Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
MINI EV update
Several spy pics are posted over at The Car and Driver showing the electric MINI puttering around Germany. The pictures show a gray Cooper with no rear tailpipe and a poorly Photoshopped decal indicating C&D's claim on the images. Personally, the car looks much better in blue and without the door decals.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
A Swing and a Miss
A key benefit BMW's products receive in the design process is close monitoring by a single source, design chief Chris Bangle, to be specific. This ensures that, for the most part, bimmers look great or at minimum, look consistent with the current styling. The newly announced X1, pictured below at the Paris Auto Show, is a hit in the design department. So why does this bug me?
In short BMW has created a compromise that costs too much. (To be fair, BMW has indicated it does not currently plan to sell the X1 in the U.S. so complaining about price isn't entirely applicable.) I went through this with the 1-series. Good looking? Yes. Great handling and speed? Yes. Comfortable? Um, it's a little tight, but livable for single-person use. $38,000*? Without being able to carry passengers and groceries? They lost me. I feel the X1 falls into the same category: great to look at but unworkable as a primary car, particularly at a price reserved for a token sports convertible.
BMWs have always been pricey, a requisite characteristic of luxury is exclusivity. However I find that they are on a string of offerings with less handling, space, or longevity all sporting unjustifiable price tags: 650i Coupe, 135i, 535i Wagon, X6, and now the X1. The point isn't that BMW can't make smaller or more utility-oriented cars; it is that I disagree with pricing them so closely to their better balanced siblings.
*The 128i costs just over 30, but just a touch higher comes the all-around winning 328i. And buying a 1-series without the twin turbo is just silly. The rest of the price comes from the destination charge and sport package.
In short BMW has created a compromise that costs too much. (To be fair, BMW has indicated it does not currently plan to sell the X1 in the U.S. so complaining about price isn't entirely applicable.) I went through this with the 1-series. Good looking? Yes. Great handling and speed? Yes. Comfortable? Um, it's a little tight, but livable for single-person use. $38,000*? Without being able to carry passengers and groceries? They lost me. I feel the X1 falls into the same category: great to look at but unworkable as a primary car, particularly at a price reserved for a token sports convertible.
BMWs have always been pricey, a requisite characteristic of luxury is exclusivity. However I find that they are on a string of offerings with less handling, space, or longevity all sporting unjustifiable price tags: 650i Coupe, 135i, 535i Wagon, X6, and now the X1. The point isn't that BMW can't make smaller or more utility-oriented cars; it is that I disagree with pricing them so closely to their better balanced siblings.
*The 128i costs just over 30, but just a touch higher comes the all-around winning 328i. And buying a 1-series without the twin turbo is just silly. The rest of the price comes from the destination charge and sport package.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The Routan Boom
I'm looking forward to seeing a marketing experiment played out in full force in the near future. Assuming the economy doesn't destroy sales prospects for anything with four wheels, Volkswagen has apparently granted their marketing guru full board voting rights. I imagine the conversation went something like this:
Guru: Listen, I know you want to make the return into the U.S. minivan market with greatness, but don't.
Collective board: We're listening.
Guru: Instead of producing something great that people want, let's produce something miserable and then brand it better than anything else in the world.
Collective board: Can we get Brooke Shields?
Guru: Um, sure.
And thus the Chrysler Town & Country was rebadged as the difficult-to-pronounce VW Routan, a minivan easily forgettable in both name and appearance. The Guru's plan was put into play with one of the best tongue-in-cheek ads that I've seen in a long time.
Look closely at the picture below and you'll see a minivan behind Brooke. Then watch the video on VW's site.
For additional reading, see Kyality's exceptional take.
Guru: Listen, I know you want to make the return into the U.S. minivan market with greatness, but don't.
Collective board: We're listening.
Guru: Instead of producing something great that people want, let's produce something miserable and then brand it better than anything else in the world.
Collective board: Can we get Brooke Shields?
Guru: Um, sure.
And thus the Chrysler Town & Country was rebadged as the difficult-to-pronounce VW Routan, a minivan easily forgettable in both name and appearance. The Guru's plan was put into play with one of the best tongue-in-cheek ads that I've seen in a long time.
Look closely at the picture below and you'll see a minivan behind Brooke. Then watch the video on VW's site.
For additional reading, see Kyality's exceptional take.
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