So let’s present the not-really-candidates to buy either Jaguar, Volvo and Land-Rover or all of them together!

The unlikeliest are:

DaimlerChrysler – well, Daimler has decided to loose the Chrysler name, so why on earth should Daimler make another marriage when they just divorced their 10-year long partner? Also Mercedes is far to close to the three brands, Land Rover, Volvo or Jaguar.

BMW – some seem to like such a deal, I tend to differ. Land Rover or Jaguar are not interesting to BMW, remember Rover? And btw, BMW already owned Land Rover and seemed quite happy to get rid of them. After all, they could have kept Land-Rover just like Mini.  Volvo? They are front wheel drive cars, so what platform or component advantage would such a deal have for the BMW? Although some analysts speculate that Volvo and BMW customers are different, in our increasingly heterogenic world, who knows. So such a deal is not going to happen.

Volkswagen – Skoda and Audi are the Volvos of VW. So why adding the real thing, when Skoda and Audi are selling nicely? And VW has other problems to think about, the shareholding structure and Porsche, productivity and cost efficiency as well as the reshaping of the VW make.  How aboutLand Rover and Jaguar? Land Rover is a niche player and in combination with Bentley might be an interesting luxury option for VW. Jaguar is loosing money, rear wheel drive and therefore difficult to swallow. So, a VW deal is unlikely.

GM- oh please !

Japanese – Honda and Toyota don’t seem to wish to buy in general and show that brands can be developed from scratch quickly and successfully. So why on earth should they buy problems when they don’t have any?

technorati tags:Ford, Jaguar, Volvo, Land-Rover, BMW, Mercedes, Daimler, Toyota, Honda, Porsche, Skoda, Audi, Automobile Industry, buyers

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OK, so now we know officially that Fords wants to sell it’s silver. Everybody has known that for quite some time and if somebody had made Ford an interesting offer they would have sold those three long ago. But nobody seems to make an offer interesting enough. Why?

Industry “insiders” play games and publicly try to marry especially Volvo to some other car firm, like Renault-Nissan, PSA or BMW. For whatever reason, the big Japanese are not in the game. Maybe because Japanese firms have never really bought any big rival, considering those actions and the consequences too messy. And as they have shown, it’s easier to create brands like Acura or Lexus from scratch.

So let’s have some fun and explore some options over the next days. I have my favourite solution which I will present at the end of this “series” and I sincerely hope that Ford doesn’t make a deal before we finish our speculations. That would indeed spoil the fun

technorati tags:Jaguar, Land-Rover, Volvo, Ford, Automobile Industry

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I like the Smart ForTwo, I really do. But I don’t get the colour-equipment relation. Why isn’t it possible to order a Smart ForTwo in “Passion” trim (Luxury) with “stream green” body panels? “Stream green” is only available with the “sporty” version called “Pulse”.

Another example: by paying twice as much for the Brabus compared to the basic “pure” version, you are getting less than half the choice of colours, silver or black for the Brabus instead of white, black, red, blue, grey and black.

That’s what I call artificial marketing restrictions.

The latest news from the VW Group in the last month or so are quite worrying. It almost looks like much of what was gained over the last 20 years will be reverted or endangered… in only a few months. Sales were up this year and results in general were improving. In the last years, Pischetrieder’s team and project had gained the credibility from all. Still a lot of work to be done to be where the company should be, but things were on track.

Suddenly, and sadly, Piech is back in the picture and… who knows what will happen in the end, but it seems that, for a start, the groups of brands will be reorganised by ‘volume’ and ‘prestige’. The new CEO, Martin Winterkorn seems to be planning to revert many of the positive decisions that Bernd Pischetsrieder took. The latest rumours are that even SEAT is not in Winterkorn’s future plans, and could be up for sale. Apparently Wolfgang Bernhard is opposed to this. But then again, he may soon leave VW (to go back to DCX). Bernhard has demonstrated to be not just an effective cost cutter, but also to have a very fine sense for products and marketing (Chrysler 300C, new VW Scirocco, VW Tiguan…).

If Bernhard leaves VW, SEAT is sold out of the group, and other news of late are confirmed, the future for the VW group has a much worse prospect to recover as a leading company. For the last 20 years (since about the time when SEAT was bought by VW) the Group is the leader automotive group in Europe; the VW that Winterkorn (Piech?) seems to be designing would not take long to lose this position and become number two –or less- in Europe. And these are rumours even before Winterkorn starts his job as the new CEO. As an fan of the company, let’s hope these rumours prove to be wrong and things start getting back of track.

