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.

Take a break and enjoy America’s industrial legacy.

And to all those companies that have shut down their factory tours because of some straw men like insurance or liability, shame on you. The reality? People love companies that open their doors to the public, but they HATE companies that do not engage with the public. Companies that run factory tours get to tell THEIR story, first hand, to new generations. When these great tours have been shut down, companies always blame the public or regulators or trial lawyers, but there are usually internal issues. Certainly, there are always issues with factory tours, but part of being in business is getting around them.

Here are the glorious survivors. There are, however, many more, including the BMW factory tour in South Carolina.Is it any surprise that BMW is breaking all sorts of sales records in the U.S.?

1. Union Pacific Museum: In Council Bluffs, Iowa is the museum of the railroad whose slogan is Building America. While volunteer money got the building, Union Pacific pays the expenses. God bless them for it. Other than trying to spot Mr. Berkshire Hathaway himself, The Union Pacific Museum is one of the great draws in the Omaha area. UP also runs steam excursion trains. It’s a brilliant promotion for the railroad, and a heck of a lot of fun. Remember other railroads. Why would you blow millions on advertising, when you get just as much bang with stuff like this?
2. John Deere Museum: In Moline, this is the Holy Grail of branding and Americana. A celebration of all things rural and American, with lots of technology in between. It’s really a whole set of attractions, from house to farm to corporate headquarters (Eero Saarinen) to sales. Lots of companies could learn from this extravaganza. Lots of museums can learn from it too; they have packaged an office building AND farm exhibit as one, making each piece part of a larger tour experience.
3. Kohler Design Center: A free guide to all the great bathroom fixtures of this American Icon. The museum has three stories of kitchen and bath products, designer rooms, luxury furniture and Kohler history. Each weekday morning, you can tour the actual factory.
4. Ford Rouge Factory Tour: The greatest car tour in the world. Visit in conjunction with The Henry Ford Museum. Grand. We just wish the other Ford factories could be preserved. Pity they waste that legacy.
5. Boeing Everett Tour: The grandaddy of aviation tours, the Everett Tour shows one of the greatest American achievements, Boeing. The full name is the Future of Flight Aviation Center and Tour. Northrop Grumman would do well to think of Boeing as it considers its Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock asset. Located just miles from Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Virginia Beach, it would tell the story of great ships under construction, and be a way to promote Northrop Grumman in the eyes of the public.
6. C.R. Smith Museum: All about American Airlines. Gerald Arpey, American CEO, couldn’t have said better, namely: “As a life-long aviation enthusiast, I’ve always had particular interest in commercial aviation history. To that end, the American Airlines C. R. Smith Museum is an entertaining source of relevant, fun-to-know information for me and my family. Like us, you and your family will find that the museum provides a unique insight not only into aviation’s storied past, but a stirring reflection of American’s proud history.”
7. McIlhenny Tabasco Visitor Center: The hottest thing in Louisiana, a tour of the sauce factory!
8. McDonald’s Museum: The McDonald’s Museum and Store #1 in Des Plaines, Illinois is mecca for those of us who still appreciate the McDonald’s hamburger. There is also a Big Mac Museum in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Did they save the McDonald’s in Downey, California? Not sure. But thankfully there is this one.
9. Corvette Factory: Bowling Green, Kentucky is the museum and factory tour of this automotive icon. Corvette really acts as if it is a “rich cousin” separate brand from Chevrolet, and that is the correct position for it to take. My question is why aren’t there more of these around the country. Where is the Jeep attraction? Where is Buick?
10. King Arthur Flour: The ancient Vermont flour company has a Baker’s Store that is a lesson in how to expand a brand. Every single unique consumer brand could have a store like this. No, not a copy of it, but a riff of it. If you are a car brand, you repair and display cars and sell car-related things. If you are food brand, you display that brand, and other like products. Oh, and sell some T-shirts and crap to the kids. School tours? You bet. They will be brand ambassadors forever.

