We Aren't In Ohio...
Alan and I constantly hammer the point that LA is the trendsetter for the rest of the country. I got a very clear reminder of that over the past month when my new tenants moved in. They are here from lovely Columbus, Ohio. Ohio is just about as middle America as you can get and it's home to a few large car manufacturing plants.
The first member of the couple moved in a month ago. He got new job here and left the other half in Ohio to tie up loose ends and pack up. He has a very ordinary standard V6 Mustang. In LA, it would have been a rental car, but in Ohio, it's a sports car!
When I interviewed them, they talked about their "good" car back in Ohio. They would be driving it out in a month so they would have both cars here. They both talked about how much they liked the new, good car -- particularly the satellite radio. At the time, I didn't ask what the car was, but I was expecting something like an Acura TL or an Audi A4.
Last week, they arrived with the really nice car. They had driven from Columbus to LA in two and a half days. Yuck. I snooped around to see if I could see the "good" car parked on the street. I wasn't a very good detective because I didn't see anything on the street that fit my image of what I was looking for. I finally asked: "Where did you park your car?"
To my horror, he pointed to a silver 2003 Pontiac Grand Am. It had a bra on the front so I didn't see the Ohio license plate. Sure enough, there was a satellite antenna plopped randomly on the roof, just in front of the sunroof that opened by sliding the glass outside the roof rather than into the roof. Now, to be fair, this Grand Am probably wouldn't have been in the rental fleet because it was a Grand Am GT. The GT package is an appearance package that puts fake scoops into the hood and a quad exhaust setup in the rear. Add to that a heavy dose of Pontiac's plastic side panels and ground effects, a rear spoiler, fog lights, chromed wheels and you have one lukewarm Grand Am.
I don't know if GM sold any of these cars here in LA. The last Grand Am I saw in a showroom was about 9 months ago at the Power Pontiac-GMC dealer in the South Bay. It was all dressed up with a bow on top, sitting on the showroom floor. It had a big sign on it that said, in code, "Please Take Me Home". What code, you ask? Well, it was the price and financing. This poor thing was a 2003 model leftover from the annual summer house cleaning to make way for the 2004 models. I think it was $12,999 with GMAC zero percent financing for 60 months. And it was fully lo
aded with every option. It was discounted something like $7,000 from sticker and if you added the cheap financing, it was even lower. The salesman told me that they just couldn't get anyone to buy it. Of course, this was the same salesman who never called me back about the GTO I was looking at. I bet he's sorry about that decision now. Pontiac can't get anyone to buy the GTO because of its very bland styling and antique optional automatic transmission.
GM has ditched the venerable Grand Am name because what nameplate equity there might have been has long since been exhausted. Any moment now, the Pontiac G6 will be on the streets to replace the Grand Am. It looks sleeker, but so far, I'm not impressed. It's almost a sure thing that the first G6 I'll see will be a rental car.
Now back to Ohio. This five year old Mustang and a year old Grand Am are, apparently, representative of the "nice" car you'll see in the Midwest. There wasn't a stitch of rust on them! In LA, trade those for a BMW 3-Series or a Mercedes C-Class and you'll understand the huge difference in markets and how LA sets the trends for the rest of the world.
I heard some other very interesting things from my nice tenants. First and most surprising, one told me that LA has much fewer big SUVs than Columbus. He looked around and saw a trend in LA to smaller SUVs and more passenger cars! I'm really glad to hear that because LA does foreshadow automotive trends. I'm all for getting rid of these gigantic SUVs that have no purpose on the congested streets of LA.
The next thing to watch was their visceral reactions to the never-ending stream of expensive German steel and aluminum speeding all over the area. I don't think they have ever seen anything like this where the imports and super-expensive high-end cars rule the road. They saw their first BMW 645Cic the other day. They couldn't believe how beautiful it was and that they had nothing like that back in Columbus.
The one with the Mustang had to drive his boss' new Mercedes E-Class sedan to a job site. It had the navigation option set for the job site. He immediately fell in love with a talking $55,000 Mercedes sedan. The other one has already started talking about getting a BMW. Let's not forget that this is only one month after moving to LA.
The other interesting observation was about the speed of traffic. They had come into LA driving west on Highway 15 to the 210. They observed normal speeds of 90-100mph. To be fair, when you drive through the desert on long and boring roads, speed does tend to pick up just to get to where you are going. I experience this all the time on I-10 to and from Palm Springs. They also noticed the amount of rude drivers: Translated, that means the "it's all about ME" attitude that is pervasive in LA. Now, they feel the need to be more aggressive drivers!
Let's hope that the SUV down-size trend really turns into a national trend. Perhaps it will take the rumored BMW minivan to do the trick and get men back into the minivan game. It would also help if the marketing people just start talking about every wagon as a "Sports Wagon" because the image of a "station wagon" just doesn't cut it here. I think the most recent government rollover statistics are helpful to get people to realize that a big truck simply isn't safer than a well-engineered passenger car or minivan. It's been obvious to engineers and most in the car biz; but that didn't matter when it came to sales. Tell the customer whatever the customer wants to hear. Lie to sell the product. Tell them that bigger, taller and heavier is much better. It's NOT. (Just don't tell them it's much more profitable for the manufacturer.)
It's just nice to have reaffirmation that LA really is the car capital of the US, if not the world.
