If you have your hopes set on purchasing a 1998 Porsche Boxster, please don’t be disappointed to learn that just about each of the 6,000 cars the German automaker is going to ship to the U.S. this year are spoken for, according to Fred Schwab, president of Porsche Cars of North America.
The car hasn’t even arrived in showrooms, and Schwab said it’s being called “the rare Porsche.”
“Now if someone has ingenuity (and a bottomless purse or wallet), they’ll find one,” Schwab insists.
Just how hard will it be to buy one of those limited-edition, high-performance, $39,980 roadsters?
“If my son ordered one today, it would be fall before he could hope to get one–and I love him,” Schwab said.
Though able to joke about Boxster, Schwab became rankled when the conversation turned to the ill-fated attempt by Porsche to enlist Mercedes-Benz to build a version of its upcoming 1998 M-Series sport-utility with a Porsche badge on it.
“We danced, we hugged, we kissed, but you don’t marry every one you date, and this one just didn’t work out,” he said while in town for the Chicago Auto Show, which ends its nine-day run in McCormick Place Sunday.
“We thought we had an agreement with them to supply us with a sport-utility, but it was their decision to call it off. They said it wouldn’t be profitable enough for them,” said Schwab, his voice quivering, his neck turning red under his freshly pressed shirt, yet insisting, “There’s no bitterness, that’s life.”
Schwab said Porsche will continue seeking a partner to build a sport-utility.
“The sports-car niche that we are in is a volatile market with high peaks on the way up and steep valleys on the way down. When you sell fun cars, you also need to be in another market segment to even out those peaks and valleys,” he said.
Diamond Star days: Chrysler Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said he expects the automaker to renew a pact, set to expire at the end of next year, for Mitsubishi to continue building sport coupes for Chrysler at its Downstate Normal assembly plant.
Lutz told us recently (Business, Jan. 20) that, rather than break car and engine production ties with Mitsubishi, which supplies it with the Eagle Talon and Chrysler Sebring/Dodge Avenger sport coupes as well as V-6 engines for its mini-vans, Chrysler changed its mind and decided to maintain the relationship.
“We’re operating under the assumption that the contract will be renewed and that it’s a done deal,” Lutz told us while in town for the auto show. “I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t.”
And what about production of the Dodge and Plymouth Neon, which has been on again and off again because of weak sales at Chrysler’s Belvidere plant?
“I’d rather take cars out of the production schedule than keep building them and then have to offer incentives on the cars and lose money selling them,” Lutz said of recent cutbacks in Neon output.
And what about the Dodge Copperhead, the concept roadster built off the Plymouth Prowler that had showgoers drooling at McCormick Place?
“We all love it, but as exciting as it is, it makes less sense to build than any of our other concept cars at the show. As neat as that car is, we have no serious plans to produce it and aren’t even close to having a business proposition on that car. We already have a roadster (actually two, the $60,000 Viper and the $35,000 Prowler),” he said.
The problem?
Car looks great, but the fine-tuning needed to bring it to production would be costly and for the car to sell, it would have to come out in the $30,000 range. With a limited edition of 5,000 cars or so as with Viper and Prowler, buyers will take some rough edges, but Copperhead would be a 20,000-unit or more car and rough edges won’t do.
Going down: The bubble isn’t going to burst, but after five years of increasing vehicle sales, the auto industry is going to experience a little puncture, according to Rick Wagoner, president of GM’s North American Operations.
“The next downturn should start in 1998 and go down a little more in 1999 before we see an upturn in the year 2000,” Wagoner said.
“The downturn won’t be as severe as it has been in the past because the upside over the last five years hasn’t been as high.”
Wagoner became visibly upset when a member of the media asked him about GM losing market share in 1996, down to 31 percent from 32.4 percent in 1995.
“At what point in the decay of your market share are the alarm bells triggered?” he was asked, and quickly replied,
“The bells rang already and the action taken was reasonably extreme,” he said in reference to outside directors taking over GM and ousting Bob Stempel as chairman in 1992.
Some say GM’s focus isn’t as much to gain share as it is not to let it slip below 30 percent.
Wagoner dismisses such thoughts.
“There’s no risk of going below 30 percent. I can’t think of any logical reason why we would. Maybe if we had 15 wildcat strikes at our plants, but I don’t even want to think about that.”
Yen don’t count: Kevin Ormes, group vice president of sales and marketing for Mitsubishi, says the weakened yen had nothing to do with it, but the automaker is about to bring out a less expensive version of the Montero Sport and the Diamante sedan.
The new Sport ES will be a two-wheel-drive, 4-cylinder “value leader” starting at $17,620, compared with the regular Sport that starts at about $23,000 with four-wheel-drive and V-6.
The new Diamante ES will start at $25,900 versus $29,990 for the regular version and will arrive minus leather interior.
At the show, Mitsubishi unveiled the Eclipse Spyder Speedster, or what it called a “turbo tease” in that the 2-liter, 210-h.p., 4-cylinder offered in the car was boosted to 300 h.p. to come up with a super high performance version.
Ormes said the car provides some hints at the next generation Eclipse that arrives in 1999.
“The next Eclipse will be a true sports car that can compete with the German roadsters. Speedster is an omen of what’s to come,” he said, hinting that the 300-h.p. engine may be more than a decoration.
Ute-less: Ron Zarrella, marketing guru for General Motors Corp., says Buick Division will not get a sport-utility vehicle, but it sure looks like it will get a hybrid, or “cross-over vehicle,” that serves the same functions as a sport-ute but with less truck-like looks, ride and handling. A multipurpose hauler, in other words.
At the show, Lexus unveiled the SLV, a sport-ute built off the Camry platform that does the work of a sport-ute, but looks a bit like a station wagon.
“In the future we see a reduction in car models and an expansion in truck models and hybrids,” he said.
When asked whether Buick would get a sport-ute as dealers have been asking, Zarrella simply shook his head no. A cross-over or hybrid? He nodded yes. “But nothing for two years,” he said.
