rant on GM (garbage motors)

[Jay Negrin <jmnegrin@domain.elided>]

Charlie -

You wrote to the Digest:

<<As I see it today, the main value to GM of the ALFA brand is that it
could be promoted as sophisticated, sexy, European, and not a dowdy
American product that is more like a toaster than an aspirational
lifestyle signifier for those educated and affluent enough to buy or
lease new vehicles... and
psychologically attuned in such a way that they prefer a car to a
truck.  IOW, ALFAs need to be sold, in the USA, to people who want to
buy a car and
are able to do so, which is a shrinking, lower-margin, and hotly
contested segment.>>

Whatever GM/ALFA does, it will, most certainly, have to be done with
good marketing.  You hit the nail on the head, that appearances are
EVERYTHING.  If the PR guys can sell "it", all the mfg arm has to do is
build "it" (whatever "it" is).  If you build a dowdy, pushrod, automatic
trans, blandly-styled, chrome-mobile and pass it off as a luxury
high-tech gizmo, and then people buy it, then you are a success.  Of
course the car may be a P.O.S., but what the heck.  It sells.  I think
that is what GM wants, something that has pizzazz in the name, an
image.  To hell what goes on underneath.  Most people don't diddle with
the greasy bits any way.

All this is pretty dismal for Alfa and Alfa nuts like us, in the USofA.

Think, for a minute, of Ford.  In the 80's, if I remember correctly,
they tried to market European Fords, in the US, under the name Merkur
(German for Mercury).  They (corporate and dealers) didnt know how to
sell the product, or what the hell it was, even.  Why sell a car for
that much money, and that little profit, when a luxo-barge Lincoln or
Mercury ('Murican Ahrn) could be sold easier, and for more money.
Ford's heart may have been in the right place, but the spin doctors were
on holiday.


Here's hoping that GM does NOT do the same thing with the Italian brands
of cars.  They thought of doing it to SAAB, turning it into an
Oldsmobile, and they have done it with other imported marques before.
Crossed fingers that we, here in the US, and ultimately in the rest of
the world, don't end up with Geo Romeos.  (For those who don't know, Geo
was a General Motors made-up brand, here in the USofA.  Included were
Suzuki cars and mini-SUVs, Toyotas made in California and Isuzu cars and
trucks.  Note minimal American or even GM content.)

OK.  I got that out of my system. I will quit crying for now.
Thanx for listening.  And now, back to our regularly scheduled
programing.

Jay Negrin
ARO So Cal
76 Alfetta GT -

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