vivid shining brands

Watching Toyota wrestle with its major recall and manufacturing suspension due to gas pedal problems reminds me of the similar trouble that befell Audi in 1989, when its flagship 5000 had similar issues that threatened to destroy the brand entirely. From an article in the Chicago Sun Times at the time: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday it has closed a three-year investigation of so-called "sudden  acceleration " in  Audi  5000 models, saying driver error was the major source of the  problem . "The major cause appears to have been drivers' unknowingly stepping on the accleratator instead of the brake pedal," NHTSA said. Reports of sudden accleration, in which a car inexplicably surges forward while still in park or at low speeds, were devastating to  Audi 's U.S. sales. They dropped from 74,000 in 1984 to 23,000 last year. Of course, Audi did not meet its demise as a result, but became a very quiet brand for many years a...

From the NY Times today, by way of the Wheels Blog's coverage of the Detroit Auto Show: By far the most lavish display is from the Korean company CT&T, which has an ambitious expansion plan for the United States. According to  its Web site , “We CT&T are manufacturing environment-friendly Electric Vehicles for your dreams come true with the talented and the stable know-hows.” [emphasis added] Here is another situation where somebody at C&T really should have asked a few key questions of somebody in the United States, e.g. "Does what we wrote on our home page make any sense whatsoever?" and "Would police officers in the U.S. ever be caught dead riding in a vehicle that looks like a cheap toy?" In both cases, of course, the answer would be NO. In the first instance, as anyone who has used Google Translator knows, translation is not the same as Localization or Globalization, where a literal translation is scrutinized for relevance to the cultur...

Don't you hate mornings where you wake up to learn from the New York Times that yet another intrinsic part of your youth has died? with a narrow, though loyal, customer base focused on Sweden, Britain and the American Northeast, Saab has proved too small to lure the world’s big automakers, many of which are seeking tie-ups to increase economies of scale. For me, learning that SAAB would be closed by the feckless GM demons who became their master left a big hole in my heart. Why? Because a 1972 SAAB Model 96 was the first car I ever bought with my own money. It was my first automobile-based personal brand statement. I was a budding iconoclast, and could think of no better way to show that to the world than to drive around in this funny looking foreign car. The ignition on floor. The handle under the dashboard that you could pull out so the car would freewheel at highway speeds, settling the car into an eerie quiet as the motor shut down to idle, and the little upside-down bat...