Nevertheless, the return is good news. Because through the years, one niche that Chrysler excelled in was the market for small, economy cars. Mostly un-hip, Chrysler cars were never boring and because they were so unfashionable (but practical in price and maintenance cost), they had a sort of reverse snob appeal.

Chrysler small cars were always interesting, unlike GM and Ford, which had AWFUL early small cars like the Ford Pinto and Chevy Vega. The late 1970s-1980s Dodge Omni/Horizon was terribly practical, even though some of its features (such as corduroy fabric seats and fake exterior wood grain) were oddly compelling. Based on a French Simca model, the series lasted for a dozen years, from 1978-1990. It had American parts; even the radio was  standard-issue Chrysler (really hard to push channel buttons) and was the same that appeared in Chrysler’s larger cars. The Omni/Horizon was a copycat VW Rabbit; oddly the Fiat Ritmo (sold in the U.S. as the Fiat Strada) also channeled the VW Rabbit.

The Dodge Neon (1994-99) was another under-appreciated upstart. While it did not survive permanently as part of the Chrysler lineup, those who still drive the car today swear by it, even with the odd colors. In fact, there is even a dealer in northeastern North Carolina who makes a habit of selling used, rebuilt Neons to be used for knockabout cars.  (If anyone has the name, please leave it below in the comments section).

Chrysler had a long string of imports badged as Chryslers. In the early 1970s, they imported the Hillman Avenger and sold it as the Plymouth Cricket; its most unique feature for an early 197os car was a manual choke! Chrysler also imported Mitsubishis as the Dodge Colt and Plymouth Champ (and also the sporty Sapporo); they were miraculous cars because of their mileage, durability and cheap introductory price.

But perhaps the most pioneering of Chrysler’s small cars were the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart; a commercial is seen below. Introduced in 1959-60 as the Valiant (the Dart and Valiant became essentially the same car) and produced until the arrival of the Dodge Aspen, it was a small car that acted big. An introductory speech on the car line is at the site Valiant.org. The originals were light, airy, roomy and a bit snazzy,  with seating for six.

The names Valiant and Dart were replaced in 1976 by the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Aspen, the former of which was a sort of Mercedes wanna-be and much more of a lunky mid-sized car. The originals had so much authenticity, derived from their simplicity, including Chrysler’s legendary Slant 6 engine, wonderfully described at the website Allpar. Allpar also has a brilliant history of the Dart on its site.

The famed Reliant K-car replaced the Plymouth Volare and Dodge Aspen, which were smaller, yet still held six passengers. The “A” platform survived until the late 1980s, when the line was updated as the downsized Chrysler LeBaron and Plymouth Fury. One of the more interesting variants was the wood grained Chrysler Town and Country, which later morphed into the minivan of the same name.

New Dart for 2013

Chrysler has released images of the new Dodge Dart; it will be based on an Alfa-Romeo. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but Dodge is making a mistake if it makes it too much of a racing car.

Certainly, it needs a sport version, but the genius of the original Dart/Valiant was that the same car could be  sold to a mom, a dad, a 70-year-old church widow AND then customized for the rural and suburban youth market. There was not only the Dart, but then there was a Dart Demon and Swinger (such a name!). Plymouth had the Duster and Scamp sport versions. At their top, they were selling nearly half a million cars a year for Chrysler.

The Dart/Valiant was replaced in 1976 by the Volare/Aspen, which was plagued by recalls, though long-term was pretty reliable.

Below, a reel of Plymouth Valiant commercials.

Below, an ad for the Plymouth Horizon. Don’t you just love the grille? So “big American car” yet a copy of the VW Rabbit.

Meanwhile, the Omni, which “Does it all”

The question becomes; is it too sporty? Does it deserve to have a less sporty version? Personally, I think so, but time will tell.

The Wagoneer, with its trademark fake woodgrain siding, was built from 1963 to 1991. It still has a following, and rebuilt versions are still sold.

Scouts from the Automobile drew up what they have seen; one more interesting aspect of the car is the way that they have incorporated the classic script “Grand Wagoneer” on the sides behind the front tire. In January, Chrysler reported that they were going to revive it.

