Soon to be orphan brands, Volvo and Mitsubishi
Today the online site 24/7 Wall Street posted a list of ten corporate entities that it expects will no longer be with us in the US after 2014. Among the automotive-related companies predicted will go tits up are Volvo, Mitsubishi, and Road & Track magazine.
Volvo’s market share has become miniscule (less than 1%) in the NA market. It no longer is seen as a super safe, reliable choice for the educated with bucks.
Mitsubishi’s problems are nothing new. Its tired model lineup would require billions of dollars to bring it into parity with the competition, something the banks and parent company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries aren’t willing to extend. Its market share is even less that Volvos, but no Mitsu vehicle can command the bucks that Volvos can. It’s just a lost cause.
Road & Track? Ad revenue is in a nose dive, and the fact that R&T is owned by the same publisher as Car and Driver points to the demise of a great title.
Magazines are a different story, with online displacing paper content.
As for Volvo and Mitsubishi well Mitsubishi lost big because it chased volume and younger buyers with their financing scheme. They seemed to work best pared with Chrysler.
As for Volvo, like Saab with out a big buck parent niche car makes can no longer survive unless they are very pricey or highly specialized.
We may soon see a world of 5-6 major auto conglomerates. You figure between GM, Toyota, VW, maybe Kia/Hyundai control more than 50% of all cars sold worldwide.
Well, I’ve said it before but nobody gives a stuff about anything in Road & Track except that which is written by Peter Egan.
That man is a national treasure…
Even now that Jack Baruth is writing for them?
Peter Egan is a national treasure. But he didn’t keep me as a subscriber to R&T. Nor Car and Driver or Automobile. I long ago ceased to care which European exotic could exceed 200 mph, which is apparently what these mags think we want to know about. I could’t give a rat’s ass. I still subscribe to AutoWeek and Hot Rod. I’m beginning to think that AutoWeek will be the next to go.
Autoweek is owned by Crain’s, which has a variety of automotive trade properties such as Automotive News (which presumably makes money from selling data, etc.). I don’t see it going anywhere; there’s enough synergy with the other publications to keep it.
R&T, on the other hand, has a low online ranking, well below C/D, and it’s totally redundant. They could just merge them together or co-brand them easily enough. (I recall many years ago when CAR and Performance Car did just that.)
Mitsubishi is toast, for sure; the hit-and-miss non-Toyota reliability doesn’t help them, and the Koreans probably finished them off for good. Volvo should have a bit more staying power, because Geely just bought it not long ago. If Geely wants to have a shot at going upmarket, then they’ll need to keep Volvo around for awhile.
Autocar and Motor merged for a while in the ’80s and early ’90s before the Motor name disappeared, as well. Of course, Autocar and Motor had previously had the same ownership for many years by then.
Volvo has a small, but fierce & loyal fanbase. I don’t see them going anywhere anytime soon.
I still won’t look at new ones though, they lost all of their quirky charm that made Volvos cool. My girlfriend’s ’04 S60 is a lot nicer than the new design.
I personally know of two Volvo owners who will no longer consider the brand due to its Chinese ownership.
A small sampling, sure, but I can certainly see that being a problem for a brand that trades heavily on its Swedish heritage and a safety-conscious image. I happen to like the current NA model line (I really like the C30, although it’s already eight years old!) but apart from those two aspects, there’s really little else to distinguish Volvo from the competition.
As long as we don’t get any Chinese built Volvos, I see it as nothing but a positive. These are people who are willing to invest tons of cash to help with perceived image, and they know the deleterious effect Chinese built labels still have in the US. Chinese funded, Swedish built (my Volvo was actually built in Belgium, close enough…) Volvo’s sound like an improvement to me.
Lots of loyal Volvo owners have 20 something year old cars, too. Hadn’t ever bought brand new ones. China will keep them afloat, but when ‘loyalists’ refuse to buy new, they can’t complain when their ‘perfect car’ is dropped. See Ford Panther platform products.
According to other places this list was published by Wall St 24/7 not the Wall St Journal.
Fixed. I’ve been outside today, so didn’t have a chance to see this before it was posted. My apologies.
That mitsubishi Outlander is shared bodily with Peugeot who fit their powertrain to it. Volvo now they are divorced from the Ford partsbin might find it difficult to survive.
