Found this on the company site. Rich ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 8:49 PM
Chevy Chief Aims At Ford, Mulls Chevelle Chicago Tribune Jim Mateja April 18, 2002 Kurt Ritter beams when talking about Chevrolet gaining ground on rival Ford. "We narrowed the gap in ?01 and will narrow it even more in ?02," the Chevrolet general manager said in an interview. But, Ritter admits, there?s a difference between gaining and passing, which Chevy hasn?t done to Ford in years. "I remember a meeting when Bob Burger, our general sales manager, said we had to keep the sales lead we had over Ford because if we didn?t, it could be more than a decade before we got it back. That meeting was in 1986, the last time we had the lead," Ritter recalled. While Ford sold 148,075 more cars and 464,926 more trucks than Chevy in ?01, its lead was cut by 50,000 cars and more than 200,000 trucks from ?00. To narrow the gap, GM has been unrelenting in offering incentives, which Ford must match though it?s struggling financially. "It?s never our responsibility to make life easy for our rivals in this world," he said, laughing. "Consumer opinion of your product and consideration in buying your product are two industry indexes used to measure success. If consumers don?t have a favorable opinion of your vehicles and don?t consider your vehicles, I don?t care how big the incentive is, it doesn?t help," Ritter said. "In the last two years we?ve passed Ford in both indexes--consumer opinion and consideration has risen at Chevrolet while [both have] eroded at Ford," he added. On other matters, the rear-wheel-drive Holden Monaro sedan from GM of Australia will be the base for an ?04 reprise of the Pontiac GTO. But is it true the car originally was earmarked to be an Impala SS for Chevy? "We need something more than a 15,000- to 20,000-unit opportunity. At that volume, it?s appropriate Pontiac gets the car, though that?s not to say we aren?t planning our own high-performance sedan for the future," he said. An Impala SS and maybe a Chevelle SS? "Chevelle is one of my favorite cars and favorite names, and there?s always a chance we?ll bring it back," he said. What role will Chevy play in GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz?s goal to increase car offerings and sales when trucks and sport-utility vehicles are the rage? "Chevy will lead GM back on the car side just like it has with trucks. We need to balance the lineup with more cars and have a full roster coming, starting with the new [?04] Malibu next year. By ?05 we?ll have a full lineup of cars--I just won?t talk about them," he said. Reportedly there will be two Malibus, a sedan and a hatchback, the latter called Smartback. "There?ll be two versions. One has a hatchback, but it isn?t exactly a hatchback as it is an iteration of a sedan without the styling of a traditional sedan," he said, though he wouldn?t say how the rear end would be manifested. For ?04, Cavalier will be replaced and possibly renamed, and Tracker will depart to make room for a bigger vehicle. Will Chevy have its new small-car strategy complete by then? "Everything is very much in place for ?04. Small cars are a big part of our future success. You can?t leave a generation [young buyers] behind," he said. "With Cavalier, when you come out with an all-new car you have the opportunity and owe it to yourself as to whether a name change is appropriate. You only get one chance and can?t change the name the second year," he said. Ford will build a car-based sedan/sport-ute crossover called CrossTrainer in Chicago for ?05. Will Chevy have a rival? "Maybe our new vehicle [Tracker successor] will be a rival, but nothing for now. I don?t see a tremendous following for CrossTrainer, basically a high-seat, high-roof, car-based AWD vehicle," he said. Toyota has set up a Scion division for youth with a separate vehicle lineup. How will Chevy react? "We?re getting youth now. Chevy leads in first-time buyers as well as in buyers of $35,000 and over vehicles. We have both sides of the market covered like bookends with one brand and not two," he said. (Actually, Chevy is No. 3 in first-time buyers at 11.5 percent. Ford leads at 14.5 percent, followed by Honda, 12.5 percent, with Toyota in fourth place at 10.5 percent. Chevy does lead in sales of more than $35,000, with 300,000 units in 2001, followed by Lexus at 223,983, BMW at 213,127 and Mercedes-Benz at 206,638.) "I wish Toyota no more success with Scion than we had with Geo," Ritter said, referring to the lineup at Chevrolet in the ?80s and ?90s. The Metro and Tracker from Suzuki, Storm from Isuzu and Prizm from Toyota were low-cost vehicles to lure import intenders into Chevy showrooms. "With Geo we learned that it?s difficult to create a separate franchise in the same showroom in the mind of the consumer," he said. ----------------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe please visit www.chevelles.net/list.html To start a new topic, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
