D
Daniel J. Stern
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2004-04-27-last-olds_x.htm
Herewith my commentary.
--
MBAssholes, or Requiem for a Heavyweight
The last-ever new Oldsmobile will be assembled the day after tomorrow. I
have no particularly strong emotional attachment to Oldsmobile as a
product or as a brand, and tend to cast a jaundiced eye towards GM's
products in general, but historically the division's engineering was
frequently the best -- or if nothing else the least worst -- of its type
across all of GM.
In the 1950s, the Oldsmobile version of the Hydramatic transmission was
the best one, and Chevrolet was still futzing around with the grossly
inferior Powerglide. In the 1970s, Oldsmobiles were the only GM cars that
ran well and got relatively decent fuel economy while complying with
then-new exhaust emission control requirements, which was quite a feat
given the state of the engine-management art of the day. Olds engines were
demonstrably superior in structure, function and materials than their
counterparts from other GM divisions, and not just barely -- such was the
difference that when GM began sneaking inferior Chevrolet-built engines in
place of Olds-built engines in 1977, customers howled and GM faced a
costly class-action lawsuit.
The MBAssholes at GM, in the manner of their verminous kind at virtually
every other US company, consider it beneath their station to know anything
about the goods or services their company makes. To them the cars are
nothing but "product", and their buyers (end users) are considered
brainless boobs easily bamboozled into seeing a new car where only
taillights and nameplates differ from an otherwise-identical model badged
as a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, etc.
Likewise, these degreed fools frown on legitimate and significant
innovation. This is a chicken-and-egg scenario: The public has been fed
such a steady diet of trivially minuscule "improvements" for so long that
by and large they willingly buy whatever is offered. GM sold a lot of
Luminas. Ford sells a ton of Tauri. And it's not just domestic makers,
either. Mitsubishi has same-same-samed itself to imminent death. Volvo
decided to court the masochist market a decade ago by forgetting, after
five decades of doing so, how to build a reliable electrical system. This
move put them in direct competition with VW, a company that never knew how
in the first place and so was spared the inconvenience of trying to
forget. But I digress.
Through the latter '70s, '80s and '90s, Oldsmobile's engineering
superiority was diluted and then eliminated with the homogenization of all
GM passenger cars. The resultant ChevrOldsmoBuAcs all looked, drove, lived
and died pretty much alike (with the obvious exception of the
aforementioned taillights and nameplates). For a brief few years, it
looked like Saturn was going to be the Think-Different GM division, but it
was soon turning out its own taillamps, grilles and nameplates to go on
the corporate identicars.
The ruse worked for a little while. The Oldsmobile Cutlass had enjoyed a
fine reputation for reliability and a top slot in North American sales
figures for a very long time, with extremely loyal customers coming back
again and again. GM effectively killed Oldsmobile around 1986, slapping
Oldsmobile badges on corporate-common cars. Those repeat buyers
still came back for one or two or three new Oldses, but the cars, while
some of them were perfectly honest, decent cars, were as innovative as a
wooden kitchen match, and new customers drove away in stays.
By the late 1990s, the wall was written off. People weren't buying a lot
of Oldsmobiles (oddly enough, changing the name of the division's
most-successful car from bold and evocative "Cutlass" to the nonlexical
focusgroupism "Achieva" not only didn't increase sales but made the car
the butt of jokes involving the word "under"), and the MBAssholes simply
finished the job they'd started twenty years before.
The selfsame thing happened to Plymouth. Remember Plymouth? The brand
officially disappeared a couple years ago, but it really went away in
1974, when the only difference between a Dodge and a Plymouth became which
nameplate was on the fender and hood. The Prowler was much too little, far
too late, for way too few people. The PT Cruiser was originally conceived
as a Plymouth, and it, together with a few other truly different cars,
even if they'd been based on corporate platforms, would surely have
propelled that brand back to high-flying success.
But, no. It's all "product", and they don't teach anything about "product"
in MBA school except that it's icky, to be dealt with only by equally-icky
brown people with blue collars, and should be outsourced to China whenever
possible.
Ptewph.
