Boring is good
Auto journalists tend to like exciting things, and that’s no surprise; most only drive any particular car for a week, and in any case, they’ve made cars the center of their lives. What’s more, odd things are easier to write about. Give me a Jeep Wrangler, and I can write for hours. Give me a Toyota Camry, and I have a much harder time. True, most auto writers simply rewrite press releases or make up their own blather rather than actually driving the car, but the most fun loans are always the odd ones – the ones that make people stop and ask, what is that? Can I see the inside? You know, the PT Cruisers, VW Beetles, Chevy SSRs…the cars with wild styling as much as those with wild performance.
The enthusiasts always want more performance, usually in the form of higher horsepower numbers and lower sprint times (for some reason, the “highway pass” time – from, say, 50 to 70 mph while in top gear – is rarely mentioned, but 0-60 is always around, and usually treated as a racing 0-60 rather than a civilian 0-60 – that is, from idle).
But what really sells?
Let’s look at the top sellers. Ford and Chevy full-size trucks – no real driving excitement there, as huge horsepower figures are drowned out by weight, and let’s face it, they’re trucks. I’ve driven the Avalanche, Escalade, and H2, and they are all frankly duller than a base Corolla. These are vehicles designed to haul heavy cargo, though precious few buyers seem to use them for that.
Then for cars, we have another bevy of dullness – the Camry, Accord, Corolla, and Civic. (The Civic gave up being a real “pocket rocket” a long time ago, not that it was usually particularly fast in acceleration anyway, CRX Si aside).
Meanwhile, Detroit seems to have been chasing a dream of exciting, sporty cars. Let’s see what happened to them. Camaro – dead. GTO – dead, though one could argue that’s because it looks the same as a Grand Am. Mustang – doing well, largely on the name, one suspects; the previous generation also did well. But do any performance cars do as well as dull fleetmobiles?
Think of the exciting cars of the past – Cord, Reo, Jaguar, Bentley – and notice who the biggest sellers were. That’s right, it was Chevrolet, Plymouth, and Ford. Of the three, Chevy was probably sportiest, but none were really high performance back then.
Even in the same price range, sporty doesn’t often sell. You could get an SRT-4 for the same price as a Stratus, with roughly the same interior room, but the Stratus outsold the SRT-4 by perhaps 10:1.
The big secret of this industry, the secret “car guys” and the average journalist doesn’t want you to know, is that boring sells. Excitement only sells in the proper wrapping; the image has to be carefully established, burnished, and fully supported to work, and even then, the competition is massive, with BMW always there, along with all the SRT, AMG, SVT, SS, TMD, and other initial-outfits, and every manufacturer’s top-end pocket rocket.
It’s my guess that the best thing Chrysler could do to ensure a continued profit would be to take all the money that would go into any high-performance cars and stick it straight into re-contenting its minivans and, if anything is left over, putting boring ol’ Plymouth back onto wheels again; after all, it was Plymouth and the legions of flat-head sixes and low-powered fours that powered Chrysler Corporation into becoming the #2 and, later, #3 American automaker. It’s not a popular argument, but you know, once a company is successfully dominating the boring family cars, minivans, and pickups, it has a lot of money for performance – though some, like Toyota, seem to prefer to dabble now and then, but sit on the sidelines for most of the time. They don’t get many enthusiasts, but they sure seem to have a lot of customers.
Yes sir. Most of my Dad’s regular customer base were the bread and butter 4 door sedans. Of which, old boring Plymouth managed to move the most of. They might have been boring, but they were Plymouth Rock solid, highly dependable, easy to service, and reflected pride in the build which meant pride in ownership. Regularly renewed with the same dull prescription.
I knew you were going to beat the Plymouth drum in this one eventually ;)
It’s an excellent point though. Camry rules the roost sales wise, and a lot of them are to actual retail customers. Worse (for the competition) even the Camry gets a tiny injection of style with each redesign.
The old Spirit/Acclaim were about as utilitarian as it got, and they sold quite well. Not to mention the K car that preceded them!
I have a feeling the priority for cars like these was ‘just make sure it works, and then we’ll worry about the wrapping’. I’m sure not a few were intimidated by that A pillar in the second generation LH cars, for instance. Cars like the PT are rare; the styling doesn’t really come at the expense of the utility. Styling gets people in the door, then they look for how useful it is.
