IMPROVEMENTS IN GENERAL MOTORS’ CAR LINE-UP MEAN MORE JOBS FOR CANADIAN AUTOWORKERS: GM’S 2014 IMPALA: A TRANSFORMED MODEL GUIDING THE AUTO MAKER’S FUTURE By Greg Keenan, Auto & Steel Industry Reporter, Globe & Mail Newspaper, Toronto Canada, September 21, 2013 To understand how General Motors Co. is trying to exorcise the demons of its past, consider the trunk lid for the redesigned 2014 Chevrolet Impala. It consists of five pieces of metal welded together in a deft bit of styling sculpted by the design team led by John Cafaro, director of exterior design for Chevrolet. Typically, a trunk lid is three pieces of steel, sometimes even a single sheet of steel or aluminum. “Maybe back in past history when we weren’t doing cars as good as we should, we might have argued about this five-piece trunk lid,” Mr. Cafaro said. “It might have been three-piece; we might have compromised the design… Instead, his design became critical to the mission of creating an elegant American sedan that could revive the Chevrolet name, GM’s most important brand, in the large-car segment. The rejuvenation of the Impala is also crucial to the auto maker’s escalating effort to design, build and sell stylish vehicles with features consumers want – and [still] make a profit. “We can talk about the Corvette all day long, but the Impala should be the halo car for Chevrolet,” said veteran industry analyst Joe Phillippi, president of Auto Trends Consulting of Short Hills, N.J. “It’s the vehicle that’s going to make your brand statement, which historically has been affordable quality.” GM for years focused on growth & market share, but failed to produce bottom-line results. Before the financial crisis, the lumbering giant’s high cost structure left it with massive losses despite strong sales. When the crisis hit, decades of MISMANAGEMENT caught up with GM and it sank into CHAPTER 11 BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION, saved only by a $60-billion government bailout. So far, the revival of the Impala has been a shining moment for GM in its recovery from those dark days. The 2014 model made the cover of Consumer Reports as the top-ranked sedan, test-driven by the magazine’s auto experts -- the first time a U.S-made car has topped that list in 20 years. Even better for GM, the new Impala is showing early signs of generating solid profits… GM officials said, on a conference call earlier this month, that Impala retail sales rose 76 per cent in August from year-earlier levels; and about 80 per cent of the 13,274 cars, sold in the U.S. market, were 2014 models. THE NEW IMPALA IS ALSO ENCOURAGING FOR OSHAWA, CANADA, WHERE 3,000 EMPLOYEES WORKING ON THREE SHIFTS ARE ASSEMBLING THE IMPALA ALONGSIDE THE BUICK REGAL, CHEVROLET CAMARO AND CADILLAC XTS… As GM North America president Mark Reuss makes plain, the 2014 version of one of the most successful cars in GM history, is more than just a new Chevrolet entrant in the large car market. “At the heart of Chevrolet was an affordable, aspirational family car – at the very heart of Chevrolet’s success over the years,” Mr. Reuss said in an interview. The Impala “has to play an incredibly important role for a really high-value family car that, No. 1, looks a lot more expensive than it is – both interior & exterior – and also performs in a way that is unexpected,” he said. It’s also an example of what Mr. Reuss believes GM must do to beat its rivals in the hyper-competitive North American vehicle market. Landing on the cover of Consumer Reports was not the goal, when the project to redesign of one of the storied names in Chevrolet history began in the fall of 2009, Impala chief engineer Todd Pawlik (and members of his team) pointed out during an afternoon spent discussing the vehicle in a design studio adjacent to the sprawling GM Tech Center in Warren, Mich., north of Detroit. But they did want to make a leap forward… They decided to differentiate it from the Toyota Avalon, Ford Taurus, Nissan Maxima, and others in the large-car category, through striking exterior and interior design and a superior driving experience. The team resisted the urge to roll legendary Impalas of the 1960s and 1970s into the design studio to inspire them. But Mr. Pawlik said he tried to cast his mind back to the glory days of the car in the early 1960s – North Americans bought more than one million Impalas in 1965 alone, a staggering number for a single car – and determine what that [consumer response] represented. It was the kind of a car a fire chief in a mid-sized city might drive, he concluded. “He didn’t want to feel pretentious, but he wanted to feel like he had made it.” The prime goal of all this [new] effort is to turn around the equation so that at least 70 per cent of Impala sales go to retail customers and 30 per cent to fleet. The ratio for the 2013 model was the opposite. To capture more retail buyers and those in their 50s and 40s instead of their 60s, Chevrolet held the price increase for the new model with the added features to about $1,000 in the U.S. market and only $145 (Canadian) in Canada. “This audience, they do their research,” said Chris Perry, Chevrolet’s vice-president of marketing. “They’re not looking for the latest, great thing, but they do want something that they can believe in.” “Obviously, 30-year-olds are not going to buy this car,” said Mr. Phillippi, the analyst [president of Auto Trends Consulting]. “But if they can get the 40-to-60 crowd into the showroom and get the chequebooks out, they’ll do just fine.” MY OWN RESPONSE: As an old guy who used to drive Chevrolet Impalas in my younger days, the new 2014 model looks pretty neat! Congratulations, G.M!
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 17:06:15 +0000
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