A bit about Swab (not Saab), which is over 130 years old:

At the close of the Civil War, Jonas Swab returned home and was employed for five months at the implement factory in Pillow where he learned blacksmithing.  In the spring of 1867 he took a trip as far westward as Omaha, Nebraska, and worked for a while in several places.  He returned home in December of 1867, and on March 8, 1868 purchased a tract of land from H. W. Schreffler in Elizabethville, present location of the firm.  It was here he opened his blacksmith shop, which later became Swab Wagon Company.

Jonas Swab married in Elizabethville, December 4, 1869 to Ellen S. Mattis.  Three children were born of the marriage, but only one daughter lived past childhood.  Etta M. (Margerum) Swab died February 9, 1968 at the age of 80.

Mr. Swab was widely known as a reliable and enterprising manufacturer.  His wagons were classed second to none throughout the East.  The demand for Swab Wagons was so great that for a period of 30 years, the plant was closed only three days, exclusive of Sundays and legal holidays.

A great old Willys Overland Jeep, 1949, only $8950.

Above, a Ford Ranch Wagon, 1966, only $3,950.

But I am really Jones-ing for this Chrysler Newport.

GM or Chrysler ought to buy out a dealer like this, just to keep their fingers on their old brand legacies. They won’t of course, but you can still have some fun poking around their website and wishing you could drive one out TOMORROW.

Country Classic Cars  2149 E. Frontage Rd.  Staunton, IL 62088, Phone: 618-635-7056

TURIN – Fiat has brought back the Abarth brand, and cars are being delivered to the U.K. this month. Abarth, a sub-brand of Fiat (BIT: F), is one of many car brands that have returned to life in Europe in recent years, including Mini, Maybach, Bugatti and Spyker. The brand has a great racing history; Karl Abarth founded the company in Turin in 1949, and through the years the company Abarth & C. S.r.l competed against Porsche and Ferrari.

The brand survived, though not as a complete car line. Over the years, the brand survived by being associated with customizing, including co-branded models from Fiat, Autobianchi and Lancia, including the Fiat Ritmo Abarth 130 TC. (This is a possibility for GM with Oldsmobile.)

The new Abarth is somewhere between a sports car and a Mini, with too much racing heritage to be called zippy, yet still quite zippy looking. Its offices are located in the Officine Mirafiori in Turin.

This newly revived old brand comes at the same time as Chrysler LLC announced a link-up with Fiat. Chrysler officials said that they could have a Fiat model for sale in the U.S. within two years after the company buys a 35 percent stake in Chrysler. This notice came from Chrysler’s Jim Press.

Fiat Good Fit

Brand wise, makes sense that Fiat is interested in Chrysler, and if it goes through, Fiat would be a perfect partner. Chrysler has dealers that are DESPERATE for decent cars to sell, and adding all or one of the Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Fiat brands to the Chrysler dealer lineup would be a great jolt to long-suffering folk. In particular Fiat and Alfa Romeo have great brand equity in the U.S.; the influx of immigrants from Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the last two decades also means that there are large audiences for those brands here in the U.S.

In addition, Fiat would know how to give advice to Chrysler in the sales of these small cars. After all, Italy is highly unionized, has expensive labor and is, by all means and ways, a quite impractical country with nothing efficient about anything. But there is a way around those things. In fact, there is a way around everything that isn’t practical. It’s called being clever, ingenious and passionate, and Fiat is known for its automated production.

Daimler was the wrong partner for Chrysler, and they ruined it. They did not appreciate what they had, and they tried to make the company into something it wasn’t. At Daimler, they were used to doing things in a quality way, with the best materials and workmanship, the costs be somewhat ignored. Chrysler hasn’t had quality in a long time, but at at their best Dodges and Chryslers are inexpensive, easy to repair and quite straightforward, making them cheap to keep. Another reason why Fiat is a good partner is that Fiat is scrappy.

Chrysler has a long affinity for Italy and Italian design. Interestingly, it was Chrysler during the Lee Iacocca era that partnered with Maserati to produce the short-run production of the Chrysler TC by Maserati. Imagine making Maseratis on a K-car chassis!

Fiat understands branding, and its actions with a marque as small as Abarth shows that they understand what they have in Chrysler. Strangely, if Chrysler and GM can make it through the next year or so, Chrysler might have some teen-tiny advantages. Being broke, it has to be clever. And being desperate for new models means it will try new things. GM, meanwhile, has tons of different models, and not alot interesting in the pipeline. Chrysler, however, if it had Fiat as a partner, would suddenly not only have a large number of new Chrysler models, but would potentially have a lineup that was almost completely new. Add to that Chrysler’s minivans (GM has none) and you suddenly have something very interesting.

Over a year ago, we wrote a piece on the Plymouth brand, and how it was a mistake for Daimler Chrysler to kill it. With the Fiat partnership, we could easily see it coming back, even as a one-model sub-brand of Chrysler. The reality is that Chrysler dealers have no economy cars to sell, and economy is the niche of Plymouth.