Do readers have any favorite factory tours that ought to reappear, or that we have not listed? Love for readers to add in some suggestions.

When a car company kills off a longstanding brand, it never ends up well. Marketing people and analysts always believe that killing off the brand will help the other brands in a company’s portfolio, but the reality is that companies that kill off longstanding brands (as opposed to models) are trying to show that they are trying to fix a problem by not fixing it.

This was the hope of Ford, when it said June 2 that it would end production of the Mercury in order to go after Cadillac and Lexus. Apparently, the success this year with Ford has enabled them to absorb the costs of shutting it down. In addition, they said many of those sales were to fleets or were on Ford Motor family discounts, so they would be absorbed by Ford. The release is here:

Of Ford Motor Company’s 16 percent market share in the U.S., Mercury accounts for 0.8 percentage points, a level that has been flat or declining for the past several years.  That contrasts with the Ford brand, which has increased market share by 2.2 percentage points so far this year …

The killing off of Plymouth permanently damaged Chrysler dealers. Plymouth was the family car, and when that audience left Chrysler dealers, they did not move up to Chrysler. Ditto with the shutdown of Oldsmobile; GM never recovered from the loss of the sales, which did not go to other brands. In fact, at the same time GM was dumping Olds, it was investing billions in its “new” brands like Saab, Hummer and Saturn, to no avail. GM somehow thought all its Olds buyers would run on down the street and buy Pontiacs or Buicks. But they didn’t; after all advertising has trained us over the years to see each brand differently. A Pontiac person is not an Olds person is not a Buick person, a lesson GM learned through bankruptcy.

A few weeks ago AutoNews.com reported that sellers like Lincoln-Mercury dealer Darryl Wischnewsky in Houston are searching for other franchises. Apparently, Wischnewsky has a letter of intent from Volvo and is awaiting final approval. Without another franchise, he worries dealership cannot survive with just Lincoln. Certainly, Ford will bring Lincoln new models, but there are still sales that will be missed.

This is often the hidden problem of car brand kill-offs. The essential nature of the dealership changes. With Lincoln-Mercury dealers, the two brands have been teamed for decades. In fact, Mercury has really been just a sub-brand to Mercury Lincoln. Car companies believe, mistakenly, that they are in charge of the brand and the dealership just sells it. But that is SO wrong. In the mind of the public, the dealership IS the brand, their only evidence of it. They rarely see the corporate advertising, but the dealership, and its local owners, are always staring them in the face every time they get out in the car. In addition, each dealership will have to change its name, and become something different. I can name the dealers in my head: Connolly Phillips Lincoln Mercury. Ed Howard Lincoln Mercury. Alex Karras Lincoln Mercury. Things will change.

But when these dealerships begin to take on new car marques, all the identities and relationships will begin to change, and they will not only be in the Ford family.

It seems like but a decade ago that Ford forced its Lincoln-Mercury dealers to have new, expensive re-branded signage. The old “cat” era signage was no good. And now these dealers must change again.

We wonder whether Ford might have, instead of killing off Mercury entirely, merely turned it into a true sub-brand or model of Lincoln? Sell one badge-engineered sedan, one family hauler, and leave it at that, cutting out the Mercury overhead. Or reformat Mercury into something that might complement Lincoln; perhaps a convertible Capri or Cougar? The Cougar was a very interesting car, and does have some followers.

It’s probably too late for that, though; once you say you are going to kill off a car brand, the consumers disappear, and resale values plummet. Brands can be brought back, but it has to be much later, and the result of cult appeal.

Ford has done some very good things recently; who can criticize them too much as they have been able to stay out of bankruptcy? But the Mercury decision is not without risks.

