Chrysler VP of product planning sees slot for small pickups
07-08-12, 04:46 AM
#16
Super Moderator
I have to basically agree that size and price have definitely impacted on the small-to-medium-size truck market. But there are also other factors. The GM Colorado/Canyon pickups (also sold as the former Isuzu I-pickup) were simply uncompetitive, being (by modern standards) poorly-designed and poorly built with ultra-cheap materials. The Honda Ridgeline, superbly built and with several clever built-in features, was never really looked upon by many Americans as a real truck (I didn't agree). And the Europeans and Koreans, for whatever reasons, generally have not seen fit to introduce pickups to the American market, though VW sold a Rabbit/Golf-based pickup here some years ago that was something like a small Chevy El Camino.
One market that is sorely lacking in small pick ups is Mexico.
07-08-12, 05:32 AM
#17
Out of Warranty
In the US, the pickup market is divided about 70-30 as "image" versus utility. At least 70% of the market wants a pickup for the high eye-line view of the highway and the machismo that comes with driving a truck. Doubt it? Look in the bed of pickups you see in parking lots. How many even have scratches back there? Most have hauled nothing bulkier than their owner's image. This is particularly true of up-market and newer trucks. Nowadays the "crew cab" versions that can still haul the family and a weeks' worth of groceries from the big-box store appeal to the larger segment of pickup buyers who aren't using that real estate out back to haul their livelihood.
In this market, mini-pickups are problematic. While Joe Veltri is right, many young men want to own a pickup, they just don't want to own a LITTLE pickup any more than they want a smaller male appendage. They want a big honkin' rig that drips testosterone and makes a statement about the status of their manhood, not some cute little Camry with a short bed out back. If they can't afford a new one, they'll buy one three or four years old. The design cycle is pretty long on pickups, if you detail it out, no one will know that your ride didn't cost you $40K out of the showroom. No hormone-raging kid is going to care about fuel economy when they can pull their chicken-billed straw hat down over their eyes in the best Toby Keith fashion and be the desire of every girl in the mall parking lot. By the same token, forty-somethings just entering their middle-age crazies can strut and pose at the garden center like they're hauling a load of feed for their cattle ranch rather than a couple of bedding plants for the wife's flower bed.
So will little pickups make it? After an initial flurry of interest, I don't think so. If they're priced significantly lower while providing the machismo of a full size pickup, they might sell a few, but when the dealers start to realize the straw-tick seat covers and rubber floor mats aren't selling, they'll tart them up with leather, big stereo/DVD systems, rims, lift kits, chrome everything, to make them more appealing - and jack the price up to within spittin' distance of the mid-echelon F-150's and 1500's on the lot. It's a replay of the "compact" cars of the 60's, and the mini pickups of the 70's, most people think that "smaller" means more affordable, but there's not one component of the big pickups you can delete from a small pickup to arrive at a lower manufacturing/marketing cost. Except for a few hundred pounds of steel, your overhead costs are the same - whether you're building a Ranger or a F-150 . . . engineering, development, tooling, manufacturing, marketing and financing costs don't matter.
At the same time, dealers who spot an uptick in sales will shuffle the price point upward to the point sales start to decline in order to maximize profit. You can't blame them for that, it's just capitalism at work. The problem is that price point is pretty close to being the same for both a full-size and a mini pickup. Is it any wonder then that automakers who set out to find a new market by producing a small pickup end up putting another brand on the dealer's lot that sells for about the same price?
In this market, mini-pickups are problematic. While Joe Veltri is right, many young men want to own a pickup, they just don't want to own a LITTLE pickup any more than they want a smaller male appendage. They want a big honkin' rig that drips testosterone and makes a statement about the status of their manhood, not some cute little Camry with a short bed out back. If they can't afford a new one, they'll buy one three or four years old. The design cycle is pretty long on pickups, if you detail it out, no one will know that your ride didn't cost you $40K out of the showroom. No hormone-raging kid is going to care about fuel economy when they can pull their chicken-billed straw hat down over their eyes in the best Toby Keith fashion and be the desire of every girl in the mall parking lot. By the same token, forty-somethings just entering their middle-age crazies can strut and pose at the garden center like they're hauling a load of feed for their cattle ranch rather than a couple of bedding plants for the wife's flower bed.
So will little pickups make it? After an initial flurry of interest, I don't think so. If they're priced significantly lower while providing the machismo of a full size pickup, they might sell a few, but when the dealers start to realize the straw-tick seat covers and rubber floor mats aren't selling, they'll tart them up with leather, big stereo/DVD systems, rims, lift kits, chrome everything, to make them more appealing - and jack the price up to within spittin' distance of the mid-echelon F-150's and 1500's on the lot. It's a replay of the "compact" cars of the 60's, and the mini pickups of the 70's, most people think that "smaller" means more affordable, but there's not one component of the big pickups you can delete from a small pickup to arrive at a lower manufacturing/marketing cost. Except for a few hundred pounds of steel, your overhead costs are the same - whether you're building a Ranger or a F-150 . . . engineering, development, tooling, manufacturing, marketing and financing costs don't matter.
At the same time, dealers who spot an uptick in sales will shuffle the price point upward to the point sales start to decline in order to maximize profit. You can't blame them for that, it's just capitalism at work. The problem is that price point is pretty close to being the same for both a full-size and a mini pickup. Is it any wonder then that automakers who set out to find a new market by producing a small pickup end up putting another brand on the dealer's lot that sells for about the same price?
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Hoovey689
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12-08-12 12:04 AM
