Repeating History Marketing Mistakes

[palmharbor]

Back in the early 1980's I was part of a panel by a firm
hired by GM to evaluate three cars made by OPEL that
GM was considering. We drove a coupé, converible and a plain
4 door sedan. We were asked our opinions and I stated that
the coupé and convertible should be imported but no the sedan.
I did however predict in writing that the four door sedan would be imported....its looks would be "Americanized"....and it would fail badly. Well it became the new LeMans....and within they were accumulating on dealer lots and rebates were offered.
It was a big failire. The other two cars were never brought
to the US.
This was poor judgement at best and it continues to this day.
Here is Florida only the 66+ consumers drive Buicks and I can tell you their buying time is limited. What has GM done...nothing.
The new Camaro looks like it came from the MAC Truck
school of design. It will suffer the same fate as the new Thunderbird...people say wow at the autoshow but they
don't buy it when it comes out.
The Cadillac and Corvette (cars for the wealthy) have new [non-retro] designs but the designer of the Camaro relied on
old designs...in 6 months rebates will be used to sell the Camaro. I would bet money on it.

[pgill00]

Originally Posted by palmharbor

Back in the early 1980's I was part of a panel by a firm
hired by GM to evaluate three cars made by OPEL that
GM was considering. We drove a coupé, converible and a plain
4 door sedan. We were asked our opinions and I stated that
the coupé and convertible should be imported but no the sedan.
I did however predict in writing that the four door sedan would be imported....its looks would be "Americanized"....and it would fail badly. Well it became the new LeMans....and within they were accumulating on dealer lots and rebates were offered.
It was a big failire. The other two cars were never brought
to the US.
This was poor judgement at best and it continues to this day.
Here is Florida only the 66+ consumers drive Buicks and I can tell you their buying time is limited. What has GM done...nothing.
The new Camaro looks like it came from the MAC Truck
school of design. It will suffer the same fate as the new Thunderbird...people say wow at the autoshow but they
don't buy it when it comes out.
The Cadillac and Corvette (cars for the wealthy) have new [non-retro] designs but the designer of the Camaro relied on
old designs...in 6 months rebates will be used to sell the Camaro. I would bet money on it.

I would believe you if I have not already had 10 or more people come to the dealership with a $5000 cashier's check to reserve the first Camaro. We have turned them all away and our pre-order list is close to 50 people right now.

[Hudson]

Originally Posted by palmharbor

Back in the early 1980's I was part of a panel by a firm
hired by GM to evaluate three cars made by OPEL that
GM was considering. We drove a coupé, converible and a plain
4 door sedan. We were asked our opinions and I stated that
the coupé and convertible should be imported but no the sedan.
I did however predict in writing that the four door sedan would be imported....its looks would be "Americanized"....and it would fail badly. Well it became the new LeMans....and within they were accumulating on dealer lots and rebates were offered.
It was a big failire. The other two cars were never brought
to the US.
This was poor judgement at best and it continues to this day.
Here is Florida only the 66+ consumers drive Buicks and I can tell you their buying time is limited. What has GM done...nothing.
The new Camaro looks like it came from the MAC Truck
school of design. It will suffer the same fate as the new Thunderbird...people say wow at the autoshow but they
don't buy it when it comes out.
The Cadillac and Corvette (cars for the wealthy) have new [non-retro] designs but the designer of the Camaro relied on
old designs...in 6 months rebates will be used to sell the Camaro. I would bet money on it.

I'd gladly take your bet. Read my posts and I'm not one to defend GM just for the heck of it. The Camaro will be an out-of-the-gate hit and will not have any rebates for the first full year, at minimum. And I'm not a fan of retro designs...but the Camaro will sell for the first and second year without a problem.

Two big differences between the Camaro and the last Thunderbird are price (the Thunderbird was priced as a luxury car and the Camaro will come in over $10,000 cheaper) and performance (the Thunderbird lacked the power of similarly priced cars).

The Pontiac LeMans sold relatively well in the US. This car was far from the Opel Kadett on which it was based. It was cheapened for the US market and produced by Daewoo instead of Opel. It was an economical little car and did relatively well. It was far from the "big failure" you described.

Do you remember anything specific about the coupe and convertible you saw?