• The new Big G Kids Cereals ads from General Mills are great. Animated Lucky Charms leprechaun are talkin’ nutrition next to the kids. Smart stuff. I’m so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. And the leprechaun and Cocoa bird are in the SAME commercial.
• Postum Update: A reader contacted BrandlandUSA. Their question? When would Kraft, which ended production of the drink Postum, decide to release the formula so its fans could know how to get it to drink? Monday, we contacted Kraft’s public relations team by their contact form on their site, and have heard nothing. Now that’s a social media strategy I hadn’t thought of!
• Stein Mart has just published their annual report. Sadly, they mention that while Stein Mart is trademarked and an asset, they don’t mention their ownership of the Peck & Peck brand, which with a bit of management and marketing could be as valuable as Abercrombie & Fitch. They say “management believes that our trademarks are important, but with the exception of Stein Mart, not critical to our marketing strategy. Peck & Peck was a brand as great as they come, but now it is a store brand of Stein Mart. Oh well. Another opportunity missed. However, the good news is that Stein Mart is taking good care of the brand, and at least keeping it alive. And when I ask clerks at the store, they mention how many people still trust the brand, decades after the venerable department store is gone.
• Shirley Plantation: We happened to see Virginia’s Shirley Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg in some recent ads, but we can’t remember what the ad was about. It wasn’t a tourism ad, as Shirley is privately owned. I think it was financial services; I know it wasn’t Virginia tourism Virginia is for Lovers ad. Love some help from readers. In seeing it, I realized that yes, the family visit to the house museum might become hip again.
• Mercury’s Future: There has been some question about the future of Mercury as part of Lincoln-Mercury. We just noticed a few prime time ads on Fox selling the Mariner and Milan, as we hadn’t seen them in awhile. While they could have been regional buys, they were not dealer ads, but branding. Then we took a look at the website, where it appears that Ford is definitely paying attention to making the lineup interesting. Yes, there are only four models in the lineup, but they are a great foil for dealers, who can lure drivers into the showroom with Lincoln and sell them a Mercury. By the way, it was the killing of the Plymouth brand that really helped to do in Chrysler. Oh, and the Grand Marquis is becoming  a VERY interesting car, and the longer it survives, the more interesting it gets.
• Lee’s Paint: We got to see Mount Prospect Paint in Chicago, where American Idol Lee Dewyze worked. He apparently was good at stain and paint matching, and his favorite color was tangelo. However, the editors at 19 missed showing that the store was a Benjamin Moore dealer.

Watching the old Rockford Files episodes are quite worthwhile, architecture wise, as they are a documentary of mid-1970s Los Angeles.

We caught the pilot episode of Rockford on Hulu.com, which set up the premise of the series. The pilot includes Rockford’s office in a trailer at 2354 Ocean Boulevard, Malibu. The episode is not just filmed in L.A.; it includes interesting views of the Clark County Courthouse, Las Vegas, and its funky Aztec-looking patterns.

Some points:

• The advent of online, digitized video is a potential boon to tourism officials. Heretofore, many of these episodes were hidden in vaults, but now that they are available online, all the time, with advertiser support, they can be mined to help promote visits to locations. A tourism location becomes far more interesting when it has a story, and the fact that television shows were filmed there helps to build that story. Most major cities have dozens of these locations, and it is up to tourism officials to make sure they are cataloged and mapped.
• With the advent of online video streaming, it is so much easier for companies to find places where their products have been seen over the years, and begin to collate these for the public. Company PR departments and brand managers should have lists of where their products have been seen on old television shows and movies.
• Today, companies are all about trying to place brands in television shows, and shows are all about trying to sell placements. That’s fine, but what is very interesting is how a good producer and location manager can create a style from what sort of images are already out there.

Back to Rockford. We took a look at the show at tried to find out what brands we saw during this pilot episode, which aired in 1974 on NBC. Brands included:

