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Volvo had a fairly clear message, and a strong value proposition. In the lust for bigger sales, they drove their costs through the roof to bring out some more stylized cars....then had to sell out as style didn't translate into big numbers for Volvo...at least not big enough to cover the staggering new costs. They still don't sell a lot of cars, but look how many models they're carrying! The result is a thoroughly muddled message to the automotive buying public. And that's before the current Ford-Mazda-Volvo committee gets down to work dismembering what's left of the original Volvo brand. Today, the message is very different from its origins....but not much different than many other models today. The formerly loyal cadre of Volvo owners understands that and has been abandoning Volvo faster than they can pick up the next generation of customers.
Certainly changes were overdue, and the world would have been better off with more of these safe, reliable cars in circulation. And they've still got a lot of good ideas in Gothenburg. But my take on it is they've lost focus on the core competencies and have tried to do too much all at once. I think we see MB and BMW trying to do what Volvo seems to have been attempting - and it's interesting to note how measured their pace of change has been, how subtle the changes, and how they haven't shifted their value propositions. You can hardly detect the changes, though the sales numbers show it! And underlying every move is a solid business model, not just an empty packaging scheme.
Today, Ford owns too many overlapping marques and straightening out this mess may ultimately prove impossible. And with Mazda execs now in charge of the Premier Automotive Group (Mazda? Huh?) and a fantasy platform still to be designed by a trans-continental committee of engineers representing everybody...well, you can see where this could be heading. Volvo no longer controls its own destiny; rather, their destiny is in the hands of the people don't know why we buy European cars in the first place, people who turned Jaguar into an $8billion financial basket case. (The cars look nice, though, and are probably better cars than under British management.)
If we're lucky, they'll sell Volvo to pay the losses on Jaguar.
(Any minute, now, and I'll be hit upside the head with a post from my friend Mansey.)
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David \\ (98 S70 T5SE Black, misc mods (mostly lighting), red calipers) (92 940GLE)
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