Super Bowl Thoughts & Musings... C For Yourself

Sitting on my friend's girlfriend's couch in the great city of Philadelphia, amid of a slew of Eagles fans thinking "coulda, shoulda, woulda" well, lets just say I enjoyed my Super Bowl Sunday. I especially enjoyed watching Green Bay win, not because I thought they were the better team (which they obviously were) but because I don't like anything of Pittsburgh. It's a personal thing.

Like most Americans who don't know squat about the sport of football, many watch it for the commercials... They admit it like people who read Playboy "for the articles," (which I will attest- before mainstream media getting all racy, snappy and jazzy, were actually quite good, if not better than you'd read elsewhere- and lets not forget about the nude women too.)

A few days back, a Facebook friend had leaked the VW Passat "The Force" commercial of the little kid dressed as Darth Vader, trying to play Jedi mind tricks on everything from his mother's elliptical machine to the family dog. And the question I posed to him was "It's not how many Passats they'll sell, but rather- how much did they have to pay George Lucas for that commercial."

"Gee, Randy. I never thought of that..." Well, no shit.

Because really, the Passat, no matter how good it can be or how good it's been will always be a second-tier choice by real middle-of-the-range car people who want a basic mid-sized sedan that... that works.

The Passat I'm afraid, is still very much rooted in its quirky European ways of the 1990's and while that's a flavor many can aspire to- it's just not what buyers in that segment can appreciate. Intertwined with problems and quality issues galore (or victim of just a bad reputation in general) the Passat will always be the hard choice against cars like the Camry, Accord, Legacy, etc, etc. They'll need "the force" to compete the Passat at any price.

However, the smaller Jetta is an outstanding choice and compromise in its class, and I feel it gives a much better value with the charming European feel you want- at any price. The Jetta is the Jedi Knight of the bunch, if you will.

(Notice how with a Passat it's a quirky European feel; but with a Jetta it's charming...)

Another commercial worth noting was the Chevy Cruze spot- with the young man checking a girl's Facebook status after a first date...

Only thing they left out was- the wall posting/status update was a day old; and actually, the whore was talking about the guy she went out with the night before... And he drove a Honda Civic.

Again, while I commend GM and America in general for how far they've come- the Cruze is a hard choice against the very, very popular in its class Honda Civic. But the Cruze car appears certainly better than the "C-is-for-Crappy" Cobalt and Cavalier it succeeds. It just has to buck that trend.

And finally- Chrysler's spot for the 200 featuring Detroit and their first son Marshall Mathers (Eminem) was absolutely the best Super Bowl commercial of this year...



While I thought the intent was spot-on (don't ever put this country or what it can do in a corner- we are the original Comeback Kids, it's WHAT WE DO) the car in reality is nothing more than a warmed-over Chrysler Sebring- made to look like a Jaguar XF (quite frankly another warmed-over outright piece of shit).

Now I sold Chryslers and know them very well. They've always been cars that try, maybe a little too hard, to be something they're clearly not. But I kinda like the 200 for what it is.

It's the same greasy look for a full third the price. Same execution- two-thirds-off!

Like finding an Ermenegildo Zegna suite at Marshalls. Now that's class. That's America. Looks good to me... (famous last words.)

But here's the interesting twist. Both the Jaguar XF and the Chrysler 200 are based largely on daring prototypes unveiled a few years ago- ironically both with the letter "C"- the 2007 Jaguar C-XF and the 2009 Chrysler 200C. C is for concept. Or crap?

While both cars are really watered-down realities of these initially snazzy concepts- both cars are actually based on older platforms of cars not known for their engineering goodness at all- the Jaguar S-Type and the Chrysler Sebring respectively- some real monumental pieces of crap.

Both cars being the victim of bad economies, bad upper management and lets face it- bankruptcy. If it weren't for the Indians and the Italians respectively- we wouldn't be talking about them...

(Another irony- first two "Cs" now two "Is;" the things that make you go Hmmm... And the designer of the Jaguar? Ian Callum...)

But I will say this- the Chrysler 200 strikes a chord with me. You're going to see this car, the people driving it and say- that's America.

Where the girls are pretty, the reading is good, and Goddammit that's a sharp car. Go US.

And with that winged-Chrysler logo re-styled to resemble that of an Aston Martin- well, "gee, is that an Ass-ton Maw-tin or a JagUwar?"

These are the questions WE as a people long to answer.

And we know a warmed-over piece of crap when we see one... and that's okay.

The Excitement, Fall & Truth Behind Pontiac

Some blog right? It's been the better part of a month with no posts - and while the world of cars is as perpetual and ever-changing as time itself- truth be known- a lot of it... is just spin. While I can appreciate spinning wheels- my intentions and talents however terse or infrequent they may be- is just not to spin your wheels- I actually like to add something totally unique and insightful once in a while.

And I hope you can appreciate that.

I still read a lot about cars where I can- and while its hard for me to read about something car related and just re-verb-it and claim it as my own- as many automotive journalists do, and do popularly- its just not productive, nor is it profitable (at least its not for me anyway!)

But... Sunday I caught some news that Pontiac had finally closed its doors. I've heard it, written about it and known it for like a year now; but October 31, Halloween was the final, official day. Funny, how I didn't think they had a day in mind, but rather- I thought they'd just let it go... "let sleeping dogs lie" and lay where they are- I mean, no use drawing sad news to yourself after 84 years.

The web was lit-up with images of the scalloped, split-grill of a GTO- how the once mighty image of the American performance-era was officially off-the-shelves, recalling the once bright, fast and dueling brand- Pontiac.