1. Holiday Inn Santa Monica at The Pier: This appears in a distance shot.
2. Cole Steel file cabinets: Unsolved and inactive cases are put here by the police. Rockford only gets to work inactive cases.
3. Water Pik: These are in the background in a drugstore that Rockford visits.
4. Broxident: It was the first brand of electric toothbrush, and it was also in the drugstore. The electric toothbrush brought to market in the U.S. by Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc.
5. Continental Hyatt House: First the Gene Autry Hotel, it was renamed the Continental Hyatt House. In 1976 it became the Hyatt on Sunset until February 1997 when the hotel was renamed the Hyatt West Hollywood. In January 2009 the hotel was renovated and renamed the Andaz West Hollywood.
6. Rockford had a Colt Detective Special, though as a convicted criminal, he did not have a permit.
7. Pengiun Shirts: The killer wore a yellow penguin sport shirt.
8. Ford Country Squire: One of many cars seen in the background.
9. Pep Boys: Shows up on the route to Santa Monica Pier.
10. UPS Truck, looking much the same as today, is prominent in a highway shot.
11. Lord Calvert appears on a billboard.
12. The heiress Mrs. Elias in the pilot episode sat by the pool with a classic green bottle of Sea & Ski suntan lotion.
13. Yuban coffee can be seen in the background at Tail of the Pup
14. Big Blue Bus, also known as Pacific Palisades 9, rolls into Santa Monica Pier. It is a GMC Flxible, I think.
15. Champion Spark Plugs. Ads for these are seen on a wall in Las Vegas.

Local Brands and Streetscapes

A quick note for local companies.

Many of the things that are cool about a local brand have to do with classic signage and consistency of approach over the years. So be careful about your image. Many local restaurants and businesses change according to corporate mandate, fashion and local regulations, and the changes are not always good.

Below are some of the local Los Angeles brands seen in the first episode. Many are around, though they have been changed.

1. Tail of the Pup, the famous Hollywood Hot Dog stand.
2. Cox Paints on Santa Monica Boulevard.
3. The music hall Gazzari’s, home of the Real Don Steele.
4. Mayfair Music Hall and Palace of Varieties, now boarded up, was once in the 1970s home to British variety shows. The episode shows the whole interior of the building, including one of he acts.
5. Cyrano, Luncheon, Dinner and Cocktails. Not sure if it is still open.
6. The Lobster, Santa Monica, a restaurant that overlooks the ocean and pier.
   
7. Santa Monica Ford, seen in the photo here.
8. Bi-Rite Drugs. Not sure where that is.
9. Mayflower Hotel: Rockford drove past this on the way to dinner. It’s now Now the Hilton Checkers.
10. Peacock Bar: Rockford and Lindsay Wagner went here. Nice outdoor directors chairs. Don’t know where it is and would love some help from readers.
11. Malibu Spic and Span Cleaners, just across the street from where Rockford had his trailer.
12. Canaday’s Used Cars. I don’t think it is around any more; it was apparently on Santa Monica Boulevard.
13. The Glen Campbell Open, which appeared on a billboard  in a background shot.
14. Old World Restaurant, which I think was on Sunset.

Catch the entire episode on Hulu.com and see it for yourself.

Brands include the early British Morris Minor pickups, any Willy’s Jeep pickups, any Studebaker pickup, any International pickup, 1963 Volkswagen Transporter, 1977 Datsun King Cab, 1966, 1978 Chevrolet C-10, 1978 Subaru Brat, 1981 Jeep Honcho, 1966 Chevy C10, 1957 Chevy, 1960 Morris Minor, 1964 Dodge D200 Crew Cab, 1965 Dodge A100, 1951 Ford F100, 1967 Ford F100, 1970 Dodge Adventurer, 1973 Ford Ranchero (really a cut-up Torino!) and 1978 Chevrolet C-10. One amusing pickup they missed was the VW Rabbit pickup (early 1980s) and the Chevy Luv.

A few other items recently in the news:

• MCM Return: The German company MCM, which used to stand for Michael Cromer Munich, has been revived as Mode Creation Munich. Sung Joo Kim, a Korean entrepreneur, is reviving the brand for which she purchased in 2005.
• Canvas Tent Return: Like so many other analog things, canvas tents are back. Brands like Davis Tent and Springbar are some of the brands, and websites like ArmyTents.com sell surplus.
• Independent Marriott: Marriott is relaxing brand visual standards in idiosyncratic ways with its new Autograph Collection brand. The brand will attract a variety of international hotels that did not want to be full Marriott hotels, but wanted the advantages of Marriott’s reservation system. This is a smart idea that allows for hotels to keep part of their original identity but join up with a chain. None of the quality standards are relaxed, though. This move has the exciting possibility of helping to shore up the bookings of independent hotels with long brand identities. While there is a target of only 25 hotels, it is easy to see many other properties that might fit the “Autograph” bill.

