Auto Show Musings

I went to the KC Auto Show yesterday. Here are some random thoughts & musings:

Chrysler, Ford and GM have come a long way in a short time. The quality of the look and feel of their new cars is amazing. Chrysler's new interiors are stunning as are Ford's. GM is finally building cars I'm interested in, including the new Chevrolet Cruze and Buick Regal.

When it comes to imports, Hyundai and Kia are lapping the field on Toyota and Honda. The Korean automakers have always provide a good value at a low price. Now they're turning out stunning designs and workmanship. The new Kia Optima looks better than a Jaguar XF--and I never thought I'd say that. And the Hyundai Elantra looks like it came from the future. I sat in a Mercedes C300 and then the Elantra. Both cars are about the same size, and line up nicely on paper, but you can buy two loaded Elantras for the price of one C300. What's more, the Elantra actually had a nicer interior with its mix of materials, design and colors. Even if they were the same price, I'd still pick the Elantra.

My latest obsession is a Mini Countryman. It's the first Mini you can get four normal sized people in without a shoehorn and some butter. At $27-30K, I thought it was price, but it's everything I want in a car. Unique styling, room for four, all wheel drive, good gas mileage, and loads of fun. I'm sure this obsession will pass eventually--people who genuinely obsess about cars are like serial monogamists or high functioning addicts. And if they have means, they will collect cars like Charlie Sheen collects women and grams of coke. But for those of us with limited means, who have to make due with one car in the garage, the Countryman would be hard to beat.

Toyota in Trouble

Last fall Toyota issued a recall to fix issues related to unintended acceleration on a majority of their cars and light trucks. The problem could have ballooned into the one that almost destroyed Audi twenty years ago. But instead of mechanical problems, faulty engineering, or demonic possession, the fault was attributed to floormats.

At about the same time, it was announced that Toyota is losing market share and posted quarterly losses--not to the level of GM, which Toyota eclipsed last year as the world's largest car manufacturer, but surprising all the same. More recently Toyota has announced they will begin cutting costs by lowering product content and using cheaper suppliers.

Uh oh.

We've seen this before with GM, Ford and Chrysler. And if Toyota follows the Big Three's model for making cheap cars and offering generous rebates, they too will be in trouble.

I Miss Pop-Up Lights

Although the 1980s are not considered a high watermark of automotive design there was one element from that era that is missing today. Pop-up headlights.

Pop-up and hidden lights originated in the 1930s with cars like the Cord 810 and the Buick Y-Job concept car. They reappeared in the 1960s on the Corvette, Buick Rivera, Pontiac GTO and Dodge Charger. Before long they spread to Italian makes like Lamborghini, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. But they were the most prevalent in the 1980s, appearing on everything from exotic cars to Hondas and Toyotas. They came in all styles and shapes, from ones that flipped up, like on the Honda Prelude, to ones that rotated 180 degrees like on the Corvette C4. There were also exposed pop-up lights like the ones on the Porsche 928 and the 1982 Toyota Celica that I owned in college.

Fifteen years later, pop-up lights have all but vanished. The last new car with pop-ups was either the 1997-2004 Corvette or Lotus Esprit. I know a big reason they went away is cost. Fixed lights are cheaper to produce and less expensive to repair. They also weigh less and take up less space. And like most styling trends, they were a bit of a fad as well, like tail fins, digital instruments and talking cars. But like most fads, it's only a matter of time before they reappear. If the Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang, and Dodge Challenger are any indicator, I suspect we'll see pop-up lights again in the near future.

R.I.P. Saturn

Saturn is dead, but in truth the lineup has been in God's waiting room for quite some time because of its lousy lineup of warmed over Opels and other GM vehicles.

The concept was good, just poorly executed. Saturn sold cars at a fixed price and provided a superior ownership experience. The company was constantly rated at the top in consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty. But loyalty will only get you so far if you're not profitable or can't offer a consistently good product. Just ask Saab.