The model shown in Automobile looks not as nice as the original. It doesn’t look bad, but we are disappointed in the way the lines are not level and slightly triangular. Of course the original was level.

Jeep has been doing very many smart things, from their advertising to reshaping their product lineup. The new model will be a sister to the Durango, and be made in the U.S.

Just for fun, a look at the Morning in America Hal Riney advertisement from the 1984 presidential campaign. The Wagoneer appears in the commercial, and just after the Wagoneer, an LTD Country Squire shows up.

DETROIT – It’s a shame it takes an Italian company and an old rap star to see the value in Detroit. But that’s what is mightily apparent with new Chrysler 200 advertisements, which feature Eminem and the tagline “Imported From Detroit.” The commercial has had 4.8 million view on YouTube in only a short time, and that’s a big achievement for Chrysler/Fiat and Oliver Francois, the company’s chief marketing officer.

Not being a fan of Eminem, I have respect for him and his work with the company to promote not only Chrysler, but American automobiles and Detroit (and Michigan) tourism.

The commercial is both a lesson in tourism marketing and general advertising, taking what was thought of as a second-rate product, confessing the faults and fears, and then moving past them by showing what is best about the product. What is so brilliant is its use of Detroit imagery and architecture, from buildings to sculptures to local teams to gospel choirs. Over generations, Chrysler often has to fall back on design, as it has had had few new models. Perhaps the last model with true design oomph was the 1997 revamp of the Dodge Caravan. So renaming the Sebring the 200, doing some good ads, and better styling, is an excellent way forward for the company. Apparently, they are worrying about quality as well, according to press reports.

Comments on YouTube about the commercial seem to be talking more about the politics of the bailout and the sorry state of Detroit political leadership. And some other funny one remarks that Chrysler’s ads are better than their cars. But some favorite comments:

• I’m not from USA I’m from France but I hope one day I’ll visit America or maybe live there why not… It’s really a beautiful country with best artists (like Em) and best dreams in the world. I know that I don’t know all the sides of this country but I keep the hope for USA… Keep your head up America!
• GO AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I love Detroit, personally. The place is plenty amazing when you look past all of the crime and drama. I love it there, I visit periodicly during the year and I can’t stay away, Eminem was one of many with amazing talent, and there are still many there. Dancers, Rappers, Singers, ect. It’s pretty cool to experience their dance types and shit cause it actually differs from the bullshit they put out in the movies.

Chrysler is giving America a great dose of patriotism in all its ads, even its 2011 Jeep Cherokee and its Christmas corporate ad that features some of its great autos over the years, including the Grand Wagoneer and Plymouth Voyager. Gotta love anything from the Reagan era.

An aside: For Floridians, the loss of the Sebring brand is bittersweet, as the convertible Sebring is a sort of Florida State Automobile. Perhaps Chrysler might brand the convertible a “Sebring Edition” just for the Sunshine State fleet and consumer market? Yours truly still sort of fondly recalls the Plymouth Satellite Sebring that his grandparents drove back in the 1970s. Purchased at Self Motor Company of Farnham, Virginia, it was one of many fine automobiles sold by the Selfs, a husband-and-wife team who ran a car dealership that sold Chryslers and Plymouths on the Northern Neck’s Route 3.

But back to the issue of geography and marketing. Companies now are vigorously promoting the state that they are associated with. I even heard a credit card agent from Discover promote that they were answering from Discover in Delaware. I think I will keep the card, no matter the lousy APR…

Take that outsourcing.

Question for readers: What are the sights in the ad?

Keeping an old brand viable is sometimes no more difficult than packaging. Here, a specialized Willys Jeep Wrangler, which according to a Chrysler LLC release dates from 2004. Basically, it’s a Wrangler, but it comes specially packaged, with a Willys decal, and Army paint colors and tires.

The Willys package was about paint, styling and accessories, and nothing else. In fact, the Willys legacy is alive and well; the Kaiser Willys Auto Supply LLC keeps the brand rolling with parts that cater to the classic Jeep market. Chrysler might do well to purchase the family owned specialty parts company, and use their market knowledge as a laboratory for ideas for their prized Jeep brand.

