THE AUTOEXTREMIST

January 20, 2010

Three Troubled Brands: Shocks Linger in the Aftermath of the Detroit Auto Show.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

Detroit. Having had time to reflect on what went on at Cobo Hall last week, it’s clear to me that some brands are in more trouble than even they might think. It was stunning to me that three brands in particular, Honda, Toyota and BMW, are reeling, so much so that their swoon - and the ascendance of certain rivals - could dramatically alter the North American automotive market permanently.

Japan Inc.’s star automakers - the same two car companies that consumed vast swaths of the U.S. market virtually unimpeded over the last three decades – are now struggling, and it’s almost hard to fathom just how quickly they’ve lost their way.

In Toyota’s case, their relentless obsession to be the biggest, baddest car company on the planet has cost them dearly. Too many plants were built, which led to the company having too much capacity on hand, and in the process of doing that they took their collective eyes off of the ball, which led to an undeniable slip in quality, heretofore their Holy Grail, and the principle raison d’etre for the company. And remember, all of this was undertaken in the quest to unseat General Motors as the world’s biggest automaker. Sounds wildly misguided and painfully irrelevant right about now, doesn’t it?

But there’s more to Toyota’s slide than the above-mentioned laundry list of reasons. The fact of the matter is that the company that thrived on being the quiet but strong and formidable No. 2 absolutely sucks at being No. 1. They’re so bad at it in fact that they’ve completely lost their mojo.

In the old days Toyota could get by with their blandtastic transportation devices because they smugly knew that their customers would go along to get along with that style of detached motoring, because their customers also knew that nothing went wrong with their vehicles, ever. And that was plenty good enough.

Now in the midst of a relentless series of recalls, that ol’ Toyota quality magic has been blown to smithereens, and their reputation is in tatters. And amazingly enough consumers have quickly gotten the message that there are other automakers out there delivering the kind of quality numbers that used to be exclusively associated with Toyota.

And now that this has happened, Toyota has begun questioning everything they do with the kind of public hand-wringing that is painful to watch, because it’s clear they don’t really get it, no matter how well-intentioned their public self-flagellation is.

Do they make bland vehicles? Absolutely. And that didn’t used to be a problem. But in today’s cutthroat market it is a huge problem for Toyota because to the consumer if the quality is comparable, then all things being equal they will naturally gravitate toward style and appealing design, and Toyota is nowhere when it comes to those factors. As in not even close.

But while Toyota is doing its corporate navel-gazing and trying to figure out how to become more “hip” in a world that has been basically turned upside down on top of them, the new Korean Hyundai-Kia juggernaut is threatening to blow right by them. The Koreans have discovered that great design and excellent driving dynamics are just as essential to success as quality and all-encompassing warranties, and they’re going to take that all the way to the bank with ever-increasing levels of market share and ever-growing conquest sales right out of Toyota’s - and Honda’s - hide.

And it’s not going to be pretty for Toyota, because now more than ever this business doesn’t take too kindly to car companies trying to play catch-up.

The FT-CH Concept that Toyota unveiled at Cobo Hall was really good, as I mentioned last week. But the deeper issues for Toyota are the kind that can’t be righted overnight. How does a company founded on the glories of assembly quality reinvent itself to be more? How does a company grown set in its ways take the road never traveled before and come out the other side more adventurous and bold? How does a company fundamentally opposed to risk-taking hang their collective asses out in the breeze and aspire to greatness, on all levels?

And what about Honda? Here is a company that was founded on risk-taking and pushing the envelope by a gifted engineer who believed in the enduring strengths of solid, reliable and good performing engines. It wasn’t the Honda Quality Company, or the Honda Transportation Company, it was the Honda Motor Company, a bold, competitive enterprise that reveled in innovation and proved its competence and technical acumen on racetracks the world over.

This was the Japanese automobile company that was crawling with enthusiasts - and the absolute antithesis of what Toyota stood for - the one that marched to a different drummer and awed its competitors and buyers alike with a series of vehicles that bristled with creativity, vision and an unbridled sense of how it was supposed to be.

