Brand Resurrection

[SalesmanSean]

As I'm quite bored (there's nothing like pouring rain on a car lot to make things very slow and boring), I thought I'd pose a question.  If you could resurrect one, and only one, now defunct car brand, which would you choose, why, and how would you do it?

 

I've been thinking about this and it's a tough call.  Part of me wants to say Pontiac, because I would love to see GM work harder on performance models, but my heart says Mercury.  My first car was a 1982 Mercury Cougar station wagon, to me Cougar has always brought a feeling of excitement to mind (even in that wagon, at least a little bit, I'm not sure why, but that is how I thought of them as a kid and it never left me, maybe it's just because the name was cool), and I have "Mercury Blues" currently stuck in my head.  For me, this would be the Ford version of what I would want GM to do.  I want Mercury to return as a performance division.  Forget RS or whatever versions of otherwise forgettable vehicles like Focus, Fusion, Fiesta, etc.  Give me cars designed from the start to be performance vehicles.  They wouldn't need to go crazy, I still think it should be more performance for the masses like Ford is currently doing with the aforementioned vehicles, but I'd rather see them as separate vehicles.  To the average person if you tell them you have a Focus RS, the only part of that they hear and understand is the Focus part of it.  I'd rather have a car that by the name alone people know that it's made to be faster and more fun.  Clearly from the RS models we know Ford has the ability to make these kinds of vehicles, they just need to separate them from their more boring counterparts.  It all starts with a brand new Cougar that exemplifies everything that is great about FoMoCo's performance ability and only gets better from there.

[balthazar]

In that IMO the RANGE of cars available today has compressed (IE; you can get full amenities in a nissan versa it seems) AND design is growing increasingly homogenized due to outside factors (IE: CAFE), I would like to see a truly unique brand return. Something that goes off in as much of another engineering direction as is possible today. Like a flash boiler steam turbine driven streamliner… can I haz that? 

Edited May 30, 2015 by balthazar

[David]

I think there is still too many brands and we need to consolidate, not resurrect a dead brand. With that, I pose this counter idea.

 

With the large amount of mega car companies, Which name plates would you retire and what would you do to the remaining brands to have the same wide appeal?

 

To me a perfect example of this is Opel, Yes builds some great cars but has done nothing but cost money for GM. I would say make Chevy a truly global brand by converting Opel dealers to Chevy. Then you have world wide Chevy - Buick - Cadillac and Professional Grade is GMC and with that you bring back Medium duty trucks to the GMC name plate only.

[SalesmanSean]

I think there is still too many brands and we need to consolidate, not resurrect a dead brand. With that, I pose this counter idea.

 

With the large amount of mega car companies, Which name plates would you retire and what would you do to the remaining brands to have the same wide appeal?

 

To me a perfect example of this is Opel, Yes builds some great cars but has done nothing but cost money for GM. I would say make Chevy a truly global brand by converting Opel dealers to Chevy. Then you have world wide Chevy - Buick - Cadillac and Professional Grade is GMC and with that you bring back Medium duty trucks to the GMC name plate only.

That was going to be a separate thread later. 

[SalesmanSean]

In that IMO the RANGE of cars available today has compressed (IE; you can get full amenities in a nissan versa it seems) AND design is growing increasingly homogenized due to outside factors (IE: CAFE), I would like to see a truly unique brand return. Something that goes off in as much of another engineering direction as is possible today. Like a flash boiler steam turbine driven streamliner… can I haz that? 

Whatever you want, just maybe try and make it make at least a little sense for the brand that you're resurrecting to do it.

[ocnblu]

Watch this:  I would like to see GM bring back Pontiac, with a range of bodystyles based on the Alpha platform.

[SalesmanSean]

Watch this:  I would like to see GM bring back Pontiac, with a range of bodystyles based on the Alpha platform.

Pontiac was definitely my number two choice, for much the same reason I chose Mercury, I want to see GM have a performance division, I want them to have cars to compete with FCAs SRTs and FoMoCos RSs.

[Drew Dowdell]

I think there is still too many brands and we need to consolidate, not resurrect a dead brand. With that, I pose this counter idea.

 

With the large amount of mega car companies, Which name plates would you retire and what would you do to the remaining brands to have the same wide appeal?

 

To me a perfect example of this is Opel, Yes builds some great cars but has done nothing but cost money for GM. I would say make Chevy a truly global brand by converting Opel dealers to Chevy. Then you have world wide Chevy - Buick - Cadillac and Professional Grade is GMC and with that you bring back Medium duty trucks to the GMC name plate only.

 

Opel loses money due to GM's accounting.  Opel bears a lot of GM's R&D costs that other business units get to take advantage of.  The same thing happened with Saab ... Saab did a ton of work on the original Epsilon platform and 2.0T ecotec engines, but GM North America got to book most of the profits for those developments. 

 

Opel needs to stick around because the Europeans have already shown that they won't buy "family" Chevrolets.  Chevy and Opel both may have an unfavorable opinion over there, but a German will push an Opel before he'll drive a Chevy. 

