December 9, 2009
GM’s classic "two steps forward, three back" dance of mediocrity is alive and well.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 12/6, 5:00pm) Detroit. Some of my colleagues in the media have been quick to canonize Ed Whitacre, characterizing the new “interim” GM CEO as some sort of visionary for his [...]
December 2, 2009
It’s time for a True Believer to run GM.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 12/2, 8:30pm) Detroit. The rumors started weeks ago - that GM had put out feelers to replace CEO Frederick “Fritz” Henderson - so it was frankly no surprise to me when it was announced late [...]
November 25, 2009
The Autoextremists of the Year.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. You’re probably wondering, have we ever officially announced an Autoextremist of The Year? And the answer is no. We have, on occasion, mentioned an Honorary Autoextremist of the Year in our year-end wrap-up issues, but we’ve never made it [...]
November 18, 2009
The travails of Smart reveal some High-Octane Truths for all.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 11/17, 9:30am) Detroit. Two weeks ago, in an item in our “On the Table” column, I suggested that the Smart adventure was nearing an end, saying the following: “Back when this venture was first [...]
November 11, 2009
The Ultimate “Me-Too” Machine.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 11/10, 7:30am) Detroit. We are about to be inundated with ads for the new cross wagons from a variety of manufacturers. No, not “crossovers” - the term that has managed to creep into the American car-buying consumer public’s consciousness after [...]
November 4, 2009
They came, they saw, they bored us to death.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Auburn Hills. Okay, I must say right up front that the much-anticipated unveiling of Sergio Marchionne's five-year reinvigoration plan for the "new" Chrysler-Fiat was [...]
October 28, 2009
The UAW’s true colors exposed again for all to see.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 10/27, 11:30am) Detroit. Well, that was special. Just when the new “kumbaya” era of management-union cooperation looked to be actually taking hold [...]
October 21, 2009
On Mystical Wizards, Marketing “Geniuses” and Blithering Idiots...
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 10/20, 12:30pm) Detroit. There’s no real let-up in the swirling maelstrom of news, conjecture, rumors and innuendo going on these days, so it’s a [...]
October 14, 2009
Automotive marketing needs a swift kick in the ass.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 10/13, 5:00pm) Detroit. As another tumultuous year rapidly turns toward home and the warm summer breezes begin receding with the incursion of crisp [...]
October 7, 2009
Hyundai wants more - and displaced Saturn dealers might just be The Answer.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 10/6, 10:00AM) Detroit. The collapse of the Saturn deal - and ideal - has been devastating to a lot of people. For Roger Penske and his team - who worked tirelessly [...]
September 30, 2009
Et tu, Toyota?
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 9/30, 7:30am) Detroit. At one point it was the most dominant automotive enterprise on earth, a monolithic juggernaut that swallowed markets whole. So dominant in fact that it could dictate the tempo of this business with impunity, right down to taking [...]
September 23, 2009
That rumble you’re hearing? It’s the slow-motion train wreck unfolding in Auburn Hills.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 9/22, 3:30pm) Detroit. According to a report by Luca Ciferri in this week’s Automotive News, Chrysler-Fiat executives hinted at a “grand” brand plan in the works for the floundering automaker at [...]
September 16, 2009
Things that make me want to go ugh.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 9/15, 11:00am) Detroit. In the ten plus years of doing this publication, there is a whole raft of things about this business that still bug me. Things that shouldn’t be, but are, things that are and [...]
September 9, 2009
Can Cadillac be “The Standard of the World” again?
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 9/8, 10:00am) Detroit. Every once in a while I’m reminded of one of the greatest – if not the greatest – pieces of ad copy ever written. The following is the text from that ad, [...]
September 2, 2009
BMW’s new mission: Getting its green on.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. After almost two decades of hammering home the brand positioning of “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” BMW is attempting to put its stake in the Shiny Happy Valley of noble green intentions with a new “M.O.” the company [...]