But that wasn’t the car company on display at Cobo Hall last week. No, the Honda I witnessed at the Detroit Auto Show was barely recognizable, a lurid mash-up of reduced expectations, abominable design, paunchy, overweight and miserable excuses for “new” (the horrendous Honda Crosstour and Acura ZDX being egregious examples No. 1 & 2), the stunningly bad (the entire Acura lineup is a living and breathing class on how not to design cars), and a flat-out blown opportunity, the frighteningly mediocre and wildly underwhelming Honda CR-Z.

What happened? How can a car company with such a glorious history and pedigree drive it off into a ditch so convincingly? How can a company that was so out front of everyone else in terms of engineering-in responsiveness and “fun-to-drive” into their vehicles end-up with a product lineup that’s so relentlessly bland and un-Honda-like that it’s just flat-out shocking?

We all saw this coming, of course. When the brilliantly balanced and exquisitely executed S2000 sports car was put out to pasture with no replacement you just knew that there was an ill-wind blowing at Honda headquarters. In the “old” days that never would have been allowed to happen, and to me it signaled a fundamental lack of understanding, or worse, a growing chorus of “it doesn’t matter” from a car company that should damn well know better.

There are some signs of life at Honda with the recent regime change, but then again they’re going to have to prove to me – and to its legions of fans out there in Consumer Land – that they not only get it, but that they’re going to get back to what they do best, and that is to build some of the best and most desirable mainstream cars available in the world.

Until that time I guess we’re stuck with exactly one vehicle from Honda – the Fit – that at least reminds us somewhat of what they’re capable of doing. Not Good.

And then there’s BMW. Speaking of driving it off into a ditch, BMW is now two car companies diametrically opposed to each other. There’s the “old” BMW that graces us with the quintessential all-around enthusiast machine - the magnificent 3 Series - and, at least some of their “M” machines (only a few of which can be considered desirable), and then there’s the rest of the company, or, as I like to call it, “BMW Heavy” which specializes in overdone, overwrought land cruisers (X6, 5GT and other assorted crossover-SUVs) that are about as far away as you can get from the concept of the Ultimate Driving Machine.

In BMW’s case I don’t have to ask what happened. You could see this coming ten years ago, when I started this publication. It was right around then that the German automakers led by Mercedes and BMW launched a technological arms race that operated under the assumption that the more technology, the better, with vehicle mass and common sense be damned.

Combine that attitude with the fact that those two automakers felt compelled to chase every possible niche – both real and imagined – on the odd chance that they might actually get a leg up on their rival somehow, and the scenario grew exponentially. And then add in a huge dollop of hubris for good measure, oh, and then let the Bangle-led design era trundle along unfettered until it ran completely amuck and you have a recipe for complete disaster.

Now, we have “BMW Heavy” a purveyor of 5,000+ lb. people movers that have little rhyme or reason in the overall scheme of things. Add in “M” versions of some of those same vehicles, and you increase the hurl factor by about a 100.

Walking around the BMW display at Cobo was a little frightening, no, make that a lot frightening. All the accoutrements were there, the sleek display with cool graphics - the overall look and feel of a BMW display that you’d expect to see at an auto show - but it was as if a cruel plot had been unleashed overnight and the BMW vehicles – at least the vehicles you’d expect from BMW – were nowhere to be found, instead replaced by a posse of lumbering behemoths that could exist quite nicely as the “Official Vehicles of America’s Biggest Loser.”

It was a real eye-opener, to say the least.

In the Aftermath of the Detroit Auto Show what struck me the most was that three brands – BMW, Honda and Toyota – brands that had formerly had their proverbial shit together, had all gotten completely off track, displaying in varying degrees an ugly combination of delusional and wrong-headed thinking and utter cluelessness that left me with the stark realization that they had completely forgotten what they stood for, and had no idea what to do or where to go next..

Oh, what a world, what a world, as the Wicked Witch of the West so eloquently put it.

That’s all I got.

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