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This ties in with the origin of the "Custom"
concept. The way I have come to understand this is you could chose the
"Crown" package, the "LeBaron" package or essentially "Custom" make your own
car. Ostensibly, the packaged vehicles were more expensive, but the so
called base model was more of a blank canvas onto which you could add as much or
as little as you liked.
In the UK, the base model of the Ford was called
the "Popular." It, too, could be ordered as bare bones as you could
possibly imagine but it was also the basis for only buying those features you
wanted, as opposed to a ready made package. As I understand it, because
this was really before my time, there was a tax advantage involved. Taxes
on the purchase price of the car were higher than those of
accessories. Therefore you would buy a stripped car and then have the
dealer fit the items you wanted.
As your message states, it is a mistake to
apply modern sales techniques to cars from fifty years ago. You could
buy your Imperial from of the two packages that were available, with a
limited set of additional items, since the cars were going to come with plenty
of goodies anyway, or you could buy the "Custom" model which was a blank
canvas onto which you could add as much or a little as you
wanted.
Hugh
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 11:39
PM
Subject: IML: Imperials on the
lot--unusual to order?
When Lee Iococca came out with the Omni/Horizon Americas he justified the
low price by saying he was saving manufucturing costs by limiting your
choices--limited color, trim and options packages. You could pick your
car from about three options packages. He made the offer, he claimed,
to thank America for the bail out. I always suspected the car was
getting long in the tooth and this was a clever way to capitalize on old
tooling and a fully depreciated design. Nice gesture though...
Why bring this up? The whole idea that options on cars would be
limited was very foreign to U.S. buyers at the time--mid '80s.
Virtually everybody that bought new ORDERED exactly what they wanted.
The pick lists were endless. It was extremely unusual to go down to a
dealership and actually BUY something in stock. We always assumed that
folks that did that were in some sort of hurry and probably criminals but
certainly out of their minds. It was unAmerican to buy this way.
When the Wisconsin (Janesville?) Assembly plant outbid Flint Assembly for
the Chevy Suburban, everybody knew they could not possibly honor their
bid. That was precisely because Suburbans are still marketed the old
fashioned way--every possible option is available on every truck so most
Suburbans are truly unique. That factory never made good on their
commitment, I am told. Local management did not
fully comprehend the complexity of building 1700 custom trucks a day
per line.
Take a look some time at something as simple as the pick list on a '68
Dodge Dart that could be ordered with a slant six, several small block
options, a 440 and even the venerable hemi. Those were just the engine
choices.
It seems inconceivable to me that anybody would have purchased a prestige
care without ordering exactly what they wanted.
Thoughts?
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