Most people aren’t car people in the way that folks who will be reading this are. I’d even venture to guess that the Camry badge sells as many cars as the Toyota badge on the other side of the trunk lid (Lincoln, did you hear that? You too, Acura). It’s something we see all the time; people will pass Joe’s Filling Station and pay 10 cents more at Mobil down the street because they know the name. You can’t be an expert on everything and I’m sure there are times when each of us gravitate toward a name that’s been around for ages because it might increase the odds of success. Considering how expensive cars are and how overwhelming the whole process can be, a Camry or Accord name can be quite the security blanket.
A ‘everyperson’ Plymouth brand could build a solid, consistent base with ‘safer’ designs, and leave the more ‘experimental’ work to Chrysler and Dodge. It creates a cushion for when a bold design fails to connect as anticipated…
Well yes, I had to thump up on Plymouth, just to let you know I am hanging in there. But how does the refrain go? A rose is a rose, even by any other name it is still a rose. Doesn’t have to reflect Plymouth as a badge, but it should go to filling that spot for Chrysler. The rest of your points are very well taken and ilustrative of what we all know that DCX truly needs to be “in the hunt.”
Is boring good for sales or is the reliability that surrounds a car from years of financial investment?
Boring is good and reliability is good as well. No car is a financial investment. Cars are black holes whereby you toss your money in it, and it just simply disappears. More and more, leasing is probably a more stable idea than buying. There just is no return on your money for a car.
I don’t think being “boring” is what sells cars. It is reliability and value. If “boring” sold cars Ford would not be in the shape they are in and the GTO would have sold 100K copies.
Toyota sells cars based on the fact that people know they are not getting hoodwinked. They are getting a lot of value for their dough. You can beat up a Japanese car and it will still run for decades. For years, American made brands were dead at 80K miles. Planned Obsolecense did exist for a long time with American makes.
BRANDING is a big issue. When people think of Toyota they think “quality.” Chrysler’s quality reputation is so bad that it now has to seek out other avenues to get people interested in their products. So Chrysler has to offer more to the customer than just “boring” because a lot of people associate Chrysler with “junk.”
I agree that performance can’t be the only point. However, who is to say that a car can’t be stylish, bold, utilitarian, and wicked fast at the same time? Dodge Caliber SRT4 anyone?
I do agree that the Plymouth division is needed though. You need a place for value conscious consumers to buy cars. The PT, for example, should be a Plymouth. You could do it like Scion. Have the PT, a sedan and a minivan.
For me though, I love performance cars and I love what Dodge is doing. If Dodge was doing what Toyota is doing, I would not be a fan of Chrysler anymore. However, for the Chrysler Corporation, they do need a “value division.” They do not have that right now. They need it.
Definitely reliability is the key to making boring work. The point is that companies tend to spend far too much on excitement (Ford GT anyone?) while keeping the cost-cutting that brings low quality…the infamous “short-term cost-cutting” that results in long-term higher costs and lower revenue.
I thought about the PT as a Chrysler yet again today. I remember when the PT first came out a lot of people were disappointed in the interior trim because they were buying a Chrysler, which was once a semi-luxury brand… Plymouth would have set lower expectations, so it would have exceeded rather than missing those expectations…
PS> Chevy Malibu is a BIG seller!
Sorry Curtis about investment comment it looks likt it may not have been clear.
Chevy Cavalier and the Neon, no investment from the manufacture and they flounder in the market.
Same goes with the Focus. great at the beginning, but if the company doesn’t keep the car up to speed it begins to take a nose dive.
50% of Honda’s sales come from two cars, the Accord and Civic. That is a huge number for 2 cars.
You bet they will pure in any amount of money into these cars to keep them above the line.
They have to or Honda will just fold.
And dave Malibu is a huge seller (to the fleets…has anyone know someone who has bought the new Malibu…I don’t??? Real question.)
The Chevy Malibu is a big seller and so is the Impala, but these are very popular fleet vehicles..perhaps the most popular. So those numbers are not as strong an indicator. Also, GM makes no money off these vehicles. Look at the G6. They discounted that car to incredibly low levels.
The big trick is to make a car like the Toyota Corolla and actually make money off of every car you sell. Not many car manufacturers can pull that off. Chrysler is trying to copy their productivity innovation. We shall see how that goes. However, GM and Ford are a disaster. They don’t make money on their cars. They got drunk on SUVs and let everything else rot.
Who cares if you are the “number one brand” in America when you aren’t making money off most or the cars you sell?
Wonder comment duster92. I couldn’t agree with you more.
So would you say boring sells or is the the “brand” that sells the cars?