MINI Loves LA
It was bad news (again) for Detroit. MINI, a division of BMW, announced that it would debut the MINI Clubman in the US in Los Angeles, not Detroit. The reason sounded suspici
ously like the one cited by Porsche when Porsche pulled out (completely) of the Detroit (North American International) Auto Show. MINI's national sales manager Stephen Saward, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times last week: "Detroit represents less than 1% or our sales and Southern California represents 13% of our sales."
Mr. Saward had some more pearls of wisdom regarding Los Angeles: "It is such a well-known car culture. If it is accepted there [LA/SoCal], the rest of the country will follow." We've been saying this for a very long time. I'm glad some industry insiders are finally stating the obvious.
Last year, the Saturn Aura was named the Car of the Year at the Detroit Auto Show. GM thought that this prestigious award would really boost sales of the Aura -- a car meant to compete with the likes of heavy-hitters like the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. But maybe the COTY doesn't carry as much weight any longer.
Mark LaNeve, GM North America's top sales executive, admited in the Wall Street Journal this Tuesday that Aura sales have been very disappointing. For the first seven months of 2007, Saturn sold only around 33,000 Auras. Toyota sold more than 37,000 Camrys in July 07 alone. I think the Aura is a nice car but not good enough to compete with the Camry or Accord. And no one I know care that the Aura was the COTY.
The MINI Clubman has already been "introduced" to the public by MINI with press-released photos that are all over the internet. The official world debut of the Clubman is next month at the Frankfurt Auto Show. The Clubman is already in production and it will be available in European markets this fall with US deliveries coming in February 2008.
So who cares if the Clubman makes its US debut in Detroit or Los Angeles? The real world answer is: No one. It's already debuted where it counts -- cyberspace. MINI has already created marketing buzz with the motor press, enthusiast websites, blogs and just about anyone interested in cars. In the "old days" the press got its first good look at new models at the auto shows. Now, high definition photos and video make the physical appearance at a world show like Frankfurt, Tokyo or Detroit almost irrelevant.
The big "wow" factor at any auto show these days is a concept car that hasn't been revealed anywhere before. Production cars like the Clubman or the new 2008 Honda Accord, while important, don't need a world debut at one of the Big Three shows. If you want to see the new Accord in a lovely Flash presentation, here's the link to Honda's website.
Here are the official press photos of the MINI Clubman. You can also go to MINI.com (the general international website) and see more photos and video.
So what else do we get at the LA Auto Show this year? The new Nissan Skyline GT-R makes its US debut in LA -- but only after it makes its world debut in Tokyo. Sorry Detroit. Nissan makes the same case for the LA debut. It's expensive to double marketing efforts in the US, and for Nissan, the focus on the important West Coast market simply made business sense.
Volkswagen's Bentley unit chose LA to debut its "new" Continental GT Speed. This Bentley is a souped-up version of the standard C-GT coupe but with some engine tuning and body tweaks to accommodate 600 hp with the capability of speeds toping 200 mph. Of course, there is no public road in the US where you can test the speed of your new Bentley; but it's not about using the power, it's about the bragging rights to driving a production luxury coupe that is capable of such automotive excess. LA is a city of automotive excess - a city where the lesser Bentley Continental GT is such a common sight that Bentley almost needed to come up with more expensive, exotic variants to satisfy the need to stand out in the crowd. LA is the perfect venue to showcase a new Bentley model.
All these developments come with a more dramatic change in the timing of the LA Auto Show. Last year, it was the first week in December. This year, the show opens on 16 November and continues through 25 November -- the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Press preview is the 14th - the 15th. In short, if you want early exposure for 2008 models, LA is becoming much more important than Detroit.
The US auto market is the single largest car market in the world -- at least before China overshadows everyone. It's very expensive to sell cars in the US and most manufacturers see the US in terms of regional markets. Rather than blow the budget at one show in Detroit, it makes more financial sense to spend show money regionally, based on target markets and sales demographics. I think we see the seeds of this trend in 2007 more than any other year. The watershed event was Porsche's complete withdrawal from Detroit. I don't expect many other manufactures to take that drastic step; however, I do expect more manufacturers to follow the MINI model of reallocation of marketing money to more important markets.
