dieter and Wolfgang were able to break down the “us and them” and turn it into “we”. They convinced people that they *cared* about what Chrysler stood for, and about the history. Dieter Zetsche left Detroit as, by far, the most admired local auto chief. The hope was that he would take that with him to Stuttgart. This move gives confidence that he can move DCX forward as a cohesive company.
As someone who was tolling the bell after the takeover was inflicted on us, I have to say I like where they’re going. Competition is tough and only getting tougher. Serious issues lie ahead in terms of advancing hybrid technologies, improving the dealer body and corporate relationships with same, and of course ill advised product landmines must be avoided. But…I’m fairly optimistic in the future of DaimlerChrysler. Without the hyphen.

What makes a great car?

What makes a great car? An answer to that question could consist of: a reasonable amount of horsepower and torque, wonderful fuel economy, safety features, a nice interior created with soft materials, or a beautiful exterior.

It is easy to get one of these five characteristics right, but it seems to be hard for a car company to get all five qualities spot on. Therefore when buying a car one usually has to give up one or more of these particular assets.

Soooooooo…

The Commander, the Aspen, and the Compass.
What do these three cars all have in common?

1) They are all new vehicles from the Chrysler Group that have filled much needed segments that were otherwise unoccupied.

2) They are also new vehicles that have caused the majority of allpar members along with the general public to have mixed feelings about their exterior styling. “Mixed” may be a too good of a word in these particular cases. As it is, most people seem to hate their styling.

These three particular vehicles don’t seem to have the same love/hate feelings that, say, the current generation Dodge Ram or the current Chrysler 300 (which has more of a love thing going on but that is just because I am soooooooo in love with this car). There seems to be more hate then love in these three production vehicles.

The Chrysler Group seems to try to push the envelope when it comes to the exterior styling of their vehicles. They seem to polarize the population with their current styling directions. One could say that the styling of the Aspen, Commander, and Compass are polarizing however, I would say that the Chrysler Group went beyond polarizing with these particular trio of vehicles.

So are these cars going to fail in the auto market because of their odd styling? They do have other assets that car buyers look for like: nice interiors, nice safety features, horsepower, and gas mileage (well at least for the Compass I would say). Will the less than acceptable exterior styling outweigh the other four assets? I think the answer will be undeniably NO.

It is a bit easy for me that say that for the Commander when it has been on sale for a couple of months already. The Commanders sales have increases steadily each month with over 8,000 units being sold in December 2005. I do think that trend will continue for the Commander. I also believe that the Aspen and Compass will also do well in the market place.

You see I love these vehicles and even though that I am not IN love with their styling I am so glad they are being produced. At least these are cars that I can talk to my friends about and possibly one day test drive. These are things that I can not do with a concept car.

In four years these vehicles will also get a face lift. If the corporation is listening to the public they will change particular elements of the exterior design that is needed if they are possible at the time.

In eight years we will get new vehicles replacing these cars (obviously this will only happen if the company was able to produce a profit for each of the vehicles). Their successors will hopefully fix the much needed exterior and some interior details.

It is easy to change a car once it has some momentum in the market place and it is more difficult to get a company to produce a vehicle from scratch. Look that the Challenger and Camaro fans, dying for these two cars. Once the car is gone from the market, it is harder to get that car back into the market.

The Aspen will fit the SUV needs of Chrysler buyers. Affordable bling as they call it. If you do not want to spend 60k at a Cadillac dealership for a nice SUV with chrome…well here you go.

The Compass fits the wagon/rally needs for Jeep buyers. Don’t want a Subaru or an Evo, well, here you go… of course it will truly be an STi/Evo beater if they turbocharge the inline four.

The Commander fits the needs of people wanting a larger SUV that has a third row seat.

Only the consumer will let the corporation know if they want major/minor changes in their exterior styling. Only time will tell if this trio of vehicles will make it in the market.