August 26, 2009
After “Cash for Clunkers,” it’s time to get down to business.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 8/25, 6:00pm) Detroit. Okay, we’ve all had our fun with the “Cash for Clunkers” event (or debacle, depending on which side [...]
August 19, 2009
GM’s transparency offensive goes too far.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 8/19, 8:00am) Detroit. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times in the last decade of doing Autoextremist.com: The automobile business is unlike any other endeavor in the world. It’s frantically complex, it’s relentlessly [...]
August 12, 2009
It never gets old.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 8/11, 9:30am) Detroit. I was going to write this column about the Dream Cruise, but then again I can safely say that there aren’t enough words to adequately describe the event to people who dwell from outside of this region [...]
August 5, 2009
Cash for Clunkers: A Yellow Brick Road to Nowhere.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 8/4, 9:30am) Detroit. Judging by the splash of coverage and the boost in car and truck sales, you would have thought that the frenzied “cash for clunkers” program was akin to finding a cure for [...]
July 29, 2009
The Immaculate Dispensation.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 7/28, 11:45am) Detroit. Somewhere over in the Fatherland there are guffaws of laughter emanating from conference rooms at BMW and Mercedes-Benz, because the U.S. Government is about to green-light a provision (nicknamed “The German Provision” by the lobbyist community in [...]
July 22, 2009
Ten Things.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 7/22, 11:30am) Detroit. The mid-summer blahs have definitely set in around here with most of the industry sturm und drang going on behind closed doors, except for the hand-wringing under way in Washington about the dealer closings that is. That issue [...]
July 15, 2009
“Maximum Bob” leading GM marketing? It’s not as crazy as it sounds...
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 7/13, 1:30pm) Detroit. Last week I called the daunting task of turning around GM’s image the toughest challenge in marketing history. Not just automotive marketing history, but of all time. And [...]
July 8, 2009
The toughest job in marketing history.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 7/7, 11:45am) Detroit. A couple of weeks ago when I issued a midterm report for the automobile industry, I said that Ford and the General Motors Co. (as the “new” GM will be known from now on) will [...]
July 1, 2009
Buick ascendant. The marketing? Not so much.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 6/30, 2:00pm) Detroit. Creating noteworthy advertising in a communications world dominated by YouTube - where far too many people with access to a video camera and an editing program fancy themselves as instant auteurs – is no [...]
June 24, 2009
Mid-term Musings.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 6/23, 10:30pm) Detroit. We’re halfway through the most tumultuous year in automotive history, and the business gets crazier by the week and with no respite in sight, apparently. Not even close, as a matter of fact. This business continues its inexorable march [...]
June 17, 2009
Job 1 for GM’s Henderson.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 6/16, 11:30AM) Detroit.
Dear Fritz -
Now that you’ve been running General Motors, or shall we say, participating in the management of GM, for over three months now, I think it’s time to [...]
June 10, 2009
Penske’s biggest win ahead? Roger that.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 6/9, 8:30AM) Detroit. A month ago I wrote about the possibility that Roger Penske might buy Saturn. Today, the deal is done, and now the hindsight hand-wringing has officially begun. There [...]
June 3, 2009
Ten Years After.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 6/1, 7:30PM) Detroit. Today marks the 10th Anniversary of Autoextremist.com, as incredible as that may seem to us and to a lot of other people who have been along for the ride. On the morning of June 1, 1999, I sent [...]
May 27, 2009
Going, going, gone.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 5/27, 8:15AM) Detroit. It wasn’t just another company, no, far from it. It was, at its peak, the mightiest corporation the world had ever known, a juggernaut among mere mortal companies and a shining beacon of American industrial strength, resolve and [...]
May 20, 2009
The darkness before the dawn.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 5/19, 6:30PM) Detroit. The new national emissions limits and fuel economy standards announced by the Obama administration Tuesday and endorsed by environmentalists as well as both domestic and import auto companies will alter the American motoring landscape permanently. [...]
