Happy New Year!
For those of you who were hoping to hear my annual rant about fighting the flu or depressurizing a clogged ear, I’m afraid you are just going to have to wait. It’s that time of year again when we all go out and pledge to make our lives more like the Cleavers and less like the Osbournes by adopting a few New Year's resolutions.
Now, I have never been one to make more broken promises around the holidays than any other time of year. For one thing I don't smoke, so that’s out. There is no way I am about to give up bacon, and come to think of it, there are so many things I could do to improve my quality of life that pretending to adhere to one or two for a couple of weeks hardly seems worth the inevitable disappointment.
So rather than discussing our own silly resolutions, I thought why not consider what's going through the minds of some of our favorite automotive CEO's as they close the books on an interesting 2004.
M. Winterkorn: "The entire AUDI lineup reminds me of a patient leaving the plastic surgery ward with bandages between her puffy and blackened eyes, still wondering what the outcome will look like. The new A6 had some very healthy reviews, but with the A4 due and the TT and A8 on deck, the jury is still out on the nose job. Lets make a decision once and for all on the Allroad replacement, and stop the management shuffle already."
FJ. Paefgen: "OK, Bentley has definitely struck a Hip Hop cord with the Continental GT, and we can all sleep better knowing some pop stars have a choice when they tire of their Maybachs. Now we need to make a car for the "masses," i.e. under $200K, and we should make it look just like a Mercedes S class, no one will ever notice."
H. Panke: "The people of Vienna must be the best diplomats in the world. For decades they have convinced the world that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian. We've taken a page from this book by labeling design chief Chris Bangle the sole scapegoat for the lineup's "progressive" design. Regardless of the online chitchat, controversy seems to sell cars. We continue to hit monthly records and have MB's North American sales in our sights. If we were able to survive the train wreck that was the early iDrive, we must be doing something right. Now we just have to soften the ride on the X3, and for goodness sake, everyone has seen the pictures so what is with the yearlong wait before we get out the new M5?"
W. Ford, Jr.: "Alright, so we no longer produce the world’s best selling car or SUV. But the pickup is another story. Twenty-two years as numero uno with the F-Series, which outsells the next competitor by more than 100,000 units, is a pretty impressive run. We have joined the hybrid race, and have even shrugged off the Thunderbird losses to bring the Mustang and Ford GT back from the grave. Lincoln/Mercury are treading water (at the moment), European Ops are coming back, and we are no longer associated with tires that have the nasty habit of spontaneously combusting. Now if I could just make it look like Ford Financial wasn’t carrying us and could sell off that pesky Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Aston Martin thingy."
R. Lutz: "I knew it all along: all we have to do is make cars that look like they came from Japan and charge our regular prices. It couldn't be easier. Look at the Equinox – or is that a Lexus RX 330 wearing a bowtie? It's selling so fast even the Chinese engine supplier can barley get the parts to Ontario fast enough. We should already understand that people don't really want SUV's to be offroad, green-slashing monsters, but giant shopping carts that they can drive to Costco. Meanwhile, we seem to have gotten the distribution of plants worked out, and the new Vette is rightfully being compared to the new 911. Now remind me again what we were thinking with the SSR?"
Re: Buick: "Does anyone have Tiger's new phone number?"
Re: Cadillac: "Now if we were the old Caddy, we would take the success of this recent turnaround and pretty much do nothing for about 25 years. Fortunately we have updated the powers that be and they don't include Arnold Pamler. I don't care how long the Northstar engine can go between scheduled maintenance, or how much the Catera zigs. All we needed was a little bling bling. Now just how many thousand lithium batteries will it take to move an Escalade?"
Re: Pontiac: "The design department at GM has had some pretty interesting brainstorming sessions. Some thoughts I'm sure this group has generated are: 'How many pedals would our cars have if humans actually had three feet'; and 'What if flatulence were all of a sudden visible?' I mean, how else can you explain the logic behind making the Aztec so hopelessly ugly to look at it hurts, thinking that consumers would one day wake up like it? Fortunately they have learned from their mistakes, and if we could only continue to offer trendy-looking cars like the Vibe, we might actually be in business. I only worry that it might be too late. Offering the Vibe at this point is a bit like the chief engineer correcting the wall clock on the Titanic as the main galley fills with water."
C. Mong-Koo: "안녕, 안녕하세요? 나의 이름은 Hyundai 이고 나는 자동차 제조업체의 한에 일을 찾고 있다나는 공군 순찰 경비대원에 되고 싶는다. 나는 공군 순찰 경비대원에 되고 싶는다. Hyundai 미국은 나를 공군 순찰 경비대원에 되고 싶는다 자동차를 탄다 record U.S. sales…Ha Ha Ha Ha…."
J. Schremp: "Honey, honey, I just had this awful nightmare that Mercedes-Benz decided to take over a U.S. company and begin sharing money, R&D, even platforms…it was terrible. They nearly took us down, our quality dropped off, our finances were tanking, we even fired Wolfgang!"
"Sweetie, it's okay, go back to sleep. And don’t take so much cold medicine before bed."
H. Okuda: "Camry remains the number one selling car in America. We are in our ninth consecutive year of record breaking sales. Lexus continues to be the best selling luxury brand in America. We've had a record-breaking year for light trucks, a record year for hybrids, and a record December for Scion and Lexus. For 2006, Okuda for Prime Minister?"
W. Wiedeking: "Make cars with the soul of the Carrera as efficiently as the Chinese make toasters…check. Design and build the least likely Porsche vehicle conceivable and sell more of it than we do our sports cars…check. Become the most profitable car company in the world…check. Right any wrongs we have ever made with the perfect 911…check. And for 2006, Wiedeking fuer Bundespraesident?"
B. Pichetsrieder:
Phaeton?
"Yeah, well, umm…"
Drop in Passat and Golf sales?
"Yes, well, you see…"
Delay in Passat and Golf replacements?
"Ahh, see, but…"
Ongoing labor strikes?
"Well, sorta, but…Touareg?"
Should be an interesting year indeed.
When I first began studying foreign languages in high school, I remember one of my teachers explained to the class that the learning of a language would come in waves. We would go through periods where we seemed to suck in all types of new vocabulary just like a sponge, but eventually we would come to a roadblock that made getting through fairly straightforward grammar as painful as pulling teeth. These "plateaus," as he liked to call them, could last for quite a long time, but getting through one usually meant that we had made a significant leap forward and had gained an understanding and capability we didn't think was possible. 
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