Looking at this model makes me think of a fun mental exercise to think of what discontinued badges might have a market in a limited run or as concept cars. Selling them as a specialty item at existing dealers, might be a way to drum up interest in GM’s design legacy. Purists might find this as heresy, but so what. GM has been badge engineering for generations, essentially selling one car and then dressing it up differently for different markets. GM has done a bad, uninspired job of it, but that does not make it wrong to mess about with these brands.

I listened this morning on NPR as a factory worker discussed bad manufacturing practices of two decades ago, where Buick Regals and Chevy Monte Carlos were merged on the assembly lines to create bastard cars that were both Chevy and Buick. These were production errors that were ultimately fixed after the assembly line, but it pointed up how cars today are merely but facades of molded plastic and different labeling.

Pontiac might be the most obvious choice for this sort of stunt; how about a limited edition Camaro, rebadged as a Trans Am? Oldsmobile and Plymouth have been gone a long time, but there are specific models that have cult appeal, like the Mini did.

Chrysler’s Dodge brand has a youth swagger, which has no appeal to families. Why not a Plymouth version of a minivan? The Mitsubishi Eclipse could perhaps be re-badged as Plymouth Duster, which is revered as  a hipster car. Could a V8 Buick Lucerne be transformed into a special limited edition, high powered Olds Ninety Eight? Perhaps the Buick Enclave could be rebadged sold as the Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser.

GM is apparently doing something like this in 2011, by bringing back the Chevrolet Caprice as the brand name for a police car. It will be rear-wheel drive, and a monster.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Just off the headlines. The massive shutdown of dealers ordered by the Obama administration was a massive failure. Not that you couldn’t have noticed by just talking to some of the dealers themselves.

I recall running into a group of repair guys from Sarasota Chrysler-Plymouth, which is now Sarasota Suzuki Mitsubishi. This dealership was a successful one, situated right in the middle of hundreds of thousands of retirees. They could not understand why they were being shut down, when they were able to do the impossible, namely sell Chrysler cars. It was shut down, and consolidated with a Dodge/Jeep dealership. This was the same story, over and over again, where the government came down and shut down longstanding car dealerships.

The AP story says:

Treasury didn’t show why the cuts were “either necessary for the sake of the companies’ economic survival or prudent for the sake of the nation’s economic recovery,” said the audit by Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $787 billion stimulus program known as TARP.

“Treasury made a series of decisions that may have substantially contributed to the accelerated shuttering of thousands of small businesses,” investigators said.

Those decisions resulted in “potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls — all based on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decisions’ broader economic impact,” the report said.

Chrysler made some major mistakes to get where it is, and we were scared that they were making yet another one, namely starting a new separate brand of Ram, when Dodge Ram seemed to be working fine. Another Jeep Eagle fiasco perhaps? It is funny with Detroit; just a decade ago they eliminated Plymouth because Chrysler had too many brands, then they added Ram.

But upon listening to Diaz explain the move, it made sense. In fact, it is a method that other car companies can use when they need to segment a car brand or “eliminate” a brand name. They simply de-emphasized the Dodge name, and played up Ram.

They wanted a separate brand, hip and athletic, and Dodge wasn’t doing it for them. Here is what Diaz said:

“Although we will market and brand our Ram trucks as Ram trucks they will always and forever be Dodges. They will always be VINed as a Dodge, somewhere on the exterior or the interior of the truck, you will always see the Dodge logo or the Dodge name” - Fred Diaz, CEO and President, Ram

This is an important idea. To change the name of a product, you don’t have to change everything. APVA, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, did this last year. They rebranded themselves as Preservation Virginia, but kept all their legal and formal naming structure intact.

That leaves Dodge, and what to do with the Dodge brand. I believe, and I am right about, is that it can be the authentic American car brand.

The branding question is this: If Jeep is a great brand, which it is, is it less because the Grand Wagoneer is no longer associated with it?

To quote the old Spanish maxim, no one can steal the dance you’ve danced.