May 13, 2009
GM bankruptcy is a certainty. What happens next isn’t.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 5/13, 7:00AM) Detroit. With the Obama administration’s auto industry task force flexing their muscles with each passing day – the latest example being that it ordered Chrysler to cut its marketing budget in half for [...]
May 6, 2009
Uh, Roger, while you’re at it...
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 5/5, 9:25AM) Detroit. The report came in Monday that Roger Penske was considering buying Saturn from General Motors for his Penske Automotive Group. Saturn - the one GM division that is determined to not go quietly into the [...]
April 29, 2009
The Soul Survivor is now just Dust in the Wind.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 4/27, 6:00PM) Detroit. Three years ago (3/1/06) I wrote a column entitled, “Soul Survivor or just Dust in the Wind?” It was about what Pontiac needed in order to survive and thrive again. [...]
April 22, 2009
Porsche closes the book on its past, with a resounding thud.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. What a defining moment in history we find ourselves in. After a century-long run as an American corporate icon, GM is on the ropes and under the tightening control of its Washington overseers. [...]
April 15, 2009
Turn out the lights, the party’s over for the “old” General Motors. But does a “new” GM really stand a chance if it’s still called General Motors?
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The article that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times was telling in that it reported how the [...]
April 8, 2009
“Defeatist in Chief” or “Salesman in Chief?” What’s it going to be, Mr. President?
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. It’s clear now that President Obama’s speech to the nation last week about the dire situation facing this country’s automobile industry was meant to send a very strong message to [...]
April 1, 2009
NEW AUTO CONGLOMERATE BASED IN CHINA SET TO REDEFINE THE GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY; SECRET NEGOTIATIONS RESULT IN STUNNING DEAL TO BUY BOTH GENERAL MOTORS AND CHRYSLER.
Shanghai. (AP) Capping off a tumultuous week, the global automobile market is set to be turned upside down yet again after a stunning move [...]
March 25, 2009
SPECIAL AUTOEXTREMIST UPDATE, PART II (Monday, March 30, 2:30PM EDT)
March 30, 2009
Obama weighs in, telegraphs bankruptcy for GM. Fiat's "deal" with Cerberus and Chrysler? It's still a giant "wait and see."
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. President Obama made it very [...]
March 18, 2009
GM's "duck and cover" strategy falls flat.
By Peter M. DeLorenzo
Detroit. In trying to convince the Obama administration that it is worthy of the billions of dollars in additional loans in question by Washington’s March 31 deadline (now termed as an “arbitrary” date by Obama’s troops), General Motors has' [...]
March 11, 2009
PMD Unplugged: The “Old Broken Down Piece of Meat” Edition.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Now that we have been blessed with a visit from President Obama’s auto task force, we can just feel the rush of Shiny Happy adrenalin running through our veins. Not. Unfortunately, there’s no [...]
March 4, 2009
Resurrecting the Firebird Trans Am: Redemption for Pontiac, Part II.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Judging by the overwhelmingly positive response to my column last week, there are lots of enthusiasts out there who still have a soft spot for Pontiac, whether it be for nostalgia reasons or because [...]
February 25, 2009
Reports of Pontiac’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The news that GM was going to demote Pontiac to a niche brand within its rapidly contracting corporate empire – even though it had been common knowledge for months – buried us in a flurry of [...]
February 16, 2009
Publisher's Note (updated at 8:00PM, 2/17): With the annual sales rate for the U.S. auto industry plunging to its lowest level in decades, GM proposed an accelerated downsizing program to the Treasury Department late today that goes much further than the plans it discussed in December in Washington.' [...]
February 9, 2009
The End of an Era: The Ultimate Car Guy Takes His Leave.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The news came over the Internet Monday morning like a bolt of lightning. Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman of global product development, is retiring at the end of the year. Lutz, who [...]
