It's not the unions or the designers or the engineers... nope. It comes down to something more basic: beancounters.
You know the type, if you work in any corporate structure: the bureaucrat whiose sole job is to control costs no matter what the outcome and, when you bring up something to counter his worldview, he brings up data from "focus groups" or "research."
These are the people who take the original intent of the designers and make it "cost effective for production." For example, hideous as it was, here's the original Pontiac Aztek show car:
And here's the dowdy looking production version:
Want to know what happened between the two pictures? Some whiny middle nmanagement guy with a bad suit said "Hmmm, noooo, that hood's gonna cost too much, if you use a standard understructure we'll save $30.00 per unit" and "Hmmm, nooo, the stainlesss steel effect on the roof rails will cost $8.50 per unit, it has to go, hmm..."
Bits and pieces add up, and you end up with a road-going pig of a car. People don't buy it because they don't want to be seen in it - yet if they would have left some of the more interesting details in place people would be more likely to buy it or consider buying it, even if it cost $200 more because it seems like a car designed to be what it is, niot de-contented to meet some price point set by a know-nothing manager.
Which leads me to a second and related issue - they just out-think themselves. Take nameplates for example. Everyone here has a mental image of what a Buick LeSabre or a Pontiac Grand Am or a Ford Taurus is. We *know* what they are. So in comes some marketing genius who says "We need something to really let people know that this is a new car! Let's change the name!!!"
So we get things like a Buick Lacrosse - the hell size car is that? Ford 500? Is that a car or a Nascar race? G6? Way to build name equity. Do you see Honda changing the names on its Accord or Toyota on its Camry? No, and for good reason - they *get* it. Ford comes out with something called a Flex:
No, I'm sorry, I grew up at Ford dealers and that thing there is a Country Sedan, unless there's panelling on it, then it's a Country Squire.
Think back a few years. Chevy had the Malibu for 20 years. Out comes the new model and they call it... CORSICA! HAH?!?!?!? And it differs from a Celebrity... how? Two cars fighting for the same market at the same dealership at the same time, all because some GM beancounter wanted to amortize the tooling cost of the Celebrity soi they kept it in production for 100 years.
Which leads me to my final point - people know when you rehash old cars, Mr. Beancounter. Cavaliers were good cars at first - then they kept it in production for 20 years. Yes, they put new sheetmetal on it, but underneath it's the same, and you're not going to sell many old new cars when there's a brand new Corolla across the street. People know what old lfeels like. The infernal part is that GM developed and sold its replacement in Europe - twice! - during the original's lifespan. Wonder what the cost of bringing that tooling over would have been as opposed to the cost of facelifting the tired old dog they had here. Bet the beancounter would know, down to the penny. Yes, changes would eed to be made to meet federal regulations, but still - how many more of the truly new cars would they have sold?
Look at the new Focus. Doors look familar? Thought so. Rehash. There's a new Focus on sale in Europe, but again, Mr. Beancounter has a better idea.
The funny part? I just rented a new Malibu for a few days, and it's a fine car. The only issue I had with it was a GM peculiarity that needs to be destroyed as quickly as possible: autolocking doors. Kill this.
rant over...
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