Diluting the brand
The rather vague official definition of Chrysler’s niche - “usable technology instead of technology for its own sake” - led me to wonder what’s driving the brand managers over there. Dodge is big and bold, apparently in styling if in no other way, except for the minivans; and there’s Jeep.
Diluting the brand is one of the biggest causes of failure in automotive history as far as I can tell. Packard died when they reached down; Mercedes lost some credibility with the A Class and 190, and Dieter Zetsche himself is saying they’re going to stop it with the “not Mercedes like” sports cars; Chrysler lost its cachet when it started rebadging Plymouths; Dodge lost its own cachet for the same reason, 30-40 years ago; and Plymouth itself ended up dead when it had nothing unique to offer, which hardly helped a company whose sales were only recently mainly Plymouths.
There’s Nash/Hudson/AMC chasing the sales until there was nothing left to define the brand; Cadillac famously destroying itself overnight with the Cavalier; and Lincoln’s own version, the Taurus Continental. Now Caddy is building itself back up by becoming BMW… and of course BMW realized it had to endure some pain to become the Ultimate Driving Machine, including killing the popular 318 and NOT going into standard performance minivans or SUVs (instead making its performance-enhanced minivan/SUV).
BMW seems to be the only brand that really holds to an image tightly. Everyone else seems to chase the quick buck and the easy sales. Lexus is hardly immune; if they make an SUV that’s obviously different in driving experience from the Toyota version, I haven’t driven it yet. Likewise the IS. And then there’s the Matrix! Totally not Toyota in feel.
One could go on for a quite a while looking at automotive mistakes. You could even say that Plymouth’s competition in racing with Dodge really hurt the brand’s roots… and Mercury died chasing the quick sales of the Tracer. When you can get an Escort with a Mercury badge, nobody will buy a Merc for the prestige. There just isn’t any.
If people really know what you are and what you represent, you might not get all the buyers all the time, but at least you don’t have to do massive incentives because suddenly you’re fighting for attention among all the other formless entities.
The badges don’t matter…if people wan’t the car, and can afford it, they will buy it
low quality cars hurt a company’s reputation
inexpensive cars don’t have such a big effect…as long as they are quality
I disagree with you in a way, and not just because you put an apostrophe into “want.” The badges are what make people want the car, more often than not. Why else would ANYONE who isn’t totally into performance buy a BMW, with the high price and cheap interior compared with any number of equally comfortable cars? Why would anyone ever buy a Hummer (H2, H3, or H1) if they don’t regularly go offroad (and on challenging offroads at that)?
How many people buy a car without even consdiering another brand? Or test driving anything but another Camry/Accord/Ford/etc?
The image gets people to want the car… and in the case of the Caddy, at least, the image was destroyed by their version of the Cavalier. That’s one reason why Mercedes likes to hide the Chrysler components of their own vehicles… like the M Class.
Yes, to thine own self be true. Time to state that Chrysler is dead, while no one has told it yet, I do believe that the throat spray for the vocal chords is being readied for use. Utilization of names of former famed vehicles doesn’t help the issue either. The 300 and the Charger have been “dumbed” down. The cars may be good in and of themselves, but the name creates a different sort of image that they do not meet. It hurts the rest of the line up as well. Cutting off Plymouth was a bone headed move, and the company has suffered ever since. It should have been earmarked for restoration in it’s own image, and then given decent marketing while strenthening the rest of the entire line. Now you have Dodge trying to be all things to all people and Chrysler with base models that are Plymouth wannabes. Not good for either. While chassis component interchanability was a sort of secret within Chrysler Corporation, the cars themselves had an image of a brand that stepped them apart, until the Corporation themselves started chasing sales and diluted the cars, such as the DeSoto that was essentially a Dodge in 1957. Of course, the poor build quality built a reputation for Chrysler itself that unfortunately still lingers. Knocking Plymouth off just seemed to reinforce the quality issue for a lot of people leading them to feel that Plymouth was so bad that it had to go, when in fact, the brand enjoyed some of the highest quality of the entire corporation. The image of brands makes people get into the showrooms. However, the fact of a badly built car, no matter what the image will linger forever.
IMO Dodge and Jeep* have developed (Dodge) and kept (Jeep) pretty solid images. The Chrysler brand at this point is a lot more muddled, even across individual models (the base 300 says something entirely different than the SRT-8).
*Compass being an exception
To qoute Curtis Redgap “Chrysler with base models that are Plymouth wannabes”
So let DCX bring back the Plymouth.
We must admit that PLymouth started out as an inexpensive Chrysler
before it was defined into it’s own Brand (was it not?).
So why can’t we have the Chrysler Plymouth PT
and the Chrysler Plymouth Sebring
and the Chrysler Plymouth Caliber
and the Chrysler Plymouth Caravan
and then we’l drop the extended moniker Chrysler Plymouth
and just make them Plymouths
Let Chrysler give the Crossfire back to Mercedes and if it wants a sportscar,
let’s get moving on the Firepower.
Chrysler will be luxury
Dodge will be performance and trucks
Plymouth will be the baseline vehicles
I at least have no problem with that…well, I wouldn’t do a Caliber.
Well, yes in a way Plymouth was actually a Maxwell, which was badged a Chrysler. Of which, nothing was wrong with either car. But Walter KNEW that he had to have something that would compete with Ford and Chevrolet, the target being primarily Ford. And I agree with you 55. One more step. Chrysler needs a luxury marque. Imperial? Well, maybe, but why not the Chronos? High end luxury, and by word of mouth, an established luxury image already. Imperial name….. maybe too much baggage?