Copyright (C) 2004 Daniel J. Stern, all rights reserved
Herewith my commentary.
--
MBAssholes, or Requiem for a Heavyweight
The last-ever new Oldsmobile will be assembled the day after tomorrow. I
have no particularly strong emotional attachment to Oldsmobile as a
product or as a brand, and tend to cast a jaundiced eye towards GM's
products in general, but historically the division's engineering was
frequently the best -- or if nothing else the least worst -- of its type
across all of GM.
In the 1950s, the Oldsmobile version of the Hydramatic transmission was
the best one, and Chevrolet was still futzing around with the grossly
inferior Powerglide. In the 1970s, Oldsmobiles were the only GM cars that
ran well and got relatively decent fuel economy while complying with
then-new exhaust emission control requirements, which was quite a feat
given the state of the engine-management art of the day. Olds engines were
demonstrably superior in structure, function and materials than their
counterparts from other GM divisions, and not just barely -- such was the
difference that when GM began sneaking inferior Chevrolet-built engines in
place of Olds-built engines in 1977, customers howled and GM faced a
costly class-action lawsuit.
The MBAssholes at GM, in the manner of their verminous kind at virtually
every other US company, consider it beneath their station to know anything
about the goods or services their company makes. To them the cars are
nothing but "product", and their buyers (end users) are considered
brainless boobs easily bamboozled into seeing a new car where only
taillights and nameplates differ from an otherwise-identical model badged
as a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, etc.
Likewise, these degreed fools frown on legitimate and significant
innovation. This is a chicken-and-egg scenario: The public has been fed
such a steady diet of trivially minuscule "improvements" for so long that
by and large they willingly buy whatever is offered. GM sold a lot of
Luminas. Ford sells a ton of Tauri. And it's not just domestic makers,
either. Mitsubishi has same-same-samed itself to imminent death. Volvo
decided to court the masochist market a decade ago by forgetting, after
five decades of doing so, how to build a reliable electrical system. This
move put them in direct competition with VW, a company that never knew how
in the first place and so was spared the inconvenience of trying to
forget. But I digress.
Through the latter '70s, '80s and '90s, Oldsmobile's engineering
superiority was diluted and then eliminated with the homogenization of all
GM passenger cars. The resultant ChevrOldsmoBuAcs all looked, drove, lived
and died pretty much alike (with the obvious exception of the
aforementioned taillights and nameplates). For a brief few years, it
looked like Saturn was going to be the Think-Different GM division, but it
was soon turning out its own taillamps, grilles and nameplates to go on
the corporate identicars.
The ruse worked for a little while. The Oldsmobile Cutlass had enjoyed a
fine reputation for reliability and a top slot in North American sales
figures for a very long time, with extremely loyal customers coming back
again and again. GM effectively killed Oldsmobile around 1986, slapping
Oldsmobile badges on corporate-common cars. Those repeat buyers
still came back for one or two or three new Oldses, but the cars, while
some of them were perfectly honest, decent cars, were as innovative as a
wooden kitchen match, and new customers drove away in stays.
By the late 1990s, the wall was written off. People weren't buying a lot
of Oldsmobiles (oddly enough, changing the name of the division's
most-successful car from bold and evocative "Cutlass" to the nonlexical
focusgroupism "Achieva" not only didn't increase sales but made the car
the butt of jokes involving the word "under"), and the MBAssholes simply
finished the job they'd started twenty years before.
The selfsame thing happened to Plymouth. Remember Plymouth? The brand
officially disappeared a couple years ago, but it really went away in
1974, when the only difference between a Dodge and a Plymouth became which
nameplate was on the fender and hood. The Prowler was much too little, far
too late, for way too few people. The PT Cruiser was originally conceived
as a Plymouth, and it, together with a few other truly different cars,
even if they'd been based on corporate platforms, would surely have
propelled that brand back to high-flying success.
But, no. It's all "product", and they don't teach anything about "product"
in MBA school except that it's icky, to be dealt with only by equally-icky
brown people with blue collars, and should be outsourced to China whenever
possible.
Ptewph.
Copyright (C) 2004 Daniel J. Stern, all rights reserved