[balthazar]

 

In that IMO the RANGE of cars available today has compressed (IE; you can get full amenities in a nissan versa it seems) AND design is growing increasingly homogenized due to outside factors (IE: CAFE), I would like to see a truly unique brand return. Something that goes off in as much of another engineering direction as is possible today. Like a flash boiler steam turbine driven streamliner… can I haz that? 

Whatever you want, just maybe try and make it make at least a little sense for the brand that you're resurrecting to do it.

 

OK then : Doble.

[Drew Dowdell]

 

 

In that IMO the RANGE of cars available today has compressed (IE; you can get full amenities in a nissan versa it seems) AND design is growing increasingly homogenized due to outside factors (IE: CAFE), I would like to see a truly unique brand return. Something that goes off in as much of another engineering direction as is possible today. Like a flash boiler steam turbine driven streamliner… can I haz that? 

Whatever you want, just maybe try and make it make at least a little sense for the brand that you're resurrecting to do it.

 

OK then : Doble.

 

 

Someone years ago tried to do a modern Doble powertrain in a first gen Taurus. 

[David]

 

I think there is still too many brands and we need to consolidate, not resurrect a dead brand. With that, I pose this counter idea.

 

With the large amount of mega car companies, Which name plates would you retire and what would you do to the remaining brands to have the same wide appeal?

 

To me a perfect example of this is Opel, Yes builds some great cars but has done nothing but cost money for GM. I would say make Chevy a truly global brand by converting Opel dealers to Chevy. Then you have world wide Chevy - Buick - Cadillac and Professional Grade is GMC and with that you bring back Medium duty trucks to the GMC name plate only.

 

Opel loses money due to GM's accounting.  Opel bears a lot of GM's R&D costs that other business units get to take advantage of.  The same thing happened with Saab ... Saab did a ton of work on the original Epsilon platform and 2.0T ecotec engines, but GM North America got to book most of the profits for those developments. 

 

Opel needs to stick around because the Europeans have already shown that they won't buy "family" Chevrolets.  Chevy and Opel both may have an unfavorable opinion over there, but a German will push an Opel before he'll drive a Chevy. 

 

That is some interesting insight, I can see the point your making though as I think germans would push an opel before a Chevy, but I wonder about the rest of Europe? Here on the other hand die hard americans would push a US brand before a german or asian I believe.

[balthazar]

 

 

 

In that IMO the RANGE of cars available today has compressed (IE; you can get full amenities in a nissan versa it seems) AND design is growing increasingly homogenized due to outside factors (IE: CAFE), I would like to see a truly unique brand return. Something that goes off in as much of another engineering direction as is possible today. Like a flash boiler steam turbine driven streamliner… can I haz that? 

Whatever you want, just maybe try and make it make at least a little sense for the brand that you're resurrecting to do it.

 

OK then : Doble.

 

Someone years ago tried to do a modern Doble powertrain in a first gen Taurus. 

A key Doble engineer (I would have to look his name up) was involved with General Motors's 2 steam experimental projects circa 1969. Interesting, because the final Doble was 1925, IIRC.

[David]

Interesting learning today about the Doble. Did not know that much about steam cars but these sound cool.

[Drew Dowdell]

 

 

I think there is still too many brands and we need to consolidate, not resurrect a dead brand. With that, I pose this counter idea.

 

With the large amount of mega car companies, Which name plates would you retire and what would you do to the remaining brands to have the same wide appeal?

 

To me a perfect example of this is Opel, Yes builds some great cars but has done nothing but cost money for GM. I would say make Chevy a truly global brand by converting Opel dealers to Chevy. Then you have world wide Chevy - Buick - Cadillac and Professional Grade is GMC and with that you bring back Medium duty trucks to the GMC name plate only.

 

Opel loses money due to GM's accounting.  Opel bears a lot of GM's R&D costs that other business units get to take advantage of.  The same thing happened with Saab ... Saab did a ton of work on the original Epsilon platform and 2.0T ecotec engines, but GM North America got to book most of the profits for those developments. 

 

Opel needs to stick around because the Europeans have already shown that they won't buy "family" Chevrolets.  Chevy and Opel both may have an unfavorable opinion over there, but a German will push an Opel before he'll drive a Chevy. 

 

That is some interesting insight, I can see the point your making though as I think germans would push an opel before a Chevy, but I wonder about the rest of Europe? Here on the other hand die hard americans would push a US brand before a german or asian I believe.

 

Native Europeans very much favor european brands, and when there is a home country brand available, they favor that even more.  Thus in Germany, the majority of cars are German cars, in France, the majority are French cars.  The Spanish like their SEATS which, though not in the majority, have a strong bit of market share. 

 

The one exception to this rule is Ford.  Ford made a huge effort to integrate themselves into the European social fabric.. and Europeans are actually a bit snobbish about their Fords.... "Oh, my Ford is not an American Ford... it is a European Ford!". Thus, these Fords are considered domestics rather than imports.... usually because they are. 

 

One of my trips to Germany was around the time of the initial launch of the Fiesta in the US.  It was having a hard time gaining traction here, but walking around Cologne, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Fiesta.  Part of the reason is that Ford has/had a large production facility in Cologne, so there were many Ford employees there. 

[ocnblu]

You were in Germany in 1978?

[Drew Dowdell]

... the current car

[ocnblu]

Oh OK