When Roger Penske stepped in, I hoped he would find a way to turn the company around. But it was not to be. In what was perhaps his most savvy display of business acumen, Penske pulled the plug on the deal this week. Both on and off the racetrack, Penske has proven to be a shrewd business operator. Knowing a deal is sour and walking away takes more guts than standing pat or pushing a bad position.

Sadly this lack of guts sealed the fate of Saturn. GM could never seem to find a way to consistently position the brand. Or follow through on the execution. Saturn started out a niche brand but GM wanted to morph it into a replacement for Oldsmobile. I never understood why Saturn didn't offer the Vibe instead of Pontiac, or even the Geo lineup before it was killed off a few years back. Both the Vibe and the Prizm were made in a joint venture between Toyota and GM at their NUMMI plant in California and were good cars.

Like everything else, GM pushed volume over profitability. Saturn was treated as an afterthought, a factory outlet store built outside city limits to peddle imperfect merchandise or last year's fashions. Rumor has it the late Roger Smith championed Saturn to "get even" with the UAW, Japan and just about everyone else. The rumor is plausible. Smith was vindictive on a level that makes Richard Nixon look like Will Smith.

In Praise of the Beater

Henry David Thoreau wrote about the futility of acquiring material wealth. If he were alive today, his argument would apply to cars as well. Thoreau would be appalled with our car culture, shunning it for public transportation. But if he had to drive, I’m sure he would own a beater.

A beater is the car equivalent of a horse at a glue factory. Its value fluctuates depending on how much gas is in the tank. Usually people who drive beaters are a flat tire away from permanent bus ridership. But not always. Sometimes a person drives a beater because they like the car too much to part with it. Or a person may view car payments with the same disdain Thoreau had for paying taxes. Aspiring race car drivers or people restoring a car drive beaters so they can spend money on their other car. Celebrities sometimes drive beaters to blend in anonymously. Sometimes the person driving the car in front of you, with a bumper sticker that says “My other car is a Porsche,” really does own a Porsche.

Most of the cars I owned were beaters. My hand-me-down Olds Cutlass and the VW Thing qualify. I also had a Buick Century which was an especially good beater; one I took for granted until I sold it. The Buick was roomy, comfortable, the air conditioning worked and it got great gas mileage. It wore peeling paint, a GM factory option at the time, and no hubcaps. When I drove it, traffic parted for me like I was Moses at the Red Sea.

A few years ago, the Buick began ringing up large repair bills. I decided I’d had enough and bought a brand new Hyundai Sonata. The Sonata was a great car. I liked the styling, which was criticized for looking like a funky Korean Jaguar, and liked rowing the Porsche licensed Tiptronic gearbox. Compared to the Buick, the Sonata was a joy to drive and in two years of ownership, nothing ever went wrong.

After a while, driving a new car began to wear on me. At work, I parked on the street downtown and mysterious scuffs would appear. My kids spilled milk and Teddy Grahams in the backseat. I realized I was leading a life of quiet desperation and car payments, so I put the Sonata up for sale and began looking for another beater.

I looked at Hondas and Toyotas, but the ones in my price range were shot to hell or looked like rejects from “The Fast and the Furious”. I looked at GM cars, but couldn’t bring myself to own another wobbly land yacht. One day I stumbled across a ten year-old Infiniti I30 with less than a hundred thousand miles on it. I remembered it was the same basic car as the Nissan Maxima but better looking. Curious to why it was in my price range, I called the owner who informed me it had slight hail damage. Two hours later, I brought it home.

The Infiniti is too nice to be described as a beater. Everything works and I wouldn’t hesitate to drive it on a two thousand mile road trip. It’s more rewarding to drive than the Sonata and has leather seats and a sunroof. I don’t mind parking on the streets or in the sun. I don’t cringe anymore when I hear, “Uh oh, Daddy! I spilled!”. And even though it’s black, I don’t feel the insatiable need to keep it washed. But it does clean up well and I’m not ashamed to take my wife out in public in it.

For me the Infiniti is the best of both worlds. Thoreau would not approve. But he might appreciate it, if he knew it saved me from the quiet desperation of car payments.