February 4, 2009
A new “Green Gap” vexes the auto industry.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. I’ve written about the “perception gap” that has vexed Detroit often over the last three years, and that’s the gap that exists between consumers’ perceptions of Detroit – that they build uncompetitive, poor quality, undesirable vehicles [...]
January 28, 2009
J.D. Power’s latest money-making gambit is D.O.A.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Since it’s award season and all, you have to hand it to the greed merchants at J.D. Power and Associates - the folks who turned award-giving from a cottage industry with at least a modicum of credibility [...]
January 21, 2009
Memo to Detroit auto marketers: Go Big or Go Home.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. I can see John Belushi giving his “Over?” speech in Animal House right now, and as crazed and hilarious as that moment was, I’m thinking that the Detroit auto companies – at least the [...]
January 14, 2009
Detroit’s Winter of Discontent: Hits and Misses from the 2009 North American International Auto Show.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Needless to say there are better places to be other than Detroit in January, and there are certainly better places to be than Cobo Hall, with its decidedly retro [...]
January 7, 2009
Ninety days to nowhere. Reality bites for Detroit.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The New Year has opened for Detroit with what amounts to a thud, because in the cold days of early January what has changed, exactly? Not much. Yes, GM and Chrysler got their “bridge” loans, but [...]
December 17, 2008
The 2008 Autoextremist Year in Review: “The End of the World As We Know It” Edition.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. In a tumultuous year that saw upheaval in our financial institutions, turmoil on Wall Street, the decimation of the housing market, $5.00 per gallon gasoline and the worst [...]
December 12, 2008
It’s up to you Mr. President.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The U.S. Senate late last night voted against passage of a bill to give an emergency bridge loan to the Detroit automakers – specifically GM and Chrysler - paving the way for the eventual collapse of the domestic [...]
December 10, 2008
Queen LaGreena and The Dunderheads.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. It occurred to me after having been subjected to yet another painfully lame interview of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has been doling out “haircuts” in Washington at a fevered clip in order to see to it [...]
December 3, 2008
America speaks, and Washington is forced to listen.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Washington. The battle drums are beating along the Potomac, and the message ringing unmistakably loud and clear in the ears of Senators and congressional representatives is this: The U.S automobile industry doesn’t begin and end with Detroit, [...]
November 26, 2008
Washington to Detroit: Drop Dead.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The glee with which the Washington establishment - and every two-bit instant car “expert” who decided it was high time to weigh-in with his or her opinions - attacked Detroit and what’s left of the U.S. car industry last [...]
November 19, 2008
New Detroit vs. Old Detroit in Washington.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. In the last week I have done several live and taped radio interviews across the country and with the BBC in London, a spirited interview with Diane Tucker appearing in The Huffington Post entitled, “Journalist to [...]
November 12, 2008
Tick, tick, tick...
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. So it has come down to this for General Motors: 100 years of living, breathing American industrial and social history is on the precipice of total disaster, with the once-glittering corporate icon facing certain collapse if some sort of government [...]
November 5, 2008
Dear President-Elect Obama.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Well, you did it. Words like “historical,” “unprecedented” and “a fundamental shift” are being bandied about this morning, and they’re all true. You have already accomplished what a lot of people thought you could never do, to get voters to abandon [...]
October 29, 2008
After the smoke clears, it's time for America, Inc.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. By now it should be obvious to even the most casual observers that the domestic automobile industry is on the verge of total collapse. Already reeling from the gas spike earlier in the year and [...]
October 22, 2008
GM scrambles for cash as Cerberus turns to – big surprise - Carlos Ghosn.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. That the idea of GM trying to absorb Chrysler in the midst of the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression is now officially looking ludicrous [...]
October 15, 2008
In The Land of Not Good, hysteria sets in.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The swirling maelstrom of conjecture, rumor and fabrication that’s enveloping the Motor City (aka The Land of Not Good) right now concerning GM and Chrysler has spun completely out of control. So [...]
