Here he is on a testing run:
Press release from Porsche: (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Porsche’
Jeff Zwart will race a purpose built Porsche GT3 at Pikes Peak
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
What to do about automotive marketing?
Friday, April 30th, 2010What a difference a year makes. It’s 2010 and the auto industry is beginning to recover.
After an incredibly tough 2009, consumers seem to be coming back. For the first time in recent memory, Americans’ perception of domestic automobiles seems to be on the mend (Business Week 4/23). Ford’s bet that Americans will buy smaller, fully featured automobiles looks like it may pay off. GM’s product plan created by soon-to-retire Bob Lutz is leading a resurgence for the General. Hyundai and Kia, supported my excellent product quality, have taken advantage of recessionary sensibilities and grown share of market. Audi , Subaru and Mini have come out of the recession on a tear.
On the other side of the ledger, Toyota continues to struggle with recalls and concerns about quality. This has led to unprecedented incentives by Toyota and the predictable response by competitors to match them. So a good number of consumers who had been sitting on sidelines during the recession have come back to dealerships looking to for a good deal. After 2009, it’s a relief to see traffic in the stores but at the same time if the incentives continue that will not be good for the industry long term. In 2009, some progress had been made at reducing the use of incentives, but the moment Toyota jumped in to defend its franchise, that opened the floodgates again.
So the good news is that customers are returning to the stores, but are they coming back for the right reasons?
Is Mini moving out of its niche? How to avoid the automotive equivalent of a comb-over.
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010An article in the April 2nd edition of the New York Times was headlined: “Despite Expansion, Mini Says It’s Still a Niche” and confirmed something that had occurred to me at the New York Auto Show.
In New York last week I saw the new Mini crossover, the Countryman, for the first time in person. All the Mini design cues are present in the Countryman and I think you’d be hard pressed to say that it wasn’t part of the Mini family. But I was struck by how “big” it seemed, it didn’t seem small and taut the way all the other models do. Part of the difference was that the Countryman’s ground clearance is higher, so its stance is really quite different than the other Minis.
This got me thinking, at what point does a marque go too far and begin to lose its essential character? Has Mini gone too far with the Countryman?
I suspect this is a little like losing your hair. Little by little your hair recedes, almost imperceptibly, you make little adjustments as you go, thinking no one will notice, until one day you end up with comb-over and people are snickering behind your back. Little by little automotive brands seem to lose their way. (more…)
Where have all the great automotive brands gone?
Friday, May 15th, 2009
As an industry we’ve lost sight of our great brands. In some cases companies have gone bankrupt or been acquired and a brand disappeared, in others a world war got in the way. Studebaker, Cord, Horch, MG, Triumph and countless others have evaporated for a variety of reasons.
Today, as Detroit goes through an unprecedented upheaval, there will be more brands lost. Saturn, a once very special brand, will go away. So will Pontiac and Hummer. We can only wonder what will happen to brands like Jeep. Brands that stood for something, had a point of view, and marketed products that reflected a certain perspective. Brands that developed a loyal following because they stood for something! They weren’t for everybody, and that was OK.
As discouraging as it is to see a great brand go away because of a structural change in a company, it’s worse to see brands die of neglect by the very people charged with protecting and building them. Over the last 20 years we have watched a number of great automotive brands that automotive marketers worked very hard to create, begin to whither away. The aforementioned Jeep is one, Volvo another. Mercedes Benz, Jaguar, Land Rover, SAAB, Lexus and even mighty BMW feel somehow “less” than they did even ten years ago.
What’s happened? Expansion happened. Chasing volume happened. Brands that meant something specific and clear found themselves needing to be “more.”
