American brands will need to find a way to ensure they can build and sell sedans profitably
  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    If you can’t compete on price, you have to figure out how to make it cool (e.g. go back to “win on Sunday, sell on Monday”). Dodge succeeded with the Charger and at least kinda tried with stuff like the Neon and the Dart, but failed to actually make a SRT-4 for the latter and thus screwed it up. Ford and GM didn’t even try.

    • David_Eight@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      2 days ago

      Cadillac is going racing in multiple series including F1 and the V/Blackwing cars have been cool for a while.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    2 days ago

    Ford should bring back the Continental. $100k. Suicide doors. Slabside design. Hybrid range extended or, for extra, a massive v8.

    They don’t need to make any other sedan, because for all his wrongs, Farley was right about not being able to compete with Asia. So they shouldn’t.

    • Cptn_Slow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      I partially disagree, I don’t think they can compete with asia, but at the same time I think they are massively shooting themselves in the foot in the long term.

      I’m sure Ford can’t make a Focus for the same profit Toyota can make a Camry. But imagine you are a college student/fresh graduate and you need a car. Well Ford decided to kill the Focus/Fusion so you have to buy a Camry, and now when you go to buy your big boy car, instead of going straight to the Explorer/F-150, you’ve already popped your foreign car cherry, and as long as the Camry wasn’t a massive piece of shit, your going to look at Highlanders and Tundras.

      So not only is Ford not even giving young people a chance to form brand loyalty, now they have to compete on price with the models that they have/had better margins on.

      You don’t have to make huge profits on your sedans, just don’t lose your ass and look at it as an investment. But as with all shareholder appeasement strategies, the cats out of the bag, they’ve traded brand loyalty for a short term share increase, and now they don’t know what to do now that the market turned around anyway.

      …and yes, bring back the Continental, that was one of the better designs to come out of the big three in a while.

  • RegularJoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Hey, well, I’m the friendly stranger in the black sedan

    Oh, won’t you hop inside my car

    I got pictures, got candy, I am a lovable man

    I’d like to take you to the nearest star

    I’m your vehicle baby

    I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go

    I’m your vehicle woman

    By now, I’m sure you know

    That I love ya (love you)

    I need ya (need you)

    I want to, got to have you child

    Great God in Heaven, you know I love you

    -The Ides of March “Vehicle” [1970]