It doesn’t appear Ford Motor Co. is going to join General Motors in honoring $1,000 certificates on the purchase of new Ford trucks.
GM, you may recall, recently settled a class-action suit charging that owners of 1973-1987 model Chevrolet C/K pickups with fuel tanks mounted outside the frame rails could catch fire in a collision by offering the 5 million owners of those vehicles $1,000 certificates that can be used toward the purchase of another truck or GM vehicle–excluding Saturn and the EV-1 electric car.
Several Ford dealers have argued that giving 5 million GM owners $1,000 certificates will send them running to GM and not Ford showrooms and the company should honor the competitor’s coupons to avoid a sales decline.
But Phil Novell, Ford division general sales manager, says it is unlikely Ford will honor the $1,000 certificates to be awarded by GM to owners in settlement of the alleged truck-fire problem.
“We’ll look at it, but chances are we won’t honor those certificates because by communicating that we will do so, we would be promoting their program,” he said.
Novell believes that if Ford advertised accepting GM’s $1,000 certificates some folks who would toss out the coupon might have second thoughts and amble over to a GM dealer to use the $1,000.
Besides, Novell said, while 5 million folks owned a 1973-1987 GM pickup, that’s not to say 5 million folks still have one in their driveway, a requirement to be eligible for the certificate.
Eldo to get the door?: One of the softest market segments is the two-door luxury coupe, where buyers have been staying away in rather large numbers in favor of easy access four-door sedans.
Though the Cadillac Eldorado, a member of the coupe crowd, is scheduled for a makeover for 1999, the sales weakness has folks wondering whether the coupe, and therefore the Eldorado, has outlived its usefulness?
“We’re not going to get out of coupes now,” says Cadillac general manager John Grettenberger of the very soft luxury sport coupe market. “There’s still the Eldorado, (Buick) Riviera and (Lincoln) Mark VIII,” he said of the trio of U.S.-built coupe rivals.
“We should still have at least one more generation of Eldorado (in 1999) before maybe we would have to decide whether it was economical to offer any more,” he said.
What, you say, Cadillac would never abandon the Eldorado? Sure, and the Blackhawks would never trade Jeremy Roenick.
Frost-free: First it was self-defrosting freezers and then self-cleaning ovens, and now comes continuous cleaning rear windows.
The 1997 Buick LeSabre offers a continuous defogger for its rear window that keeps working at all times at speeds of 30 miles per hour or more after the button is pressed or at 10 minute intervals at speeds of less than 30 m.p.h.
Shhhhhh: Quiet, it is said, is the sound of a well built car, and for 1997 the Cadillac Seville sedan and Eldorado coupe have taken quiet to a new plateau.
The 1997 Seville and Eldorado feature redesigned headliners to keep the sound of rain falling on the rooftop out of the passenger cabin.
Keep it clean: The 1997 Cadillac Catera will come from the factory wrapped in protective plastic to keep from being soiled or scuffed before arriving at the dealership. Before entering a Cadillac dealership in 1997, you may want to wipe your feet. And before entering your Catera, you probably would want to remove the plastic.
Shrink rap: In case you plan to remodel your garage, keep in mind that the 1998 Cadillac Seville will be four inches shorter than the current model. That means you’ll be able to lean the shovel and rake against the back wall and still fit your Seville in the garage. But Seville doesn’t come from the factory wrapped in a protective plastic coating so you may want to move the rake and shovel.
Saturn by the numbers: Some statistics from the notebook of Saturn reveal that:
– 65 percent of all Saturn buyers are women, and women most prefer the coupe to the sedan (72 percent of all Saturn coupe buyers are women);
– The No. 1 car Saturn buyers pass up in choosing the car is the Honda Accord, followed by the Honda Civic and the Toyota Camry;
– Saturn dealerships have had the highest number of unit sales per store in the industry–857 cars per outlet last year;
– The average age of the Saturn buyer is 41, versus 40 for Japanese cars;
– 30 percent of Saturn buyers never bought a new car before, versus 34 percent among Japanese car buyers.
By the way, Saturns don’t come from the factory wrapped in a plastic protective coating because their body panels are made of plastic.
Let’s make a dealer: Saturn has 360 dealers in 47 states selling its line of compact coupes, sedans and wagons. By 1999, when Saturn adds a midsize sedan and wagon, the dealer body will have to grow because the midsize cars will add 240,000 units to the automaker’s annual capacity, said Saturn President Don Hudler.
“We’ll probably need 500 dealers when we have two car lines and current Saturn dealers will account for 95 percent of the new store openings,” he said, meaning those who gambled on Saturn years ago will be rewarded by having first choice to open new outlets.
