Here DeLorenzo's AE rant of the week www.autoextremist.com
The True Believers have their day in the sun as Ford and GM “re-imagine” two of America’s greatest automotive icons.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 8/29, 9:00 p.m.) Detroit. As you read this, the True Believers at the Ford Motor Company and at General Motors are in the thick of re-imagining two of America’s greatest automotive icons: the Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Corvette.
For Ford, it’s a clearcut case of coming up with an all-new Mustang to coincide with the legendary pony car’s 50th Anniversary in 2014. For GM the task is a bit more complex, as they’re working on two different cars at the same time: the upcoming seventh generation of the car, which is due in the spring of 2014 or thereabouts, and the “reach” car or the “clean sheet” eighth generation of America’s most enduring two-seat sports car, due approximately five years later.
The implications of the task at hand are crucial for both car companies, but let’s start with what Ford is dealing with first.
It could be argued that the Ford Mustang is much more clearly linked to the “face” of the Ford Motor Company than the Chevrolet Corvette will ever be linked to GM for the simple reason that Ford has always put the Mustang front and center, while GM, through its Chevrolet division, seemed to sporadically tout the Corvette over the years, but only when it was convenient or politically expedient within the company to do so.
In other words, the Mustang represents the very soul of the Ford Motor Company while the Corvette – though it could have and should have been the very essence of GM – has always been treated as an afterthought, except by the True Believers who worked on it, of course.
It’s gratifying to know that the management at Ford – and the Ford family as well – appreciates the Mustang and what it means to the company. Few people remember that when Ford jumped into the fray in the early 60s with its “Total Performance” marketing push, it was a clear departure from the (long-ago defunct) Automobile Manufacturers Association ban on direct involvement in racing and high-performance marketing activity that had begun in 1957. And more important it was a clear departure from GM, whose Chevrolet and Pontiac divisions were involved neck-deep in racing, but who had to do it through “back door” arrangements with qualified outsiders, all designed to fly under the radar and not raise the hackles of the “suits” down at GM’s corporate headquarters who illogically wanted to adhere to the ban.