That being said, Jeep misses out on the current benefit of the brand legacy by no longer selling the Wagoneer or Grand Wagoneer. It was truly deluxe, and that they sell the Cherokee but not the Wagoneer is weird, frankly, and a terrible missed opportunity. Jeep pretty much invented the deluxe SUV idea in the U.S.

The car was a masterstroke; Jeep management took an old concept, their own Willys Jeep utility wagon, and turned it into the symbol of American reserved affluence. For a decade, it was the queen of the American highway, and it still commands admiration from all circles. Some friends of ours in Lake Tahoe, California, quite hip, just found a used one. Stacey and Laurent (he a resort hotel executive) even posted it on their Facebook!

There is a company that re-manufactures the Grand Wagoneer to new condition; one can really still get a “new” Wagoneer. Their contention is that the car rebuilding is actually quite inexpensive, owing to the fact that the parts are still inexpensive and the engine is easy to get to. Designers and branding folks with the new Fiat/Chrysler might want to go see his operation to begin to understand forgotten aspects of the brand’s appeal. Heck, they might want to buy his operation, and restart production.

When Chrysler’s management thinks of the meaning of the Jeep brand, they continue to make it a sort of off road “action” brand, rather than a brand that has defense department roots, and has a certain on-road utility. Truly, the Jeep was meant for difficult conditions, but the condition it was meant most to do was to be easy to fix and to take folks around the base.

First, we are glad that Jeep has survived. It’s still a great brand. But here’s what Jeep is missing, other than, of course, the Wagoneer:

1. The new Jeeps look moulded, rather than forged. Certainly safety demands from unibody construction are part of the culprits here with the Step 2 kids toys look, but Jeeps still need to seem to be more steel than plastic.
2. The Wagoneer was deluxe but not fancy. It was straightforward and had no gimmicks. It did not show off.
3. They are comfy, but are there elements of plushness? The interesting thing about the Wagoneer was that there was a basic frame, but the carpet could be a little thick.
4. New Jeeps are not that handsome: They all look too much like other Chrysler cars; the only really halfway smart looking Jeep is the Commander. Jeeps need to be carved and styled.
5. Think of colors. That blue in the photo is fantastic. The other 1970s/1980s Jeep colors were equally simple. But today, the blue sold on the Grand Cherokee is called “Modern blue pearl” and it is insufficient for the job.
6. Where’s the Woody? There is no woodgrained edition of any Jeep. I would bet folks would buy it if it were available. A little fake woodgrain nostalgia wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps Jeep establishes a customizing department at the factory level? (The PT Cruiser wood panels were a joke, almost cartoonish. Don’t go in that direction.)
7. They need some Kaiser connection: Sort of a middle America kind of construction. Note, there is a Kaiser parts company that still sells old Jeep parts.
8. Defense connection: Jeep has lost its connection to the American defense establishment, and it suffers. Is there a way for Jeep to become involved with the DoD or Army in particularl with a new or retooled model? Could Jeep come up with a fleet car that could be sold to the military that is easy to repair, cheap to maintain and inexpensive? That might give it some street credibility. The mistake is thinking that the Jeep needs to go into warfare, when really it needs  to just look spiffy while the General gets driven around the base.

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

• We liked Ford when it made Fordson Tractors, Tri-Motors and Philco Televisions.
• We liked General Motors when it made Electro-Motive engines and Frigidaire appliances.
• We liked Chrysler when it made Chrysler sailboats (long live the Buccaneer) and Chrysler Marine engines. We liked Chrysler when it sold engines for Eero Saarinen’s Mobile Lounges at Dulles.

We still like all these companies, but they were so much more interesting and adaptable when they were in different lines of business.
All companies are more interesting when they are diverse. All companies are more adaptable when they are diverse.

While it is awful to see a conglomerate with unrelated parts (that is what is pitiful about some of the GE ventures of the 1980s and 1990s), it is good to see industrial companies make things that relate, sort of, to what they do mostly. It keeps them flexible. So when a downturn comes, they don’t get stuck.

That being said, it is GREAT that Electo-Motive and Frigidaire are no longer with GM. At least they weren’t tainted with the mess.

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.

