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Our Two Cents: Why Automakers Kill Their Performance Brands
Performance brands create products we love to own, mostly because they are designed to outperform their competition. Who doesn’t want a piece of that winning formula?
Some folks do not, and they pull at the purse strings of the companies behind these products. Chevrolet had the Super Sport (SS) for a long time, but applying it to vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu MAXX might not have been the smartest long-term move. Ford wavers in a similar manner, but to a worse extent: witness the life and death of Total Performance, Special Vehicle Operations, the Special Vehicle Team, and the seemingly torrid relationship they have with Shelby American, Inc.
But why does this happen? We asked the team here at Hagerty Media that very question, and our answers are quite telling.
Here’s A Meme For That
(You’re welcome.)—Matt Tuccillo
“Oh, dang.”—Sajeev Mehta
Marketplace
Buy and sell classics with confidence
“Exactly as above, though I’ll add some detail based on years of experience covering the industry: A new VP of product kicks down the door, desperate to prove he’s a gunslinger. He revives a performance nameplate to verify the brand’s bonafides, which have long been rendered dormant by sleepy products that sell well to retirees, real estate agents, and other people without a pulse.
Then they introduce ‘performance’ iterations that are the best they can do given a limited budget and mediocre base hardware, generate some buzz, and move on to next assignment. Then a successor comes with a mandate from the board to cut costs by slashing runaway product proliferation … especially the models that were supposed to be break-evens at unit 1000 and never even reached that.”—Aaron Robinson
They Are Afterthoughts
“I’m pretty ignorant on the inner workings of car brands and development, but to me it seems many performance sub-brands come as afterthoughts. They end up saddled with problems that wouldn’t exist if the performance aspect was taken into consideration from the outset of design, rather than the ‘just make it sportier later‘ school of thought.”—Kyle Smith
The Superhero Analogy
“Sub-brands launch for the same reason that superhero franchises peak and valley—you’ve got potentially valuable name equity and heritage that is worthless if left forever on the shelf. Investors are much more likely to take a shot in the dark with, say, The Flash, instead of trying to come up with a new concept that is almost guaranteed to fail. If it’s a success, then comes the ruthless milking of it until the quality goes down, the creative udders run dry, and everyone’s taste for the original thing has soured.
We’re on the cusp of this with Hyundai’s N brand, which was a brainchild of engineer/exec Albert Biermann, and was a rare case of something invented from whole cloth. But now that Biermann has departed the brand, the essence of the N brand (fun-to-drive, relatively affordable, durable for track use) is already being diluted as dealers stock more and more N-line styling packages for Hyundais.
Sub-brands need a constant, consistent feeding to keep them fresh and relevant. What not to do is what Cadillac did with V: Associate your racing team with a full-on BMW M competitor, only to turn the thing into a sub-brand with zero marketing support and introduce the Blackwing brand as a halo. Huh?”—Eric Weiner
They Are Just Props
“If you’re Chevrolet and Ford, you use (or use up) sub-brands to prop up your electric vehicles—like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, and the Chevrolet Blazer EV SS. Even Porsche has done it, with the Taycan Turbo S. Is anyone out there fooled? Anyone?”—Steven Cole Smith
The Legacy Outlives the Reality?
“I think I first heard the idea from a Volkswagen executive talking about the Golf GTI: Enthusiasts are the single best marketing apparatus a brand can have—and one the brand can never own.
Hearing from your friend that a certain badge on the hood is better than another is more convincing than any amount of marketing material on TV and the internet.
And how do you get enthusiasts to evangelize for your brand? Give them something to get excited about. Enter performance sub-brands. Usually laden with history written at a time when regulations and market forces were softer and more accepting of fringe ideas, these brands—SS, M, AMG, and the like—are full of genuinely remarkable machines that whipped us car nerds into frenzies way back when.