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 found a sort of antidote. Its the web forum called Station Wagon Forums. It’s all about station wagons, and if you like station wagons, as opposed to crappy things like CROSSOVER this or SPORT that, then do look up the site.

By the way, below is a list of the wonderful station wagons I had growing up. This is a totally self indulgent list but this is the only place I get to put it. If readers are daring we ask them to put their list of station wagons up against mine!

1. Ford Country Squire, mid 1960s, I think realistically it was white with red interior but in my dreams it was wood grained
2. Opel Kadett wagon, green, purchased at GM Buick dealer
3. Plymouth Cricket wagon, 1971?, purchased at Wynne-Wright in Norfolk
4. Plymouth Volare Wagon, 1976, purchased at Self Motors, Farnham, Virginia. It was serviced and recalled way too many times at Green Gifford, Norfolk, Virginia. It was white with red interior.
5. Ford LTD Country Squire, 1971, yellow with wood grain, purchased used at Crowther Ford, Kilmarnock
6. Chevrolet Chevelle Station Wagon, green, mid 1960s, a gift from Uncle Charlie, paint scheme ruined when I washed it with Comet.

IRVINE, Calif. – BMW is the coolest car brand in America. Or so says Kelley Blue Book, which has just released current winners of their 2009 Brand Image Awards.

And Cadillac? Boy do Americans like the interiors.

The Brand Image Awards are presented to the top brands in 10 categories, and are based on consumer automotive perception data from Kelley Blue Book Market Research’s Brand Watch study. Brand Watch is an online brand perception tracking study on Kelley Blue Book’s website, www.kbb.com.

The winners are:

• Best Value Brand: Toyota
• Coolest Brand: BMW
• Most Family-Friendly Brand: Toyota
• Most Rugged Truck Brand: Ford
• Best Performance Brand: BMW
• Best Comfort Brand: Cadillac
• Best Exterior Design Brand – Luxury: BMW
• Best Exterior Design Brand – Non-Luxury: Nissan
• Best Interior Design Brand: Cadillac
• Best Prestige Brand: Mercedes-Benz

• 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.

A week or so ago, we happened upon a Business Week story about General Motors auctioning off some of its car collection. Some of these items were either flubs or concept cars, and not actually produced. All are fascinating, including a Harley Earl Buick. When we first read it, it didn’t bother us that much; after all GM is getting a big taxpayer bailout, and I am not sure I can defend taxpayer money going toward antique car maintenance.

And then I saw these photos of a new Porsche Museum in Germany (thanks to Klaus Holzapfel‘s Twitter blast). Take a look at the photos, both interior and exterior. The building is gorgeous, and shows the full history of the Porsche brand. Wow. Fascinating. And what a sales tool! Not only is it useful as an archive of what the company has done, but it is a way to show consumers what the company is all about NOW. It also builds tourism, educates children about the company, and gives the company a place to entertain. If you click on the Der Speigel article, it has a great video.

What is also interesting is that the museum is about a single BRAND; it has promotion written all over it. They have a bit on the Porsche website about the museum, saying that it is the “central repository where the Porsche tradition will be preserved and displayed.”

After seeing that Porsche building, I am now ticked off at GM, not that it matters to them. GM certainly doesn’t need a museum as grand as the Porsche Museum; they would be pilloried for it now. But they need to do more to bring the American public into their factories and heritage. Looking at the website of their Sterling Heights Heritage Center, they don’t even open it to the public, except for groups.

How you do a motor museum!

