It’s time for Plymouth to return
America seems to be celebrating the return of Chrysler to American soil. Though the company has been slashed and burned by Daimler, suffering insults, taunts, mass layoffs, factory closings, firings of key people who dared to talk back, cash-robbing, and insane levels of cost-cutting, Chrysler has survived and is being supported by many people who have spent the last seven years insulting it.
Now the Chrysler brand can stretch its wings, and I, for one, think it should do it for real. That means there can’t be a Chrysler PT Cruiser, a Chrysler Sebring sedan with a four-cylinder or a 200 horsepower V6, a V6 powered Chrysler 300 with interior trim that belongs in a Honda Civic, or a base Chrysler Town & Country that is identical in just about every meaningful way to the Dodge Caravan.
Those vehicles can’t all move to Dodge, which is trying to take the big, bold Ram styling and Cummins-diesel-power reputation and transfer them to its cars, as well. Then Dodge would be a great big mess.
Instead, the Chrysler brand needs to stop measuring itself purely by sales volume and start considering profits and reputation. The advertising has moved in the right direction, but the product doesn’t support it. There’s no personal status in owning a Chrysler when the brand includes a large variety of strippers, including heavy cars with small engines. It would be like BMW selling the base Mini as a BMW, which you’ll notice it does not do. Or like Cadillac selling the Cimarron, the car that nearly destroyed Caddy’s reputation. Or like Mercury selling tarted-up Escorts, which finalized the death of Mercury’s once-elite reputation.
Now think about the China cars, and you will probably agree -
Plymouth needs to come back.
Plymouth is the value division, the Chevy, the Ford, the Toyota, the big amorphous blog division that doesn’t try to strike out on its own and be unique and clear about where it’s coming from. Plymouth is where you get your bread-and-butter cars, your family sedans, your commuter cars, your standard minivans. Plymouth is where Chrysler houses its inoffensive, practical vehicles. If they make a performance car, it’s a Road Runner or a Duster, not a Barracuda or GTX or ‘Cuda. (Look back and see which ones sold well. The Barracudas and ‘Cudas stagnated on dealer lots with the GTX. The Road Runners and Dusters sold like gangbusters.)
Plymouth will happily take on the China cars, and they’ll fit. Plymouth will take on the base model 300, letting Dodge sell Chargers without 2.7s, and Chrysler sell ONLY 300C versions of the 300. Plymouth will take the four-cylinder Sebrings - or ALL of the Sebrings other than the convertibles. Plymouth will take any Town & Country that isn’t fully loaded, and call it a Voyager.
There are even lots of pre-made customers for Plymouth, assuming they get some cars. I estimate the demand for Plymouth to be at least 80,000 vehicles per year without advertising (but with marketing). That’s not a bad return considering how hard Chrysler and Dodge are fighting for each customer with rebates and advertising. But it’s not totally about Plymouth sales. It’s about profits.
The financial problem with Chrysler now, bigger than retiree costs, or health care costs, or warrantee costs, is the cost of sales. Rebates are thousands of dollars per vehicle, and advertising and marketing are both expensive. Some people say adding Plymouth would only add to the costs, but I disagree. Scion and Mini did well with guerilla marketing, and I think Plymouth could ride on Cerberus’ buzz and guerilla marketing for a while too. Plymouth would also have a built in advantage of being able to use existing names and reputations for cars people liked and remember well - Voyager, Valiant, Duster. (I’m thinking Horizon for the China car if Hornet isn’t used.)
The big payoff, though, isn’t the added sales that Plymouth might bring. The big payoff is strengthening Dodge and Chrysler so they wouldn’t need huge rebates and huge advertising to draw people in. People will pay for status, and Chrysler has none right now. To bring Chrysler up, it needs Plymouth to fill in its low end. Dodge could accommodate Chrysler, but then it would lose its desired “Ram tough” positioning.
Toyota now has three brands; Honda and Nissan have two each; Ford has Ford, Mazda, and Lincoln in addition to numerous other domestic and foreign brands; GM has many. Even BMW has two brands in the US now, and when Mercedes brings Smart here, they’ll have two as well. As the world’s fourth largest automaker, Chrysler can certainly afford a third brand, especially one that will tell the world - and its past, discarded, insulted customers, ready to return at the right time - that their pride has returned. Walter Chrysler said that without Plymouth, there would be no Chrysler. It’s hard to say whether he was talking about financials or branding, but I believe it’s true.