But when they reemerge, frankly, it just isn’t the same economy that they’re trying to sell into. Passionate fans don’t have buying power anymore, and the business case for a fringe idea usually blows up in the first board meeting. But, not one to pass up a good branding opportunity, the badges still get slapped on compromised machines of all sorts with the hopes that maybe we just won’t notice.”—Nathan Petroelje
Reincarnation Is a Good Thing?
“Too much of the auto industry lives in a cycle of reincarnation. Why invent when you can re-invent, or worse, reimagine? No one needed retro styled cars like the Ford GT, the 2002 Thunderbird, New Beetle, Mini, et al., with what amounts to a finite pool of buyers.
Some of those sold like hot cakes, sure, but that’s because consumers, like carmakers, which is to say ‘people,’ lack imagination. We would have done just fine if all the time and resources invested in re-hashed nostalgia were instead put into new concepts. But maybe that would have been too hard.”—Stefan Lombard
It’s YOUR Own Fault!
“I can say this as a Lincoln-Mercury enthusiast, as I have basically zero skin in this game. Also, you guys took all the good ones. So let’s do this thing:
The people who own performance-branded cars are usually the worst stewards of their respective brands. They won’t/can’t buy these vehicles when they are new, and generally go out of their way to avoid supporting the OEM behind the brand. Then they bag on the people who do splash the cash on the showroom floor, because said owners don’t treat the cars the way they’d expect. Finally, enough owners get caught on social media trashing the brand’s integrity to the point it remains a niche product with little hope of profitability once the platform is redesigned/replaced.
In order to sustain a brand, enthusiasts must spend their money with the manufacturer. Even if it’s just a performance branded logo on a T-shirt from an officially licensed vendor, because if enough people contribute to the cause, no amount of bad vibes can ruin the performance brand.
Case in point: premium brands like BMW M, any Ferrari, or anything with a Porsche emblem. Somehow those brands have found enough buyers and enough true believers to keep their performance intentions afloat through thick and thin.”—Sajeev Mehta
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Years ago I discovered THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE just use cars as appliances to get around. All the magazine writers are in a minority of enthusiasts. Sure folks look at cars like fashion, something new or “good looking” is appealing, but cost of ownership and practicality are the main concerns. Car manufactures must sell products at a profit, or go OUT OF BUSINESS. Lots of examples in history of cars cancelled that baffle enthusiast. My favorite is the 1958 Thunderbird. To this day many (including myself) are appalled Ford replaced the desirable 1955-57 two seat Thunderbird with the boxy, but roomier 4 seat Thunderbird. HOWEVER — 1958 Thunderbird sales DOUBLED compared to 1957. So there you go – Ford was correct to cancel the Thunderbird sporty car and make the Thunderbird personal luxury car that was profitable. Meanwhile the Corvette was nearly cancelled a few times until it finally evolved in the 60’s. That said the the late 70’s reduced the Corvette to an under powered luxury two seater, but it SOLD well when new! Reality is a harsh master.
That mean there’s really a use for those things?
Bloat. The original Mini Cooper S was a fun, inexpensive car at a time when American’s first question was :How fast does it go,” which morphed into ‘how many cupholders does it have,’ and later into ‘airbags and safety features.’ Mention ‘canyon carving’ to a typical youngish person today and you will be met by a blank stare, that is, IF they look up from their smartphone.
Ah, the “all they do is stare at their smartphones” quip. How original. Sounds like you are talking to the wrong young people.
To be fair, many younger people literally grew up in the backseats of cars, getting shuffled–er, chauffeured–around to school and practice and home and on and on. Is it really that surprising that a person who spent so much time in a car when young views a car as an appliance? Seems to make a lot of sense to me.
Yeah!
In regards to the demon crash video
Just because you can afford a super car. Doesn’t mean you’re qualified to drive it
A New Car costs around $50,000 (Loan Interest Included). A car at this price should be warranted for at least 10-years. Wear and tear consumables (Tires, Brakes, etc.) should be covered at Original Dealer Cost. A Renewal Contract should be included with a New Car Purchase. Someone find out how many Brand New, Unsold, Fords are stored in the Kansas City Caves System and tell us what they are going to do with them. Call a car anything you want to, it is still a comfortable place to sit while traveling to and from Work.