It is not difficult to open places to the public. There are a few steps. You take a key, unlock the door, greet guests warmly and then offer to walk them around and tell them about the cars. If there are not that many visitors (which is apparently the problem), you print up things called “FLIERS” and you take them to local visitor centers. You also have a person called an “ED-U-CA-TION DIREC-TOR” and she will call on schools to sell tours, ensure that tours relate to the curriculum, and greet school buses when they come. At the front, there is a thing called a “GIFT SHOP” where you put trinkets related to GM. On certain days, you offer a thing called a “FACTORY TOUR” where you charge certain sums of money to families who are interested in seeing a car being made. Safety is an issue, so you ask the guests to be on “BEST BEHAVIOR” and wear hardhats, and they always comply.

We did a bit of web searching, and also pulled out our handy book Company Museums, Industrial Museums and Industrial Tours by Doug Gelbert, published in 1994, in order to help us find where the auto museums are. GM used to offer tours in Flint at their plant at 902 East Hamilton Avenue. Thankfully, GM opens up its Bowling Green, Kentucky plant to the public, and they deserve praise for this. The plant makes Corvettes and Cadillac XLRs; they have a great site and description of the tour. Good job. Very good job. We will stop ragging on GM now.

Ford has a different perspective on the public; they offer tours of their crown jewel Rouge plant. Sadly, it is the ONLY automotive factory tour in Detroit.

Of course there are General Motors related sights in Flint and Detroit. The website VISITFLINT.com has a list, which includes the Alfred Sloan Museum (and Buick Gallery and Research Center) the Kettering Collection of Industrial History and the Walter P. Chrysler museum. They are all part of a Motor Cities tourism and education heritage area.

Question for BrandlandUSA Readers: What sorts of GM and Chrysler tours and exhibits might help promote the automakers and help with tourism in Michigan? What sorts of of collections are left?

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.

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.

Usually it’s engineering or marketing, though we also submit that country club folks really haven’t had Fords on their minds since they stopped making the Country Squire. Oh, a few of those country clubbers in places like Maine still drove Taurus wagons, but you’ve got to have alot of gumption for that, and that’s an old money notion.

In spite of BrandlandUSA’s love for historic brand names, customers will usually buy something good if the name is crap, but will rarely do the opposite. That being said, a great brand name gives a new product that is made in the spirit of the old a distinct advantage, but the new product has to live up to the history to take advantage of it. And that’s not always easy to do. So just cause it has a great name like 500, and a decent market, it doesn’t mean it won’t work.

One thing that was missing from the 500 was the first part of the name. Because the 500 that most middle aged folks recall was the Galaxie 500, the great Jetsons age Interstate cruiser.

New Ford CEO Alan Mulally was puzzled that the Taurus name was dropped, so he brought it back, and put it on the 500. It ought to help sales, as a solid but boring sedan always has a good market, especially if the brand is known. Heck, if it can get a buzz back, that Taurus might not just be resigned to schlepping pharma salesmen around.

With Mulally, the dashing side of Ford engineering appears to be having a spin too, and with Mulally’s former career at Boeing, we’d hope so. The July issue of Motor Trend devotes a cover story to Ford, centering on the concept car called the Interceptor. The Interceptor (not a bad name) has wide Le Corbusier-style seating, rear wheel drive, and a look reminiscent of a better-car design time; it droops down toward the rear. Thankfully, there is nothing pimped up or gangsta about it.

Motor Trend writer Angus Mackenzie calls the car a “a nice piece of eye candy designed to take your attention away from the real horror story playing out in Dearborn” but nevertheless praises the car, and the company, for bringing it out.

There are other tidbits in the article. Ford still makes the LTD and Fairlane in Australia, as well as the Falcon. And the other detail in Mackenzie’s piece is that the working name for the car is Galaxie. It’s the great Galaxie, that 8-cylinder blue oval extravaganza that looked best in red. Over the years, Galaxie Clubs around the country have been keeping the old Galaxie legacy alive. And while the clubs founder died in 2003, maybe the rest of the club will live long enough to see the Galaxie again.