I thought of my grandfather, my father's father who "drove Pontiacs..." Not because "he liked them" (as another family elder once thought and told me), no- he drove them because that's what he could afford- and what was around in the used car lot. (When he bought his first new car in 1968- it was an Oldsmobile... of course, another now-dead brand...)

I then thought of my father who struggled on Friday nights, and prayed that the botched-up, heavily modified and abused '59 Bonneville his father let him borrow would start and run- just enough so he could make it home from a date... (I mention it was modified- because when he wasn't complaining of its inability to start reliably- he was laying rubber on the Grand Concourse and carving-up on the Saw Mill River Parkway... against his buddy's then-new '64 GTO... and winning too, I may add...)

I thought of my friend Fred, who for his 16th birthday got a brand-new 1965 GTO... and drove it for years both Stateside and overseas while stationed in Germany. (I have to laugh when I think how strange that car must have looked, the American car with the Italian name- cruising along the Autobahn- among Volkswagens and Mercedes-Benzes...)

I also thought of my other grandfather, my mother's father the eternal "Buick man" who bought a metallic blue Catalina- because my father told him to- anything but another Buick... (and he never, ever did buy that Cadillac my grandmother always wanted- economics aside, I like to think he didn't want to give her the shallow satisfaction...)

I also thought of Knight Rider, and the Firebird Formula V8 I kinda-sorta-wanted in middle school too, of course.

But the articles I was reading- gave a myriad of reasons why Pontiac failed. They blamed the economy, they blamed GM and the American public... They even got a retired GM engineer to testify- that the reason why Pontiac failed was, (and I'm paraphrasing now) they "didn't let the Pontiac engineers do their thing;" in-other-words General Motors went "all corporate" and instead of "Building Excitement," they built a re-badged Chevrolet or, whatever. And he's right... to a point.

They did a lot of pointing fingers as to what blunders, people, car models and such- caused the demise- and yeah- the Pontiac Aztec wasn't a winner, and yes- the G5 was a Chevy Cobalt with nicer wheels- true- but you can't kill a brand with a handful of bad cars.

Every car company has its lists of winners and losers- but much like a person who is down on his luck- or a small business that is forced to close its doors- sometimes its not the exact decision or event(s), or the actions- it just is. Its just not meant to be- for forces greater than anyone or thing, or any-one-thing could expect. It's a number of things.

There's a lot of reasons why Pontiac is no-longer here. As a car guy, and not a shallow car guy (and most of them are) who only knows the latest and greatest BMW- I can tell you- if the economy had not taken such a dip in 2008- and if GM had not gone bankrupt... You'd still have Pontiac. It's a brand- it had a heritage- and while it may have been a shell of its former self for quite a while- it was surely a great brand platform that could have been developed more if given the time- and money, too of course.

Heck- if it wasn't for China's love affair with the Buick- and Buick's quite successful transformation from being the "conservative solid choice" to being the literal shadow of a Lexus- Buick would have been axed too.

The God's honest truth is- towards the end- GM had really been making strides to try to improve the Pontiac image, and bringing something unique to the fold- case-in-point- the G8.

As a Bonneville replacement- it was sporty, real-wheel-drive, had the handling of a BMW (quite literally- the engineers who did the suspension and brakes worked for BMW at one point and designed the late-1990s 5-Series) and the edgy, modern-day looks of (I dunno) a Cadillac?

You really can't blame looks- that's too subjective. I mean, lets be honest- are there many, truly good-looking mainstream production cars being made today? Not really... Sure, Pontiacs were ugly towards the end- but then again- so was and is everything else...

But if you think about it- if Pontiac had stuck-it-out, they would have brought back the Firebird and Trans-Am with the Chevrolet Camaro... And it would have done okay against other retro performance cars- such as the Ford Mustang and the Dodge Challenger.

What if they really brought back the GTO? And not just a re-badged Holden?

I know, I know... You can't bring back an entire brand based-off two or three retro throwbacks- but... it would have been enough to get it by for a little while- it would have brought some buzz.

The devastating truth is- the shrinking middle class in America, or should I say, the shrinking perception the middle class has of itself in America- just couldn't support the Pontiac niche.

Middle America has moved-on-up into Cadillacs or down into Chevrolets- there's not much else left in the middle anymore.

The middle is driving a Toyota or a Honda... Or something else- something, and lets be totally true here- that did performance and "Excitement" better than Pontiac.

For instance- the Solstice was a great little roadster- it just didn't tickle the fancy of enthusiasts quite like the Mazda MX-5. Close- but no cigar or smoking tailpipe.

The macro-truth is- middle America, which is what Pontiac had thrived-on for decades- doesn't have the confidence, the faith nor the belief in the American car like it once did.

Yeah, people still lust after Corvettes and Cadillacs- but tastes (and images) have largely shifted gears... forever. They'll never be as they were. And the recipe is not as simple as wedging the bigger engine from a Bonneville into a smaller, lighter Tempest.

And in marketing (and business too) unless you're able to meet that niche at that exact point-in-time- you're going to waiver and fail. You either have it- or you don't- there's little chance of catching-up.

While Pontiac had it in spades for so, so long; a performance image that lasted from the late-50's through the 1960's up until (I think anyway) the 1980's- their ultimate incarnations came-up- just so-so.

Like I said before- I still read a lot about cars and write about them where I can- but like Pontiac building and marketing cars, sometimes its just not productive, nor is it profitable to do so.

In the end- you just hope the people remember. And smile.

Pontiac- they don't make them like they used to... They just don't "Build Excitement" like that anymore.