Site news: weblog, registry, and more

As you can see, we’ve moved forward with these weblogs, adding the ability to view them by writer. If you have a weblog, you can easily grab your particular URL to personalize it for other people. This approach lets users easily reach whatever is newest, while still being able to find items by topic or by writer. Eventually we’ll make the interface smoother and nicer.

I recently added a security update to Invisionboard. As always, it broke components - the blogs and the Garage feature both died, as they always do. Invisionboard was not written with updates in mind; the new installer works by the “start over from scratch” method… at least with regard to files. But at least now the weblogs menu item brings people over here! The Garage will have to be fixed later.

I really need to get the Garage to stand alone, away from Invisionboard, so it won’t be affected by upgrades. Of course, I’d just LOVE to use the Fusion Registry system, but it hasn’t been written yet…! For that matter, our custom registry system is still in its infancy and I doubt it will progress further. I’ve written to both the FusionRegistry guy, Matt, and to the MGB Experience guy who seems to have his own registry software. The ideal is to get the existing Garage entries into a very flexible new registry system that can support all kinds of custom data fields, some of which are kept VERY private; and for this new system to be very secure, more so than the Invisionboard setup, so personal information is kept, um, personal. We do have some funds for developing this, so let me know if you can help.

All this coding stuff takes away editing time…

By the way, I hope you noticed and liked the new Hudson article. We have coming up Gerard Wilson’s compilation of postwar Chrysler material, and something on the 1935 Plymouths, as well as continued work on our backlog. We’ve been making corrections and small updates continuously, as well, without fanfare.

Once again, I implore you to sign up for Chryslers at Carlisle, which you can do on-line; when you fill out the form to enter your car, be SURE to put Allpar under “Club.” We need 25 people to pay for our tent, but the more people we get the better placement the tent gets, and we’d like to be right in the middle of the field! So please sign up… I have no problem springing for a second tent if we get enough people (and if they let us do it!). I think we can get a little gift pack together for attendees as well, in addition to the one Carlisle provides. $35 (for the first car) gives you free parking (that is, you can park on the show field) and attendance for the entire weekend; it’s a bargain! And you don’t need a perfect 1970 Hemi Challenger to show, last year I saw bunches of EEKs, Rams, PTs, and all sorts of other cars, all in their own sections. We’ll be showing one 1974 Valiant and one 2000 300M, both bone stock - one slant six and one standard 3.5 (my wife doesn’t want to take the PT!) - so if you have a Daytona, LeBaron, Reliant, Sundance…it can be shown. We are Allpar and Mopar, united under the big tent! So sign up now…click here!

The obligatory new-weblog-software post

You may be wondering why I went through the trouble of setting up new weblog software. Well, part of the reason is the never-ending stream of issues related to Invisionboard, which makes it difficult to deal with any changes (that is, if you do ANY customization). When there’s a new Invision forum, the blog goes out of date. When there’s a skin change, it may hurt the blog. Then there’s the Garage feature…and frankly the weblogs weren’t getting as much attention as I thought they deserved while at the forums. And, for what it’s worth, IPB never seemed to get the RSS feed quite right. Let’s face it, weblogs aren’t their thing.

This system, WordPress, is, as far as I can tell, the #1 system around. It’s got lots of support, lots of potential features via plug-ins, an easier interface, a lot more in the way of flexibility, and it’s easier for people coming in to see all the new stuff - or just read the posts from their favorite writer - or just read issues in one or two categories. It’s faster, has integrated backup, and doesn’t require me to jump through hoops to give people permission to use it. (For some reason IPB never provided per-user access to their weblog.)

In short, for once, it was easier to have two separate programs running than to try to make one program do too many things.

In the future, I’ll try to get the weblogs, upcoming photo galleries, and forums all working nicely together. Since this is a new version of WordPress, though, I think we should wait until things settle down first! Then there will be all sorts of plugins, tech tips, etc.