More words

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As a few remember a model many once considered a Gremlin and a not-so-Smart
Mercedes makes yet another massive recall, it's hard not to say "April
Fools!" today.  It's hard not to laugh at humanity's "race" to impress
selves and others without really knowing why or how.  Does he make more than
she?  Is her SUV bigger than his?  Is this BMW better than that Corvette?
Are they a cool couple or are Rockwellian families hotter yet?  Is a Hummer
H2 more Republican than a Jeep Grand Cherokee? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/automobiles/01red.html?oref=login&oref=log
in

It's too bad that what IS of value has so little worth, and it's sad that
the worst joke is ON America --- each and every day of the year.

That Sedaka moment over, I'll sing a newly-recalled (newly-introduced) CLS
song and move on [dot, dot, dot] to AMC's org.  Last weekend's host was a
repeat Mercedes owner: he keeps [identical silver] S-class sedans in New
York and Palm Beach and joined the Mercedes-Benz Club of America because a
friend (and officer of MBCA) invited him to.  He would not be called a "car
guy" but only a "car buyer" of cars by Mercedes.  (But his wife buys cars by
Japanese...)

After dinner at their home one night (about 25 people present), he asked me
to "say a few words about Mercedes" --- on whatever topic I pleased.  Since
I really don't know much about Mercedes, I talked about Mercedes'
Studebaker-Packard days and how Max Hoffman "gave" Mercedes and BMW and
Porsche to America.  (I didn't mention that he imported a Gullwing for Dick
Teague...)  Before eyes glazed over and heads fell, I closed with a comment
related to something actually discussed (for one brief shining moment in
Amelot) here recently: the question of sedan versus coupe.

"The world's first four-door coupe" (as Mercedes advertises loudly) is
"revolutionary" (as Mercedes shouts proudly) only to a Mercedes styling
slave.  It's a low-roofed fast-backed four-door car with oversized wheel
openings and [1968 AMX-style] speedlines.  It's Mercedes' Infiniti; it's
Germany's attempt to keep up with Japan.  And it's a sedan, not a coupe.

http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-2005/2005-Mercedes-CLS-55-AMG-Side-1920x14
40.jpg

Since I like to needle the needful (and aren't we all needful?), I also
reminded them that <yuck, yuck> Nissan had promoted Maxima as having "4-door
body, 2-door soul" long before Stuttgart admitted that it was time to get
pretty because ugly boxes --- especially ugly boxes which break down and/or
need to be recalled --- called automobiles don't sell well.

(No one told me to go play with a Scion x Box, though...)

I reminded them of a few facts from far off the JDP satisfaction charts:
Maybach, which once was expected to offer 24-cylinder engines (to better
Bentley's 16 and Bugatti's 18, no doubt) and once was to sell 1000 units per
year, turned out to be both ugly (if not boxy) and a marketing flop.  Even
the rappers, rockers and religiously reconnoitered rolling riffraff who form
its demonstrated demographic seem to prefer a less ugly (but more boxy)
Phantom --- or less-costly (but more democratic) Chrysler and Cadillac.

[I didn't add that DC's Titanic-sized Jeep SUV, the Grand
Whatever-they-plan-to-call-it, that cost over a billion (dollars, not euros)
to birth, will arrive years late and even then, will be rather less than
expected.  WK/YK plans took rough rides on the development rollercoaster;
factions fought over the "superiority" of M-class, auditors cut deeply and
bloody heads rolled (all the way over to VW, in one case): HB/NB questions
were hard to resolve.  Considering how "hot" a ticket their all-new 2005
Jeep has been, so far (without a usual barrage of Chrysler incentives), it's
hard to guess how a revived Wagoneer will do.]

I gave them a couple of tasty quotes ("Chrysler can't row its own boat
anymore." and "It is a sad commentary on the competence of Daimler-Benz ...
that Chrysler could have been made to fall so far so quickly." --- from,
respectively, Michel Robinet and Karl von Schriltz, 3 years ago), and I
compared Daimler + Chrysler with Renault + Nissan in the words of two who
didn't know: "This is crazy; there is no way a Nissan dealer in the U. S.
will sell a Renault." And [Renault-Nissan alliance] has "zip, zero, nada"
chance for success.

Those words came from famed auto executive and analyst Maryann Keller

http://belairpartners.com/news-events/summit-0404.htm
   
and former Ford and Chrysler executive, a former AMC VP, COO and CEO

http://www.wiley.com/legacy/products/subject/business/dealershealers/
        
At the end of the evening, I was happy to walk outdoors and chat with
departing guests while the valets (college kids) brought around their cars.
I expected to see typical streams of Lexus 4s, Audi 6s, BMW 7s and M-Bs
parade under the porte-cochere, to see a few Cadillacs and a few SUVs and a
few sports cars.  I expected to be HID-blinded by time the car show ended:
what I did not expect was to see two sides of one.

One of the couples' carriages turned out to be a brand new CLS; right after
it arrived another couple's Chrysler 300C.  Humpty and HEMI are DCX's best.
One looked like it had been stepped upon; the other like some studio clay
only half-carved.  "Crass" was a term Del Coates used to describe the 300 in
5/05 SCI; "sass" is what Mercedes is offering.  And "morass" seems what the
future of DaimlerChryslerAMCJeep might be.      

I remember something to tie Mercedes with AMC --- thirty years before
Chrysler took over --- that I'll use to close (no time left to write what I
hoped to) today.  The year was 1958, when AMC became Rambler.  Years later,
the speaker would become the head of design for D-B.

"I came to D-B as a designer not long after production of the SL had
started.  This gave me a unique opportunity to witness how carefully and
artfully the body of each individual vehicle was put together.  220S/SE and
300SE sedans from the W111 are very much a product [sic] of their times:
tail fins had first aroused attention as a thought-provoking feature of the
Ghia study* at the 1955 Turin Motor Show.  Gradually this design element
found its way into almost every American car of the times and even my
colleagues at Daimler-Benz must have been impressed by it at the time.
Unfortunately, they then realized --- too late --- that they had been swayed
by a passing fashion.  I still remember only too well the feverish efforts
in early 1958 to pull the plug on this design.  But the development process
was already unstoppable: the production molds were already completed and in
fall 1959, production of the tail-fin sedans started to roll." 

*The Cilia Streamline, now better known as the Gilda, created in a Turin
Polytechnic wind tunnel, led to the 1958 Ramblers that let AMC live long
enough to build all of the cars for which American Motors will be known.

http://199.239.248.45/images/full/2000/s00032301/gh1955gl01.jpg

In response to her "plea" for info, I sent Gwen a bit of interesting '64
lore yesterday.  Some of you might enjoy reading about what a famous --- and
famously-alcoholic --- star of stage and screen had to do with a '64
Rambler.  Some of you might even remember when AMC was, as those cotton
folks said, truly a "part of the fabric of life."  She can
cut-paste-and-post that info if she wants to.