According to Bloomberg, the phrase “Corinthian leather” had been made up by copy writers at Young & Rubicam, Adweek later reported. And he later promoted the LeBaron (essentially a reworked Plymouth Volare) and The New Yorker, which was a jazzed up K-Car. He was a terribly underestimated actor.

Seems like Bob Nardelli needs to find ANOTHER Ricardo Montalban to huckster some of the stuff on Chrysler lots.

Read our stories on Chrysler, including:

• GM, Ford and Chrysler Need Stripped Cars as the absence of low-priced base models is an opportunity Detroit is missing.
• Down the Road for Chrysler-Plymouth Dealers: The news on Chrysler isn’t good. The company announced yesterday that it was drastically scaling down its dealer network, only a few months after killing yet another product line.

Remember Ed Rooney, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? He drove a government issue K-car. During the 1980s, the Plymouth K-car was what the government bought when it needed something basic. If you were lucky, it had a $79 AM radio.

We heard a recent car ad; it was a regional buy for the Nissan Versa. The ad’s primary lure? The price. Less than $10,000 bucks, though we are sure taxes and other fees ratcheted up the price a bit. In a time when dollars are tight, you need to keep people coming into dealers and looking.

It’s the oldest trick in the retail book, the loss leader, the cheap car. And it is surprising that American automakers have ceded that cheap market to Asia. After all, when the Germans made Mercedes, Henry Ford made the Model T.

In this climate, American automakers Ford (NYSE: F), General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler are playing around with different sale prices, givebacks and zero percent finance gimmicks. What they are not doing is creating base models where the initial car price is cheap. Really cheap. The last time I looked at an American dealer lot, there were sale prices, but there was not a really cheap car with a very low price, except maybe the Chevy Aveo. That is a missed opportunity.

Base cars were fleet cars

In the last decade, American automakers did many things that were STOO-PID. One thing that was particularly stupid was cutting back on fleet sales. We have a suggestion about why this comes up so often. When sales tank, and are down a whopping 50 percent (like Chrysler in 2008) they can say that part of the sales decline was “planned” as they “intended” for branding purposes to cut down on fleet sales to help the “resale value” of their cars.

Frankly, we would suggest resale value has more to do with quality; there are who knows how many Accords and Camrys running around, and their price is high because they last forever. Fewer means fewer.

What needs to happen?

Each of the Big Three automakers needs to have a strategy to sell at least one cheap base-model car for fleets, taxis, rentals and the like. For decades, Detroit did this. It would have two versions of many models, a fancy version, and a less fancy version. The K-car, the Plymouth Reliant, was sold in a cheap base model to the U.S. government. But better versions of the car were available. With badge engineering, Lee Iacocca turned the Reliant into SE, and then later a New Yorker and a Town & Country.

We quote directly from the Wikipedia entry:

Early advertisements for the K-cars promoted the low $5,880 base price. Rather than honoring that by producing a sufficient amount of base models, Chrysler was producing a larger number of SE and Custom models. When consumers arrived at Plymouth (and Dodge) dealers, they were shocked to find that the Reliant they were planning on purchasing would end up costing hundreds or thousands of dollars more. As a result of this, Chrysler corrected their mistake and began building more base models.

Chrysler made a mammoth mistake in eliminating its Plymouth brand, something we discussed in our 2007 article Down the Road for Chrysler Plymouth Dealers. It lost a cheap-car lure for Chrysler dealers.
Detroit does not seem to get the message; for instance, a base model Ford Focus has an MSRP of $16,180. That’s not horrible, and through discounts you could get it lower, but last year local Toyota dealers sold stripped down Toyota Yaris’ for $13,500.

What else is lovely about a stripped car?

Ugliness: It is supposed to be ugly enough that people who see it will spring for a few thousand more dollars for additional options. Basically, it makes the fancy model look good.

Government: It gives you something to sell to the school board and local city administration.

New markets: Just as Southwest Airlines attracted passengers who might have driven or taken Greyhound (not other airlines), cheap cars attract sales from used car sharks, and do not cannibalize higher profit models.

Repair: Having more customers, even with base models, keeps dealer repair shops busy.

So bring back the stripped base model, Detroit. Remember: the Chevy Chevette sold for $4,995 in 1987.