This weekend, the Automotive Hall of Fame presented the prestigious Industry Leader Award to Toyota Motors North America President James E. Press for the year 2006. The award was given to Press for having demonstrated and shown outstanding leadership in the industry. After all, the company which he leads has enjoyed much success in the past year. The presentation of the award is in conjunction with the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention held in Las Vegas.
On the product front, the long anticipated Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon are selling extremely well. So well that General Motors is having a hard time keeping up with demand. This is a great sign for the new line of pick-up trucks GM plans to introduce later this year. Pontiac is riding high on strong Solstice sales, and Saturn is getting ready with a product offensive that should move the brand into a more up-scale position, while also attracting new buyers.
This leaves the Cobalt and Pursuit a generation behind in terms of vehicle dynamics and engineering. You only need to look at the Honda Civic to realize that even small cars have to be smart and sophisticated. As Toyota prepares to introduce the next generation Camry with available hybrid technology, General Motors will have to invest significant resources to bring its hybrid program up to speed. Even without the hybrid option, the 2007 Camry looks like the 800 pound gorilla in the family sedan category. With the availability of a 3.5L V6 producing over 265hp, the Camry hopes to shed its image as a boring family sedan.
The continuing success of Toyota is attributed to the work ethics of their workers and the high performance cars in their lineup. Their HEV or hybrid electric vehicle which is the Toyota Prius is fast becoming a major source of income for the Japanese company. And with continuous development of new vehicles which will boast higher performance akin to those brake parts from Active Brakes Direct, the company is on its way to take the top spot from General Motors. That is if the current trend continues and both Ford and General Motors continue their slide downwards.
At a time when GM is aligning its production capacity with its market share, the General is investing more money into R&D. Clearly General Motors understands that the best long-term solution is to build great cars that people actually want to buy.
The January sales figures for General Motors shows a 19.7 percent decrease in the number of vehicles they have sold. Buick, Hummer, and Pontiac have the largest decline in terms of sales of all General Motors’ marques. In fact, the only marque to have posted an improvement is Saab which improved their sales by 3.3 percent over last year’s numbers.
Other citations given during the event include the institute’s oldest award which dates back to 1940. This is the Distinguished Service Citation and it was given to six industry leaders. The recipients of the distinguished service citation are: Dr. Amar G. Bose, Chairman and CEO, Bose Corp.; Jeffrey A. Cook, Technical Leader for the Ford Motor Company; Allan D. Gilmour, Vice Chairman, CFO (retired), Ford Motor Company; Timothy D. Leuiette, Chairman, President and CEO, Metaldyne Corp.; Elizabeth Lowery, Vice President, Environment and Energy, General Motors Corp.; and Phil Smart Sr., Chairman, Phil Smart Mercedes-Benz. The citations given to these six industry leaders are described to be given to those individuals “who have provided distinguished service to the automotive industry and to the recipients’ respective organizations” as per Jeffrey Leestma, the President of the Automotive Hall of Fame said.
Of course some areas still need attention. GM is working to beef up its sedan offerings. The new Impala is a great start, though it lacks the design chutzpah that Detroit was once known for. The Cobalt and Pontiac Pursuit are a definite improvement over the Cavalier and Sunfire. However, the Cobalt and Pursuit benchmarked the previous generation Volkswagen Jetta which has been replaced with a more sophisticated offering.
The award given to Press comes on the heel of the recently posted sales figures of Toyota for January this year which shows their continued success that the company has carried over from last year. In North America, Toyota has sold 178,850 vehicles which becomes their best ever performance for the said month. The figure shows a 5.1 percent increase over their performance last year. Both the Toyota and the Lexus divisions have broken their sales record for the month of January. The Toyota division posted a 4.7 percent increase over January 2006 sales while Lexus has bested their January 2006 sales by 8 percent. Scion, the youth oriented marque of Toyota, also posted strong numbers with 9,004 units sold.
Buick is in serious trouble and GM knows it. Some inside the company want to “Oldsmobile” it. The brand shouldn’t be dropped. Get some of the guys and gals from Cadillac over to Buick ASAP. It’s a brand worth keeping but only if they go after a younger audience. Buick has lost its confidence and the only way they’ll get it back is by building a competent, exciting family sedan with rear wheel drive and a strong V6 or V8. The Chrysler 300C would have been a hell of a Buick. As for Saab, some say get rid of it. I say keep it. With sales growing on the back of the “born from Jets” ad campaign, Saab is ready for prime time. The Saab brand has a strong identity but it needs a strong line-up to get competitive. Stop offering hand-me-downs from other divisions and start investing some time and effort into the brand. With sales of Volvo surging over the last few years there is no reason why Saab can’t grow as well.
BBC Sport