Last fall, we wrote a piece (only slightly) in jest, joking that perhaps General Motors could sell consumers an Oldsmobile Switcheroo Kit. This kit would be sold to Saturn dealers, who could pop the ugly Saturn badges off of Saturn cars and turn them into Oldsmobiles. These newly badged Oldsmobiles would be cars that old people would actually buy, and cars that young people would think are cool (the only people who think Saturn is cool are 55-year-old boomers).

Idea for U.S. Car Manufacturers to Steal:

What is fascinating about Fiat’s Abarth brand is that there is a VERY small management staff for the brand, and part of the company’s leadership is a hands-on racing team. In addition, at the company’s headquarters at Officine Mirafiori, there is a small area where short production runs of the cars can be made, as well as a repair shop and Abarth museum. This sort of low cost idea could be used for any of the dormant U.S. brands (Plymouth, Oldsmobile).

It is ironic that Fiat uses its historic old plants as museum/offices and research facilities. American automakers just tear the buildings down and leave the town in rubble. It’s a great message to tell the community; everything we do is disposable.

A niche approach like Fiat Abarth might be a good way for General Motors to preserve the equity of the Hummer brand and realize some profits from it, as a sort of profit making “halo car” built for the specialty market.

DETROIT - For the Obama inauguration, two Detroit News staffers, Charlie LeDuff and Max Ortiz, drove a 1973 Checker cab from Michigan to D.C. Thanks to our buddy Peter Hubbel, a native of Michigan, for pointing the article out to us. He’s a Checker Cab fan.

The article is called “Rust Belt in a Rusty Checker Cab” and it traces them from Detroit through Toledo, Cleveland, New Brighton, Pittsburgh, Bedford, Gettysburg and Baltimore. It’s got some video of the trip, and the car; particularly poignant is their reading of the Gettysburg Address.

It’s a great idea, and points up a number of facts:

1. The Checker was a cool car. Very cool. Cult appeal. Pity it didn’t survive. There is still something there.
2. The Checker was made in Kalamazoo. I need learn more about this.
3. There is untapped industrial energy in America. Where the heck did it go? And why can’t we get it back.
4. Americans need to make things again.
5. This is a great country. Says LeDuff, when a car repair mechanic says it is a deathtrap and it won’t make it the whole way to Washington, “American Ends in I-Can.”

The Checker Cab appears on:

• our 100 Brands to Bring Back list.
• It is also on our Brands to Bring Back Facebook application, which lets you send your favorite dead brands to friends.

The folks at General Motors are apparently giving Pontiac short attention during press events this week. Bad omen for a great American brand, says Byron Hurd on the site SpeedSportLife.com. Writes Hurd:

In fact, due to Pontiac’s location near the loading area, their floor space was practically eliminated during GM’s press conference so they could parade the likes of the Opel Insignia and Chevrolet Cruze down the red carpet. Nothing will give your brand team confidence like pulling the rug out from under them (pun intended) so you can showcase a collection of production concepts that may not even see U.S. soil in this decade, if at all.

Read Hurd’s great post on the show at www.speedsportlife.com. And a note to auto execs. Cut out the production concepts. We want to see products you are going to make. Anyone can do “production concepts.” GM needs to sell product.

However, there are many independent dealers who sell Citgo gas, especially here in Florida. In addition, the company employs Americans, and still has major operations here. To help burnish their image, Citgo is re-running nostalgic ads in target markets like Florida. While we don’t like the politics of the company’s government ownership, Citgo is smart to emphasize its American legacy.

It pushes the nostalgia on us curmudgeonly Americans, who wish we still lived in a time when Jackie Kennedy-looking moms drove convertible red Galaxie 500s, and boys wore John-John suits, and gas was sold by clean cut, blue capped filling station attendants. Of course it is an idealized scene, but looking back on it it is strangely realistic, except that mom usually didn’t drive the convertible. What is real is the scene; all the gas stations gave away LOTS of cool stuff, and everyone did dress up, and not just on Sunday.

We do not agree with the politics of the country that owns Citgo, but we applaud them for emphasizing the company’s heritage here in the U.S.

Citgo. There at Every turn.

This week began the beginning of the Model T’s 100th anniversary year. It is of course the worst time ever for the auto industry, even worse than the 1970s. Ford is a sad case, but it’s worse at GM, where major Chevrolet dealerships are closing because they are unsellable. None of the automakers has a cash cushion, and they are turning to the government.

Against this backdrop, we found Edsel Ford’s 100th anniversary address to a group of assembled Model T collectors inspiring, a living lesson in American history. We are indebted to Paul Ingrassia of The Wall Street Journal, who wrote about the recent 100th anniversary Model T convention in Richmond, Indiana, and the site www.autonetwork.com for posting the speech on YouTube. The speech is 15 minutes long, but for anyone who is interested in the automobile industry, it speaks to an important idea. Keeping a brand alive is not just for nostalgia’s sake, but is all about keeping a certain idea alive.