October 8, 2008
Ferrari loses its grip on its soul.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. I was standing in front of the Ferrari stand at the Paris Auto Show last Thursday morning with Robert Cumberford and Tom Tjaarda, two veteran designers of considerable skill and reputation, and we were trying [...]
October 1, 2008
A Doomsday scenario unfolds for Detroit.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. First it was the mortgage loan meltdown, followed by the gasoline price spike last spring. The collapse of the casual use light truck and SUV market - almost the entire source of Detroit ’s profitability [...]
September 24, 2008
An automotive rarity.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Almost three years ago now, at the Detroit Auto Show in January, 2006, I wondered out loud about the direction that BMW was going. What I observed back then was a burgeoning portfolio of vehicles littering the show floor, a clear [...]
“GMnext” - and an ominous note of reality.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. The first 100 years went by in a blur; at least it did at GM’s centennial celebration yesterday morning at its headquarters in the Renaissance Center, hard by the Detroit River. GM intentionally raced through [...]
September 10, 2008
Memo to Mr. Sepkowitz.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. It had to happen, of course, what with the burgeoning “Green at all costs” movement gaining steam in this country - to the detriment of rhyme, reason or rational thought, I might add - but the anti-car [...]
September 3, 2008
Detroit has lost the “image” war, and now it’s time to move on.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. It’s all over but the shouting, hand-wringing and whining, but the facts are clearer than ever: America doesn’t care about Detroit, and Americans can’t be convinced to abandon [...]
August 27, 2008
Editor's Note: In honor of GM's upcoming Centennial in September, we're re-running one of Peter's most-requested columns today - a look at the legendary Bill Mitchell and the glory days of GM design. This column was adapted for Peter's book, The United States of Toyota, and stands as [...]
August 20, 2008
Closing the “perception gap” just got a little harder for GM.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit . With GM announcing its pullout as an advertiser from both the 2009 Academy Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast, as well as canceling the GM Style event, which kicked-off [...]
August 13, 2008
For once the short-term thinking isn’t coming from Detroit.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Now that gas prices have softened a bit, faint sounds of warning are starting to creep into the media’s coverage of the auto business. The [...]
August 6, 2008
Crunch time for Detroit - and the nation.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. After all of the hand-wringing about product, all of the second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking about what the Detroit automakers did or didn’t do to arrive at the predicament they find themselves in, [...]
July 30, 2008
To the chagrin of the doomsayers, the automobile – and the freedom it represents – is still alive and well.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit . The blaring front page picture of cars buried nose-first in the ground reminiscent of the famed Cadillac Ranch was hard [...]
July 23, 2008
Ford’s radical transformation signals a dramatic shift for the company – and the American automobile industry.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Now that the story is starting to get out about Ford’s dramatic future product plans due to be announced tomorrow, I can safely say that Ford, under the [...]
July 16, 2008
For Detroit, perception is the new reality.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. For the last several years, the war cry emanating from Detroit’s top executives has been that the “perception gap” between consumer impressions of the domestic automakers’ cars and trucks and the reality – in terms [...]
July 9, 2008
GM's defining moment.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. After writing about General Motors’ foibles and occasional triumphs - and its too many models/too many divisions/too many dealers conundrum - for nine years and counting, it’s remarkable that $5.00 per gallon gasoline has done what the executive brain [...]
July 2, 2008
The Price of Independence.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. This country is at a crossroads. We are now faced with a burgeoning national crisis that is challenging virtually every aspect of the American way of life as we know [...]
June 25, 2008
Obama and McCain must step-up to history.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. No, I never thought last week’s column would instantly put an end to the wild flailing about by the presidential candidates (and their ever-attentive staffers) in their [...]
June 18, 2008
Politicians? We don’t need no stinkin’ politicans.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. If the citizens of this state and employees of its key automotive industry ever decided to measure our self worth by the attention received from the two men running for President, then we’d all [...]
