Word: chryslers
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...Three's old defeatist philosophy about selling cars in Japan was to keep the prices high and market the cars as novelties. But last year, when the yen rose sharply against the U.S. dollar, Chrysler and Ford could afford to cut prices sharply. To their surprise, sales of the popular Taurus doubled, and last month the Jeep Cherokee became the first U.S.-made model in Japan to rack up more than 10,000 sales in a year. Clearly the fussy Japanese buyer who demanded a museum-quality body finish is in retreat; in his place is a worker whose income...
...homely, unreliable and, well, maybe a cut above Yugos and Trabants and the like, but not by much. Even their makers now admit that American compacts have been, for the most part, junk. Listen to Ford's Jerry Auth, a marketing executive: "Small cars built by Ford, GM and Chrysler were considered inferior -- and they were." Says Chrysler's Walter Battle, a planning manager: "They were regarded as basically underpowered, and maybe not safe." No wonder Detroit accounted for only 40% of the U.S. small-car market...
...that they've suddenly decided it's the right thing to do. Rather, Detroit is owning up to its lemon-strewn past by way of touting its peachy present. Capping a year that has seen each of the Big Three earn record quarterly profits, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are trumpeting a sweeping redesign of their smaller models. Now hitting showrooms % is a new type of compact, one that approximates the flowing, sculpted looks and sheer drivability usually found only in sports and luxury cars -- in short, a kind of Everyman's Porsche. Ford's Contour and Mercury Mystique, Chrysler...
...selling car in the U.S. Says Chris Cedergren, who tracks auto-industry sales for AutoPacific: "The battle lines are really going to be drawn in the premium-compact market, where the Japanese get about 33% of their U.S. car sales. We think the Contour and the Mystique and the Chrysler models are going to put a lot of pressure on the Japanese...
...engineers and even funeral homes. The dealmaking is particularly feverish among medium-size makers of components like auto parts. "Throughout all of U.S. industry, and particularly in the automotive sector, the trend is clearly toward reducing the number of suppliers you want to do business with," says Robert Eaton, Chrysler's chairman and CEO. So suppliers are rushing to team up with one another and thus increase their chances of remaining in business...