The Model T was the embodiment of an idea. Edsel’s point about the Model T? It was not created for its own sake, but as a means to an end, a means to freedom, to help the middle class visit “God’s great open spaces.” Henry Ford was so sentimental about the car that he kept it in production longer than the market needed it.

At the meeting, he thanked the gathered collectors:

Not merely to Ford Motor company, but to us as a people. As a society. You are more than collectors, I think you are more than curators. You are more than custodians of a unique creation now entering its second century of existence. You are the guardians. You are the guardians of the spirit that got the whole thing going. You are the keepers of the flame. As long as we have people who love the Model T we will never forget what brought us here. You are the bright and steady landmark that gives us our bearings. You help us keep on track.”

But he didn’t let it evolve into nostalgia, saying that “Ford Motor Company is only a little way along the journey. We are still fresh to our journey. …. Successful companies never have journeys that are completed. But they all have beginnings. They all have starting points.”

The Model T was that start. Edsel then broke up on this line.

“Thank you for displaying proudly the Ford script, …. and the blue oval.”

Certainly, there is emotion wrapped up in the sentence. The Ford family has lost a fortune with the drop in stock value, and a cynic would say that this would make anyone cry. There is an old joke that says that Ford Motor would REALLY be a great company, if the family would just stay away.

But as with all families, there are things that imperfect, and the Ford family is no different than any other. What matters is that the family is still involved, and is still fighting for the company. Too many families do not fight for their family companies, but in the case of Ford, it matters to Edsel, and those gathered Ford fans, that the script and blue oval still says Ford.

The petitions to bring back Oldsmobile are growing. It has been one of the top searches on BrandlandUSA. We wanted to bring to our readers’ attention a few of the sites that are beginning to catch on to the value of Oldsmobile to General Motors. They are listed below.

In fact, looking back on the decision, General Motors shareholders should be really ticked off about how much the company has done to destroy generations of consumer goodwill and stockholder value. It’s time General Motors got back to being General Motors again. The company needs Cadillac. Buick. Pontiac. Chevrolet. Oldsmobile. Maybe Saturn. Certainly GMC. Not Hummer.

A few mentions on the message boards.

• Popular Hotrodding’s message board has a section on it.
• There are only TWO petitions on the PetitionSpot.com petition, but please add more. That’s very lame, so it’s not helping my case any but at least someone took the time to make a petition.
• Petition Online has Bring Back Oldsmobile. There are 1100 signatures there, and many of the writers make VERY good points.
• Autoblog, Bring Back Studebaker.

Read our posts on the issue.

• GM Stock Drop Mirrors Olds Elimination
• Hummer, Good Riddance Sort of
• LaSalle, General Motors and the Aristede case
• Down the Road for Chrysler Plymouth Dealers

The Detroit Electric brand will return almost 60 years after it shut down. Its hopefully the first of many American automotive brands that are is tapping into American automotive history for for some attention.

Once only a museum exhibit, the resuscitated brand is a joint announcement between US electric car pioneer ZAP and China Youngman Automotive Group. They are reviving the 100- year-old electric car brand Detroit Electric for their joint venture and hope to bring the car to market by 2009.

Above, Steve Schneider, CEO of ZAP, and Detroit Electric Chairman Albert Lam celebrate the revival of Detroit Electric next to a 1918 Detroit Electric 75 Coupe, which was on display February 9-12, 2008 at the National Automobile Dealers Association Conference and Expo in San Francisco (PRNewsFoto/ZAP).

Detroit Electric was an early 20th Century electric car, perhaps the most popular in history. The Anderson Electric Car Company started building the cars under the Detroit Electric brand over 100 years ago; the company closed in 1939. The company will build a special replica car to celebrate the brand, a car that had customers like Thomas Edison, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Henry Ford’s Wife Clara, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

The trend of Chinese interest in revived American brand names is a trend that will continue. Unlike other Asian countries like Japan and Korea, China seems to have a love of Western brand names and no insecurity about using them. It is smart business; the Chinese get some instant awareness for their company that gives them a one-up in the American market. And the U.S. gets a boost as high-margin planning, distribution, design and marketing jobs are created in the U.S. From the analytics of BrandlandUSA, many of the web searches that find BrandlandUSA are coming from Asian exporters searching for “dead brands” that can be used on products for the export market.

GM, with its defunct Olds brand, and Chrysler, with its defunct Plymouth and DeSoto brands, would do well to look at this case study. U.S. automakers have not been as good at reviving old nameplates as European makers, which have revived Mini, Bugatti and Bentley. While GM and Chrysler might not be ready to bring back these storied nameplates, the option of producing a replica model is an easy way to keep the intellectual property alive. And the knowledge that there is interest in these brands in Asia is evidence that while these brands might not be up for a revival in the U.S., they might come back abroad.

A bit of advice: The Nash Metropolitian is a more interesting car than the Mini, and the Mini came back.