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Hi Paul,
As an old geezer, let's put this in perspective. In
1958 the country was in a deep recession, particularly affecting the auto
industry. Not surprisingly, American Motors, with the "economical"
Rambler, was doing much better than the rest, along with Renault (remember
those?) and the Volkswagen Beetle. Any up tick in the market was
amplified by marketers and seen as great news. There were endless
campaigns to stimulate the market, with nationwide promos, like "You Auto Buy
Now"!
One would think that the market would have responded by
pushing their lower cost models, but as in "The Great Depression", where
the emphasis was on luxury, i.e., Duesenbergs, E H Scott radios, and other high
end stuff, the mind set was the same. Fact is, in economic
downturns the shrinking market is the middle class, so go after
the buyers with the money, get the market rolling, and the rest will
follow. A generation later this was called "the trickle down theory", but
it ain't nothing new.
It's too bad that Chrysler did not keep this up. They never seemed to
realize that the name of the game is perception.
As you said, the product may be great, but you have to sell it to
survive.
Regards,
Ken Stephenson 82 Imp, 91 TC
On Sat, 07 May 2005 11:15:04 -0400 RandalPark@xxxxxxx writes:
> That is really cool. ESPECIALLY THE SEAT-O-RAMA! > > What seems sad is that they were still touting the news paper > headlines saying that "Imperial was out to Replace Cadillac" while > Imperial sales for the 1959 model year remained dismal, as did every > year until 1964. > > Being in sales myself, I wonder what members of the company sales > force were saying amongst themselves when this corporate > communication was released. It would seem that based on 1958 > figures, they couldn't have been much more than cautiously > optimistic. > > The product was great, but if it didn't sell, they couldn't feed > their families. > > Paul W. > > In an email dated 7/5/2005 1:20:29 pm GMT Daylight time, "Mark > Evans" <mark.a.evans@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > >MessageGang, > >Thought some might get a kick out of reading about the '59 Selling > Season. Imperial was reaching an 18 month high in demand and Ghia > Limos were the "rock stars of the corporation at the time. Hope you > enjoy the articles as much as I did. Thanks to Kenyon Wills for > providing the original material. > > http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1959/59News/index.htm > > > >Mark Evans > >1963 Imperial Crown Convertible > >http://www.imperialclub.org/~maevans/MyImperial/index.html > >1968 Dodge Polara 500 Convertible > >http://www.imperialclub.org/~maevans/MyPolara/index.html > > > > > > > ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- > This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please > reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be > shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the > Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm > > > |
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