They are way off on Volvo. They have a new capital-heavy owner, are investing in new designs, and planning on new models for the US (V60, etc). The current US line up is a bit stale, which isn’t good for sales, but theyre doing well under the new owners after languishing with Ford for so long.
And have you been to a college campus lately, or a ski or other resort area in a while? Volvo is continuing to do just fine among their intended market. Think more affluent Subaru owners. They’re never going to have Toyota’s numbers, but that alone in no way signals a withdrawal from the US market.
Are those brand new Volvos at Colleges or ski resorts? It’s like saying “Ford Panthers must be selling, I see so many CV cabs downtown!”
Fair point. There are plenty of older V70’s in there, but it seems like the XC60 and even the newer years of the outdated XC70s and XC90s do fairly well. I don’t see as many S60s as I’d expect, its a good car, but it think the average Volvo buyer is more of a wagon/crossover purchaser first and foremost, so hopefully they’ll sell more V60s. I think the V40 could do well in the US if they’d give it a chance.
I talked to the general manager at my local dealer this afternoon, and we are indeed getting the V60 in Jan. or Feb. of 2014. Also, the redesigned XC90 will be here in 2015, along with a new S40 sedan “in the near future.”
I don’t know why Geely would buy Volvo and then pull the brand out of the U.S. Don’t they want inroads to the American market? It would be like Tata pulling Jag and LR from the States; how would that improve things?
A lot of predicted brands that were supposed to ‘disappear’ in 2011, 12, and 13 haven’t.
Check old stories online and see.
This list has a 20% accuracy track record, from what I’ve read. It may well be that the brands will die, but it will take much longer than a year for many of them. Mitsubishi will continue to exist, but Mitsubishi’s US sales arm could well perish. Volvo Auto is toast. Their sales just fall and fall, and the segments they want to compete in are profoundly expensive to field up to date entries in. Not having Ford to share platforms with is a big deal when you look at their Chinese parent’s products. Volvo was assaulted from all directions. Safety became expected. Prius stole their granolas. VW, Audi and Subaru crowded their model segments. CUVs killed wagons. Their costs pushed them up market whether they wanted to be or not, and the competition there revealed things to Volvo owners about interiors, styling and engines that they hadn’t been exposed to before. It will take a good, long while, but Volvo Auto will leave the US on their way to being a sticker on a Chinese Chevy competitor.
Seems like every car site has posted a story about that silly clickbait list. Those “dying brand” stories are always premature, if not completely off base.
That said, Mitsubishi only continues to exist in the U.S. thanks to rental counters and buyers with lousy credit. I lost interest in Volvo when they pushed upmarket and stopped being boxy, but I don’t see them going anywhere before, some of the other halfassed luxury brands like Lincoln and Acura.
As for Road & Track…whatever. It’s been boring for years, mainstream automotive “journalism” is a joke, and print as a whole is dying off.
I’m not sure why they’re picking on R&T. They’re no worse off than any other magazine, and the shared ownership is a red herring. They’ve had the same owner since the late ’80s when Hachette bought them both.
That said, I wouldn’t bet on any of the buff books surviving in print for more than a few years.
They’re picking on R&T because their ad revenue is falling faster and longer than that of competitiors, because they put out 10 ‘monthly’ issues last year, and because they’ve been moved from Long Beach to Ann Arbor, Michigan, the better to be absorbed by Car and Driver.
Coming soon: Road & Driver!
How about Car & Track? Or Car Road & Track Driver? 😉
I propose a consolidation between car magazines and Consumer Reports. I’m thinking “Car & Dryer” or “Mower Trend” or even “Hemmings Mixer News “.
With the amount of paper content in Car and Driver dominated by Tire Rack I always thought Car and Driver should have been better titled as Car and Tire Rack.
Every month, like religion, I bought Car and Driver, Automobile, Motor Trend and Road and Track. Not anymore. Not when their websites are free and the decontented magazine is 5 dollars or so these days. With one full page ad after another for tires and wheels, it occurred to me that the enthusiast buying the magazine was being played for as a fool. Shrunken magazines, too many ads (What women know that men don’t: SIZE!), the loss of so many great columnists and writers; well, I opted out.
