San Diego sure isn't Los Angeles
I drove to San Diego this weekend for the first time in a few years. The difference in car culture was striking. It sure wasn't like driving around LA.
My first reminder that I wasn't in LA was on the longer stretches of I-5 driving south through cities like Oceanside and Escondido. The carpool lanes and most of the car lanes were filled with minivans and mid-sized SUVs. The most shocking thing was that these vehicles were filled with people, not the usual single driver we see here in LA. I don't know if they were driving to Camp Pendleton or Mexico, but the highway rest stops were filled with large family and recreational vehicles. It's a rare event to see an RV lumbering down Wilshire or Santa Monica Boulevards.
The speed of traffic wasn't a surprise. I was trying to be a bit conservative, but even at 85 mph, Honda Civics with 4 passengers were flying by me at what clocked in at 100 mph. My BMW 325 is much more stable and able to fly at those speeds; however, the thought of the CHP finding me going 35 mph faster than the stated speed limit wasn't exactly on my list of things to experience this weekend.
Once I got into downtown San Diego, I was treated to a different landscape of cars and trucks. I was struck by the lack of expensive German steel rolling anywhere. But this was no bastion of any American manufacturer; it was solely the domain of the Japanese. It also wasn't usual newer models. In LA, any car older than three years is usually scrapped in favor of something new. I saw countless work horse Honda Civics, Toyota Corollas and Nissan Sentras. These cars also had more than one passenger, usually.
There also weren't an overwhelming number of huge SUVs. I did see families in minivans and sometimes a four-door pickup truck. I drove around some of the residential neighborhoods and saw more of the same. Now, these neighborhoods were nice older Craftsman homes that sold in the $600k or more range, so it wasn't exactly a poor area; but even in these areas, I saw much more modest cars. If this had been LA, there would be a BMW, Mercedes or Volvo in every driveway. The car has to go with the price of admittance to the neighborhood.
I also missed seeing the "bling-bling" stuff we are used to seeing here. I didn't see one H2 in town, and while I saw a few Chrysler 300s running around, those were rental cars from the San Diego Airport. I didn't see one 300C or Dodge Magnum R/T. The 300C has become the new "gotta have" bling-bling car here in LA, but I don't think that San Diego simply doesn't have the music and entertainment industry that attracts the bling-bling set.
San Diego is very much associated with the military because of the Marines at Camp Pendleton and the Naval base in San Diego. I saw several Marines driving around, but their car of choice was either a Mustang or Camero or some sort of sporty Japanese car like a Honda S2000 or even a Toyota Solara. It reminds me of my Air Force brother buying a Nissan 280Z over a Chevy Corvette. In the 1970s, the car of choice at the US Air Force Academy was always a Corvette. The local dealer took orders early so that the upper classmen who were permitted to buy cars could order their exact color/options for their Corvette and then delivered them by huge car carriers. I wonder if that kind of practice still goes on for the military customers.
Since LA has almost no military presence other than VA hospitals, we simply don't see the young military men and women driving around.
On Saturday night, I drove up to La Jolla. I've never been to La Jolla before and it was fun to walk the commercial area and see the beautiful homes and beach area. The beach setting and tacky art galleries reminded me of a larger version of Laguna Beach. But it was night and day when it came to cars. There were no less than two Lamborghini Gallardos running around and when you discounted the numerous rental cars, there were lots of Mercedes, BMWs and Porsches. Now that's much more like LA!
Also interesting was the number of surf boards I saw stuffed into regular passenger cars (almost all Hondas). The most popular "SUV" was the Honda Element. Since this is a small SUV based on the Civic platform, it's hard to call it a hardcore truck, but it does have good interior space. I also saw two antique VW microbuses that could barely keep up on the freeway. It was nice to see that the locals didn't feel the need to have the largest, most inefficient trucks to carry just one person and a surf board.
I think that there is a big message here to the "Big 3": There's no longer a fight for the Southern California market. You've lost the most important car market in the world to the Japanese. It's no surprise that Honda and Toyota way outsell Chevy and Ford in California. It was very clear in San Diego that the car of choice was "anything Japanese". While it's much more skewed in favor of the Germans here in LA; Toyota, Nissan and Honda are the mass market favorites here.
And no matter how much the car magazines give a tepid "thumbs up" review to the Pontiac G6 or the Ford Five Hundred or even a more upbeat review of the Buick La Crosse, the facts are that these are rental cars in Los Angeles. Buick is irrelevant here. No one cares about GM product unless it's a new Cadillac, a Saab with a heavily subsidized lease or a C6 Corvette. Ford will get a boost from the new Mustang, but that's it. Chrysler has the buzz right now, but it has to follow the hits with new products that strike the same chord with customers. The Dodge Charger looks good, but it's just another 300 iteration.
I sure hope someone in Detroit, Dearborn and Auburn Hills is listening -- but I don't think so. Market share is down yet again for the Big 3 and I think GM has the most to lose. It turns out that Bob Lutz has brought us one disappointment after another. So much for the Great Hope we were all sold when GM hired Mr. Lutz. I sure hope the Pontiac Solstice is good -- but I'm not holding my breath. I think that 30 years of crappy product has soured the California market permanently for GM and Ford. The jury is still out on Chrysler. Good luck getting any of it back -- you'll need it.