It seems the reason these brands came into being get confused by use that badge on everything, thereby diluting the brand equity in the badge. After all Remember when V was the performance Cadillac but then it became not the performance model, that is now V Blackwing. SS has already been described. Lexus has no clue what it is doing with it’s “F” badge. F was ultimate, F sport was just below that but then they added F Sport Performance. What is that? S line from Audio was a dilution of S, M line is a dilution of BMW M cars. Nissan putting out some half hearted Nismo models which were just bigger wheels, etc. It goes on and on.
I will say the Ford SVT one really reminded me of some of those great past models like the Contour SVT, etc.
I think that everybody has added good points to this discussion. All of these posts capture the reality of the issue. My comments that follow are largely in-line, but perhaps a bit more specific to Ford.
I’ll begin with my favorite Ford, the 1989-1995 SHO. The SHO was a far superior vehicle to it’s (superior to its competition) base. Of course, the Gen I sales were very limited, due to the trans being a manual. Of course, I think buying a SHO with an auto-trans is pointless, and I have never driving an automatic SHO, so maybe Ford’s lack of prowess with automatics doomed the SHO sales. However, while I have no way of knowing the profitability numbers, it is my firm opinion that the greatest factor in lack of SHO sales volume was the cost penalty. I think that Ford could have made a profit on each SHO, at $2-$4K less. Ford could have also reaped greater profitability by using the SHO engine in other models, therefor distributing the development cost over higher volume.
One other example from Ford’s past is the Escort ZX2. I think that, with a very minimal of extra cost in parts and development, that could have been a WINNER in both profitability and sales volume.
Lastly, I will reference the Contour (Detour) SVT. The problem with that was nearly everything. First, the Contour was immediately recognized WITHIN FORD as the MISTAKE. The car itself was just not a good fit for the American market, due to its size and shape. Also, MANY of the parts that the customers touched felt extra-cheap. But what truly doomed the SVT version was that is just did NOT compare favorably, in ANY way, to the 1995 SHO. I WAS the customer profile for the Contour SVT, but I didn’t even consider trading my SHO for the SVT, AND I could get A-plan price.
If the Contour SVT was so bad, why did a number of performance driving schools choose it for their performance street driving vehicles? The same basic car had a much longer sales life in Europe. I think you were correct in that the problem was, again, the lack of an automatic transmission. Or, rather, the lack of American drivers familiarly with manual transmissions. I had two, putting over 150K on each with no problems and felt it was one of the best all-around vehicles out of the 30 or so I have owned.
Actually, real factory hot rods have a long and storied past, at least 70 years long. I’m not talking about the ”decal warriors” but real high performance machines.
Just about any manufacturer, domestic and international had at least one, Some manufacturers still do, and the horsepower is higher now than at any time in the past.
Discontinuation is the result of many things, primarily market interest. No one will build what they can’t sell, and most of the vanished survived around a niche market and eventually even that dried up.
Price does not seem to be a factor when you consider what enthusiasts are willing to fork out for new Corvettes/Challengers/Shelby Mustangs, and these are inexpensive when we want to compare them to the hot rod imports, so you can’t say they’ve gotten too expensive.
Being a 45 year Corvette enthusiast, the Corvette 1953, to present has survived because the market for the brand has survived, and I’m a prime example of that 10 and counting.
At least for now and the foreseeable future factory hot rods aren’t going anywhere, they just keep evolving and becoming more expensive, and the enthusiasts appear to be OK with that.
Car mfg’rs have been living on their past reputation since the mid seventies when things went south.
No creativity any more.
That’s what happens when a govt gets involved.
The vast majority of car buyers want practical, boring, “me too” vehicles. They specifically do not want to stand out from the herd. Put the word “Sport” on the flanks of any hum-drum product, and the masses will flock to it. Sad to say, but enthusiast vehicles do not sell in the numbers needed to justify their production cost, unless that is the essence of the brand (ex:Porsche). I wish I was wrong.