I do feel for a good man and a great writer like Peter Egan, a personal all time favorite. But I’m most sure his byline will survive elsewhere. But I will still mourn for R&T. They did it with more class and wit then C&D.
‘Car & Track’ was actually a ’60s-’70s era TV program that filmed road tests of new cars, hosted by Bud Lindemann. You can still find a few… certainly entertaining watching full-size Detroiters do a slalom.
Mcc.PJ, I heartily enjoy Car & Track, if I can find a new episode on YouTube.
Someone here (I forget who) once commented that Mitsubishi is the new Studebaker. Ever since, every time I see a Mitsu somethingorother (not a common occurrence) I see a 62 or 63 Lark. Was it Benz or Cerberus who killed Chrysler’s longtime arrangement with Mitsu? That had to have hurt.
I once had a Colt, and it was a nice little car. But that was a long time ago. I will miss Mitsu more than I will miss Volvo (sorry, Tom.) Volvo lost me during the era when Ford tried to make them normal, mainstream upmarket cars. The old Premium Auto Group may eventually kill everything that was under its control, as Lincoln and Jaguar aren’t much stronger.
“24/7 Wall St” site predicted that Kia would die off in 2011, saying “The parent company will take a page from several other global car companies and dump its weakest brand.” Didn’t happen, and they are doing fine.
And they thought BP would break up into smaller oil companies, thinking they were ruined by the oil spills.
They usually get 3 out of 10 predictions, like Borders, and act as if they are all knowing.
Check Google for “Ten Brands…” and can see predictions from past few years.
Other supposed “death watch” brands from past few years: Motorola, T-Mobile, Old Navy, Moodys, Zale jewelry. Take it with grain of salt.
Late model Volvos aside from XC90’s are absent in my college town. I see more 240’s than S60’s, and more 122’s than the smaller new crossover (XC60??). I take these predictions with a grain of salt, but that one is interesting. Audi, BMW, Jetta TDi and of course the Prius seem to be the college faculty cars of choice now.
I lost interest in Volvo in the late ’90s when they went away from “boxy but good” and went to “generic and bland” marketing strategy. I loved the 200, 700, 900 and even 800 series cars because of what they stood for. They firmly believed in substance over style, and that made them unique in a sea of sameness. The newer models have nothing unique or interesting about them. The company doesn’t seem to stand for anything and is confused about where they want to go. They went from a very defined niche to an undefined who-knows-what. Many people blame the Chinese, they blame Ford, they blame a lot of things, but really, it’s a sign of the times more than anything. Making less than 500,000 cars a year doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s just business…business in the new millennium.
Great, now CC has mild industry coverage and mild new car show coverage. What are we be becoming, a politics and religion-free version of TTAC or Jalopnik?!
I love CC too much to critisize it but I was thinking the same thing. I’ll just leave it at that.
Sidebar: Murilee Maitlain (sp ?) should call CC home, not TTAC. I think he’s due for a breath of fresh air.
Yep, I hate to criticize either Kevin or CC in any way, but this story doesn’t belong here. TTAC had it hours earlier and it suits their black hole of negativity, but not what’s here at CC.
I hope Volvo. R&T and even Mitsubishi are around to outlive the many hater sites.
Point taken. I give my more experienced Contributors the freedom to post without my approval in advance, but I did not anticipate this type of post, and do not condone it. It’s clearly out of our scope of coverage, and I don’t consider the source to be credible. My apologies, and I will try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Remember, if this was TTAC, I would be banninated and fired for this comment.
I agree with Paul’s stand on this one, but while this was a bit outside CC’s usual scope I thought it was relevant due to Tom Klockau’s affinity for Volvo. I actually had assumed he wrote it.
After all, the current headline story involves locomotives, without a curb in sight! (And I like that article, too!)
Rob, I don’t care what gets published on CC as long as it is transportation-related and isn’t “industry coverage” that is so commonplace on other car blogs (i.e. TTAC and Jalopnik).
P.S. I don’t consider the DS series industry coverage.
I’m on my 3rd Volvo and don’t plan on going anywhere for my daily drivers as long as they keep their “Swedishness” (i.e. safe, reliable, and quality materials) even though my current old 850 GLT was built in Halifax. Shhhh…