Friday, October 15, 2010

Stuck in the middle

In 1982, I participated in my first new car launch, creating advertising for the Pontiac Fiero (an auspicious beginning, no?)

The Fiero was conceived in GM as a noble idea: a two-seat sports car with a space frame, composite body panels, a well balanced mid-engine design and styling that, if dated, didn't suck as bad as many of the other cars GM was producing at the time. By the time it reached the market, however, the scheduled V6 was replaced with the old Iron Duke 4-cylinder engine as GM's marketing geniuses thought it would be best to position the Fiero as an efficient commuter car.

The initial product was so bad, that by the time they gave it enough power and improved the styling, it was dead in the water. A good car killed in its infancy by bad positioning.

I tell this story because I'm afraid Honda is making the same mistake with the CRZ. There's a lot of buzz around the car and it looks great. But what is it really?

Anyone looking for a small sports car will be disappointed with the mediocre performance.

Anyone looking for a highly efficient hybrid will be disappointed with the mediocre mileage.

It's a classic case of trying to please everyone and ending up with a product no one will be happy with.
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3 comments:

  1. tmp00October 15, 2010 at 12:49 PM

    Oooh, burn!

    I'm not getting the CR-Z either. They've also made a mistake I think in not including a backseat (it's optional in Europe). Yes, I know it would be utterly useless for anything larger than a Cocker Spaniel but it would drop the insurance payments. The issue I had with the S2000 was that it cost as much to insure as a Merdeces SLK. They don't like two-seaters, especially driven by young men..

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  2. Phil BergOctober 18, 2010 at 2:33 PM

    Hey Harv: Great point about the CR-Z, except they can sell it overseas, which they need to because the DOT won't allow an occasional backseat here. The Fiero's downfall was based on a business case that needed a minimum 100,000 annual volume to keep a single plant alive, that's why they called it a "commuter car" not a "sports car". At the time there was no sports car that ever sold that much. Front suspension and steering was from a Chevette, rear was the front end of an Iron Duke Cavalier flipped around.

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  3. Harvey BriggsOctober 20, 2010 at 11:41 AM

    Thanks Phil. I forgot about the business case for 110k units but that makes complete sense. It's two bad they couldn't have introduced it with two powerplants.

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