I’m highly offended about the statement: ” He revives a performance nameplate to verify the brand’s bonafides, which have long been rendered dormant by sleepy products that sell well to retirees, real estate agents, and other people without a pulse.” Does Hagerty not have an editor, that would not allow a statement such as this?
Remember that probably over 60% of Hagerty’s customers fall into the insulted category! Very sad.
60%?! That’s a lot of people if true. How do you know that number? How do you know that many people are “insulted?” Cite your source and show your work for such an absurd claim.
Cars are appliances. Full stop. You and I might care about a plastic name badge on the side of a car, but trying to extrapolate out and say more people are insulted by a simple statement is just ridiculous.
I don’t know the actual amount. That’s why I wrote “probably” I’m guessing. But since old car ownership has a fair amount of older people, I think it’s a safe guess. Actually, the amount doesn’t matter. No one should be described as “Not having a pulse”.
August, regarding your 2 comments…I found it a breath of fresh air to read such words from some of the editor/journalists here at Hagerty. Doesn’t seem fair to keep them quiet when publishing all the nasty words from a number of commentors. I don’t know how old Aaron is, the journalist of said comments. But, if old enough at 64, I’m not offended. Sorry you were.
I agree with you completely August. It’s a great offense to this late 60s guy to be told that I “don’t have a pulse.” It doesn’t matter whether 5% or 60% fall into the category, the implication in Robinson’s insult is all people.
When I get behind the wheel of my M2, my pulse is alive and kicking, thank you.
Quit making “Sports Cars” so small. I’m 6’1” and climbing in and out of a Supra or a GR86 is excruciating.
Chevy can’t seem to get it right. Superb drive train on a Camaro that you can’t see out of. My next sports car is going to be a used Challenger. Big, comfortable and sporty. Borrow your buddies GR86 if you want to run the twisties
That’s funny! I have 2 friends who have Cobras and I have a tough time getting in and out of them! The best advice I received from one of them was: Tommy, I look at it more as “Putting it on” rather than getting in it! Made perfect sense to me! Now if I can find an overhead hoist to get me out!
I’m on my second 1998 SVT Ford Contour, shown on this articles pic. The first was a new buy and with only about 6500 produced each dealer only had a few to sell – no wiggle room on price. It was my only vehicle for several years and road salt took its toll – after 21-1/2 years of fun the undercarriage was compromised. I found a used ‘98 a few years ago and the fun continues. I’ve owned fast ‘60’s SS cars so I can’t say this is a fast car. ‘Sporty’ is more like it but they are fun to drive. Ford continued to produce the SVT Contour for a few more years and if you follow the Contour.org site …. the cult lives on lol.
I think the biggest factor has to do with personnel turnover. Most large automakers (e.g., GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Stellantis, etc) are revolving doors of personnel in the various design, engineering, product planning, marketing, production, and financial management roles needed to develop and manage a given car line. Also, “C-suite” upper management can be fickle in its support for performance brands and can also change over time…look at the recent Stellantis CEO change and how that’s already affecting their product plans.
If you have the right mix of people in these various roles with a particular passion for a type of performance car, and they can sell it to upper management for production approval (and perhaps there are a few supportive members of the C-suite, too), then you can get some great performance vehicles as a result.
Unfortunately, the people who matter often eventually move on to other roles. Maybe they get promoted, leave for a job at a different division or another automaker, or a new CEO comes on board, or whatever. As a result, there’s no longer in place the degree of inside support needed to continue to produce a particular performance model or line, and things wither away from there.
The old the guy in me right now is not taking offense. Cars are not what they used to be but every once in a while I still get in the garage and tinker with one of those older ones that I have in the back. I’ve still got that four bolt main Chevy small block with a roller cam and some other off-the-shelf parts that might fit into something fun someday, hopefully before I die, and my kids throw it in the dumpster. lol.