If you’ve read our review of the 2008 Smart ForTwo here, you’ll know that we like its chic design, spacious interior (but only for two), and its point and squirt ability in urban environs. And you’ll also know there was plenty we didn’t like about the Smart, including its limited usefulness (only two seats and tiny cargo area), lack of power, and perhaps most seriously, its frustrating and dim-witted transmission.
As good fortune would have it, we were able to arrange for a brief drive of the Mitsubish i, an interesting extension of the basic Smart idea. The tiny Mitsubishi actually does share some DNA with the Smart. Its platform is related to the Smart’s, as is its 3-cylinder engine (but reduced in displacement to – get this – 0.7 liters in order to meet Japanese Kei-class parameters). That means it’s rear-engined and rear-wheel-drive, just like the Smart.
Okay, let me run some names by you:
Automotive News Europe is breathlessly reporting that Ford is to receive at least six bids for its Jaguar and Land Rover operations. AutoNews sources British press – Financial Times, Economic Times and the Daily Telegraph – in lining up the names of the bidders
The bidders include the usual suspects from the capital equity world including Cerberus Capital Management – the new owners of Chrysler Group and Tower Automotive in addition to Delphi and half of GMAC, Ripplewood Holdings and One Equity Partners.
Carmakers thought to be in the running include Hyundai Motors from Korea, Tata and Mahindra& Mahindra from India
Automotive News reports that “Ford said today that it has had contact with interested parties and is evaluating the level of interest, but declined to provide details on the potential bidders or give a timeline for any sale.”
Reports are that the sale price was expected to be on the order of $1.5 billion. Given the price Ford paid for Jaguar (about $2.5 billion i the late ’80s) and Land Rover, this seems to be petty cash. Land Rover is doing very well these days and a price as low as $1.5 billion has to be in recognition of a huge discount assigned to Jaguar. Recent speculation has been that the third brand in Ford’s Premier Automotive Group – Volvo – could bring $8-billion or more should it be sold.
One feature we were looking forward to experiencing on our own home turf is the Chrysler Group’s voice- or touch-screen-operated MyGig infotainment system. MyGig uses a 20GB hard-drive to manage music, navigation (including real-time traffic capability), space for storing photos, and operating UConnect and Sirius satellite radio. Chrysler Group offers MyGig with the latest Dodge Avenger and Nitro, Chrysler Sebring sedan and convertible, the upcoming minivans, and Jeep Wrangler and new Liberty. Though we first covered MyGig after seeing it in the Chrysler Sebring, we recently spent a few days with a MyGig-equipped 2008 Dodge Avenger SXT.
I am not easily embracing the trend by U.S. auto manufacturers to use numbers and letters (alphanumerics) to name vehicles. And it seems to be getting more and more commonplace. In the not so distant past, few vehicle names solely involved alphanumerics. There have always been some, but not the barrage that exists in today’s U.S. market. These days it seems nearly every automaker is jumping on the bandwagon, but mostly the trend exists among the luxury brands. Who has decided that luxury cars can only be named with impersonal numbers and letters?
Who Decided Cars and Trucks Sold By Luxury Brands Must Have Alphanumeric Names?
By my count, 11 of the 14 “luxury” brands in the U.S. presently use alphanumeric nomenclature exclusively or nearly exclusively. Another, Lincoln is heading in this direction as indicated by a few of their recent auto show concepts. Porsche is a holdout. It has its venerable 911 model upon which its reputation has been made, but Porsche management has stated that Porsche will use names instead of alphanumerics for future Porsche designations.
Land Rover, on the other hand, is moving towards the dark side of alphanumerics… at least in the USA. Land Rover North America launched its LR3 in 2005 and it has been a good success for them, but in the rest of the world LR3 is the Discovery, a name also well-established in the USA. I don’t particularly like replacing Discovery with LR3. I guess LR3 signifies that it’s the third model in the Land Rover lineup? But it might not mean much to Mr. and Mrs. Average Consumer, and for me Discovery was a perfectly acceptable name for an off-road capable SUV. In an interesting aberration to its naming strategy, after the LR3 was launched, Land Rover launched the Range Rover Sport… a name, not alphanumeric. Weird. But who says naming has to be rational?
At some point, luxury brand A (along with advertising folks) figured that coming up with a string of three letters would be much better and maybe easier than coming up with a good name that actually meant something to consumers. And to keep up with the Jones’ the “name” apparently needs to involve an X (SRX, WRX, LX, RX, etc, etc..) to signify sporty or SUV or crossover or desirable product that consumer A will want to buy.
We at VehicleVoice (http://www.vehiclevoice.com) and the VehicleVoice Blog-o-Rama (http:/.vehiclevoice.com) often feel that we are fighting an uphill battle concerning the use of the word “Crossovers”. This is a term that has come to mean SUVs based on car platforms and mechanicals. That’s fine. However, it is industry jargon that has not been adopted by the public. The media, picking up on industry jargon is forcing the term where no-one needs it.
An SUV is an SUV or Its NOT
Based on our research, it’s simple. American vehicle buyers have categorized vehicles into several basic categories: cars and trucks further subdivided into luxury cars, mid-size cars, economy/compact cars, sports/sporty cars, pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and vans/minivans.
The SUV category seems to be giving folks the most trouble. To a typical vehicle-buyer, an SUV is an SUV is an SUV. There are big ones and small ones, but an SUV is an SUV. Muddying the playing field, however, is the notion of a “crossover”. A Traditional SUV in this more complicated world is a truck-based SUV like Ford Explorer or Toyota Sequoia. A crossover SUV is an SUV based on a car platform, a “unit-body” platform. But people often forget that the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Liberty, Mitsubishi Montero are all based on unit-body platforms but are not car-based. Does this make them a crossover? NO!
Chevrolet Trailblazer… a “real” Truck-Based SUV
Post-Modern SUV… Soft Roader… NOT Crossover
So, it’s pretty muddy. What crossovers need to be are at-a-glance SUVs. The basics of the SUV equation are well known so deviating is a risk. An SUV must have a basic two box bodystyle, relatively tall glass for good visibility, a relatively upright windshield that provides a stiff A-Pillar allowing easy ingress/egress, and a command seating position. At the same time interior roominess and the ability to carry cargo is very important. From our perspective, this most American of vehicle types is very easy to understand but easy for a foreign car company to get wrong.
Pontiac Torrent… Car-Based Post-Modern (Crossover) SUV
Let’s read on about how USA Today recently reacted to the issue of “crossovers”…
2015 New Vehicle Satisfaction Survey
By Invitation Only
