Proof

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

>>
It's got juice; it shows Toyota innovating; it explores new tech; it gets tons of free news publicity; it's futuristic; people's love for them extends good will to Toyota; ad nauseum.
<<

"Prius" is a car name now known by almost everyone; not merely because Scarlett Johanson, Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek (is there a theme there?), Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kirsten Dunst, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robin Williams, Morgan Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Donny Osmond, Tim Robbins, Ed "Bicycle" Begley Jr., and Larry David (is there a hare/hair left there?) have all bought one.  (Or more than one.)  And it's not just the American eco-crowd that Toyota is successfully wooing.  Note who sponsors everything from the buttermilk-biscuit "The Prairie Home Companion" to the bubblin' sugar gospel music shows.  Listen when the announcer intones, "Tavis Smiley is made possible by Toyota, maker of the 2006 Toyota Camry.  Toyota: now that's moving you forward."  

(Followed by: "Tavis Smiley is also brought to you by Wal-Mart" just to be politically correct and such...)

Lexus sponsors the Met (Opera, not Nash-Hudson-AMC, that is), US Open (tennis) and golf (duh!), while Scion shoots (doh!) at the hip-hop crowds.  At the same time that Toyota is taking Tundra into the heart of Texas, Tacoma to the Washington whitecaps, and waltzing dear old Matilda to the bank.

http://www.aurionv6.com.au/toyota/323PreLaunch/index.jsp

(Yanks with a brain may see that it's a facelift on our old Camry, but if it looks new to someone else and it sells well, that's all that matters!) 

And, to some with an Eagle eye, Toyota is taking a 4-wheel drive into AMC history.  Toyota learns from the past. 

http://tinyurl.com/bwsk4

(Your own view may vary...)

Toyota's biggest problem, perhaps, will be the reaction to its stunning success: our omnipresent, omnivorous (and ominously self-serving) media build ups and tears down.  It loves to loudly label sins of some (Tricky Dick, Ramblin' Ron, Curiously Clueless George, etc.), forget foibles of favorite fews (FDR, JFK, LBJ, you-know-who), or suffer some smooth, so silence slides, like oil on water, hubris into history.  Jimmy, Billy, Hilly (2/15/06: "The refusal of this administration to level with the American people in matters large and small is very disturbing" [spoken from experience?]), and the Daniels (Rather or Schorr) all book passage on media ships that sail burning shoals.  So, too, do most US carmakers.

The Big-3 took a free ride for decades: Chevrolet baked apple pie, Ford had better ideas, Dodge gave America fever ("Fever in the morning, fever all through the night.  FEVER!"), Pontiac built excitement, and Cadillac was, well, the Cadillac of cars: even though it never became the Doozie.  The little car companies (which once-big AMC was continually considered) rode bumpier roads instead; companies considered upstarts and intruders, no matter how big they come to be, tend to ride similar Belgian blocks on the proving ground*: like AMC, they can be more easily bumped around.

*Did you know that DaimlerChrysler, healthiest of the formerly American Big-3, is selling its Wittman (Arizona) Proving Ground --- to raise money and to cut costs?  50 full-time test drivers, 5 mechanics, and 45 support staff work there now.  Some may soon be history.

Read the official boilerplate:

"It has not been decided how the corporation's testing and development needs will be handled after 2007.  DaimlerChrysler is still looking at the option of either rebuilding in the area or moving the operations elsewhere."

And say "jawohl" or "yeah, sure."

When McMansions-n-swimmin' pools fill American deserts and cars fill roads-n-driveways to fulfill livin'-n-lovin' American consumer dreams, will they be designed in California, engineered in Michigan, tested in Arizona and then assembled [anywhere] in these United States?  Or will Papenburg (Emsland), Chelsea (Michigan) --- and/or wherever whichever car firms are outsourced to develop and build any of those future models that may wear the disguise of a DaimlerChrysler nameplate --- do work that used to be done there?

GM considered moving its Mesa (AZ) Proving Ground work to Mexico, after testing [some of the best-selling cars America ever built] there for 50 years.  Ford considered closing its Romeo (MI) Proving Ground in 2001 to help save $1B.  VW considers closing its Maricopa (AZ) Proving Ground as I type. (160 employees there, working since 1993).

The idea of testing cars somewhere other than on public roads was born from failure of a famous (if you know your auto history) Chevrolet.  Kettering's copper-cooled car led Sloan to build on 4,000 acres in Milford (MI) in 1924, Studebaker built a test track in South Bend (IN) in 1926, and, in 1928, Packard built the finest automotive Proving Grounds in America, in Utica (MI).  Indy and Europe be damned: Packard built the fastest banked oval speedway in the world.  Mercedes, Bentley, a Alfa, take that!  Nash built in Burlington (WI), and Chrysler (the engineering leader?) finally built in Chelsea (MI) --- in 1954.  (Chrysler tested cars at Utica until then and, during WWII, its tanks did more damage than Packard could ever afford to repair --- so much for respecting the independents...)  Hudson, the "better half" (in terms of history, design, and reputation) of the AMC equation, never built a test track: the iconoclastic '48 "Step-Down" was developed without such advantage.  The company that bought Bendix, once as American a name as Rambler Rebel or AMC, now steers and brakes where Hawks and Avantis once ran among [still-standing?] "Studebaker"- spelling trees (supposedly once the world's largest sign visible from the sky): if you wonder how American that firm might be, simply read.  

http://www.bosch.com/content/language2/html/2153.htm

When the first Hondas were built in America to be tested on Ohio State University's TRC/NHTSA track, the moribund AMC-Jeep facility Chrysler had bought west of Kenosha was put on the block.  In 1988, MGA became the new owner and a scion of Calspan (nee Cornell Aeronautical Labs of Buffalo, NY) began running rides for research and NHTSA became one of its best customers.  The Test Dummies are alive and well in Wisconsin (when they're not dead) on that old Nash-American Motors Proving Ground.