Most men (and women) will tell you that 20cm is bloody long. Now in car terms 20cm length can mean the world. For example luxury cars are often offered in two lengths: normal and long. The long S-Class has additional 13cm, the long Audi A8 has additional … 13 cm and the long BMW 7-series has got additional 14cm. That must be some kind of German consensus or standard for the VIP legroom requirement.

And now Smart has announced a stretched version of the ForTwo lengthened by a whopping 20cm. Ahem no, it’s not a stretched version. Is it the new Smart S-Class with plush carpet and chauffeurs for politicians and top managers? No. It’s just the new smart, no kidding.

The big S-Class is 2.5% longer than the tiny normal model. By comparison the Smart is now longer than the predecessor by 8%! For the S-Class, 8% would mean an additional 40.8cm! That’s nearly half a meter! How can I emphasize that growth with exclamation marks, I need three of them !!!

THE feature of the Smart is or was the size. One DaimlerChrysler manager said you still could park it perpendicularly. How many parking lanes are there which have 2.70m in width? In the center of Berlin where Smarts are used to parked along the tree spaces, that may still work, but this is very peculiar to Berlin…

DB claims, that they had to do it, safety regulations and all. Spare me. It just means bad planning, bad design specifications and not enough courage to start all over again when they realized in the development process that the smart was becoming too fat.

Have I finished ranting. No by all means. The new car looks more like a kit car on the pics you can find at carscoop, than the old one did. Check out especially the photos from the side. Particularly the rear side lost the sexy curves and rounds. I just hope that the new smart looks better in real life than on these pics.

Above is the “old” Smart ForTwo Cabrio and below is the new one.

technorati tags:Smart, ForTwo, Smart ForTwo, new Smart

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Einem Blogpost folgen typische Kommentare zur Marke smart und deren Autos. Die smart Kritiker teilen sich üblicherweise in die, die die kleinen Flitzer nicht mögen und die, die smart eine Teilschuld am wirtschaftlichen Mißerfolg von DC geben.

Tatsächlich wurde sehr viel Geld in die smart-Entwicklung gesteckt und damit sehr viel Lehrgeld bezahlt. Ein solches Abenteuer ist typisch für große Konzerne, die auf der einen Seite Mut haben ein neues Konzept zu wagen und auf der anderen Seite sich selber Zügel anlegen, da sie Angst vor der eigenen Courage haben.

Ist smart wirtschaftlich sinnvoll? Es gibt einen Markt für solche Minifahrzeuge, man braucht sich bloß in den Großstädten umzuschauen. Private Innenstädter lieben die kleinen und viele Gewerbe brauchen ihn, da sie die idealen Stadtservicefahrzeuge sind und zudem sich noch als tolle Werbefläche eignen.

Stimmt das technische Konzept? Auch hier wurde eine Menge Lehrgeld bezahlt, aber zum Einen ist smart ein Produktionsprototyp für DC und sowas kostet nun einmal relativ viel und darf nicht nur auf smart gerechnet werden. Das Autopaket ist ein toller Anfang, wenn auch manche Ideen nicht zu Ende gedacht wurden.

Die anderen smart Reihen wie den Roadster und den ForFour können rückblickend als ein Abtasten des Marktes gewertet werden. Der ForFour entsprach nicht dem smart-Konzept, sondern sah nur so aus und bot einfach keinen Mehrwert gegenüber anderen Kleinwagen. Er war eine Mißgeburt, bei der sich DC Manager wohl dachten, wir haben zwei Probleme, Mitsubishi und smart, packen wir beide zusammen, minus mal minus ergibt plus. Der Roadster war eigentlich ein gutes Auto, hatte leider etwas zu wenig Leistung sowie die nervige Halbautomatik und war für das was er bot sauteuer.

Ein weiteres Experementierfeld ist das Vertriebskonzept gewesen. Zunächst wollte man smart als eigenständige Marke aufbauen, auch um ein von DC unbeeindrucktes Publikum anzusprechen. Leider sind die SmartCenter zu Klonen der DC Struktur geworden, zwar peppig, aber unflexibel, häufig unfreundlich und teuer. Also hat DC dann die Bremse gezogen und sie in den DC-Vertrieb einverleibt. Konsequent, aber nicht viel besser. Meine Erfahrungen mit DC-Niederlassungen sind alles andere gut. Auch hier beweist DC, daß ein deutscher Großkonzern gerne zurückrudert, wenn eigentlich innovative Konsequenz gefordert ist.

Trotz alledem tut DC gut daran, smart nicht einzustampfen. Nicht wenige Benzkunden haben auch einen Smart in der Garage und die Ehefrau fände es gar nicht witzig, wenn es keinen Smart mehr gäbe.