Proof for today and tomorrow?  Hyundai built its $50M Proving Grounds in California City (in, duh, CA): 4,300 acres 100 miles from LA.   It meets the old "2-hour" movie production rule (if you don't know what that was, you'd better read up on the growth of Palm Springs) with precision, and it joins Honda's 3,600-acre Proving Grounds (also in the Mohave, in CA), Nissan's 3,000-acre Proving Grounds (in AZ), and the biggest of all the Proving Grounds American motors have ever run tests upon: a 12,000-acre monster that, since 1993, stands but a few minutes --- even fewer if by Viper or by LF-A (if you don't know what that means, go-LEE, get a life!)  

http://panick.free.fr/Naias2005/lexus-lfa-2005.jpg

from the former Wittman ranch where old American Mopars freely drove.  If you can't name the elephant in America's henhouse, you may be Nash-AMC-Jeep brain-dead.  But whether you can or can't, maybe you learned something --- even had fun doing it --- reading today's ramblin' rant.   
  
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/about_toyota/history/1990.html

>>
Note however none of those things will make (much) money in the next few quarters; it's all longer-term, future-looking good will and positioning, clearly something GM has utterly and completely lost.
<<

And even when the General sees the future, he looks too far off.  Can a new Camaro be timely if it won't appear on the market until MY 2010?  Or is GM now as bad off as AMC was back when it showed a Gremlin concept in 1974, but it couldn't afford to build a Spirit liftback until MY 1979???

It was and is all about precision: market what is wanted when it is hot, move the image and product as far up-market as fast as is possible, and, when times are tough, seek procurement, production, and sales economies.

In 1998, I gave you a look ahead at Nissan-Renault via AMC-Jeep-Renault.

In 2006, why not look ahead at the future of Renault: return to America?

As the Brits (why are they still be better using words than we colonials are?) might say, "Grow to profit, rather than shrink to fit."  Yessiree!  Chrysler, GM, Ford, and, after bumpy rides in the 1970s, AMC all seemed to bank on the opposite.  And their account dwindled to bankrupt.  Gohsn wants profit to rise from 3.2% in 2005 to 6% in 2009 to reach the "magic number" for survival and future success.  Yes again!  

How does a car company do that?  New models that the market wants --- and is willing to pay top dollar (euro, yen, won, yuan, peso, whatever) to have --- right NOW.  No Avanti delays; no "it's coming" Cord cards.  Platform, procurement, product, and promotion must be perfect from "GO!"  Share the savings, slice those slivers of sales, send the restructuring sorts to cut every smidgen of fat, and squeeze new styling out of a hat.  The future won't wait for a failure: tomorrow should be in today's hand.

Even Mercedes, the giant that lumbered and slumbered, has been startled awake.  By, of course, the other giant.  That is why both giants build the same cars today.  You find the photos.

Labor, politics (remember, we're taking about America and France now) be damned.  If one wants a job, DO a job better than another.  If one wants a political perk, do a REAL job.  Politicians are less-attractive actors and neither comes with any real job skill to speak of.

Build better cars that sell with bigger margins (which was why AMC built a Marlin rather than a Tarpon: maybe being Nash meant neither size could jump high) and build up a reputation by being more than what used to be.

Neither AMC (outside AM Circles) nor Renault (outside La Belle France) is considered premium.  But both built some rather premium automobiles.

Nash once built Ambassadors that were, truth told, better than some by Packard --- Nash once built some cars almost to Pierce-Arrow or Isotta-Fraschini or Minerva standards.  Damn Cadillac and Lincoln.  They were but fancy Chevys and Fords.  Renault once built limousines that truly were, in imperial (the real thing) circles, the cars of kings --- and not the kings of France: kings with households, horses, men, and heads.  Renault now builds some of the more premium cars in an evermore premium world of premium models --- whether they're from Europe, Asia, or (um, well, Cadillac does have some premium car --- beyond XLR-V --- plans), from America, once "The Standard of the World" in premium automobiles.  

http://tinyurl.com/94f3x

(which, since I suspect some Nash-AMC sites can be a bit balky, is:)

http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/AmericanMotors/1932Nash-Ambassador8-Brougham.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/98zgc

http://gazoline.net/IMG/jpg/doc-1206.jpg

Renault once built a pretty premium Premier --- pretty prognostic, in fact, if you preview the returning ultra-premium peoples car, Phaeton.

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/sixcms/media.php/23/vwpha_450.jpg

http://www.renault25.de/Bilder/Bilder/Aussen/LimousinePhase1.jpg

Both, in case you've gone blind from the reading, are premium models: five-door luxo-sedan, good grief, -hatchbacks-!  Learning from Lerma?

Or, in the case of American, AKA General, motors, learning too late?

But don't cry for GM or Toyota.  Both will surely survive the arrows shot at them by media and market forces.  Neither will be shot dead.

http://lostworld.pair.com/trips/concours2005/IMG_5515.jpg

They'll weather the rain.

http://tinyurl.com/bupn6

Even if it pours.