The Soccer Mom Rocket: Forbes

By Jerry Flint

The old days were simple: Detroit made sedans, coupes, hardtops (those were sedans and coupes without a center pillar between the front and rear windows), station wagons and convertibles. That was it. Oh yes, and a pickup truck for farmers and contractors.

Today's vehicles are like wildly mutating bacteria, constantly evolving into new forms or shapes. Some examples: the sports utility vehicle with a short pickup box in the rear. Ford started this, and its SuperCrew sold about 170,000 units last year. Both Ford Motor and General Motors now sell several versions of these vehicles.

Another example: the "crossover," a vehicle that looks like a rugged SUV, but is built on a car or minivan platform rather than a truck frame. The Lexus RX 300 was one of the first entries in this segment. The slow-selling Pontiac Aztek (27,000 sales last year) is a more recent example. GM should remember the second rule of such risk-taking: Dump them fast when they flop.

Understand, this is one of the key ways to make money in today's fiercely competitive and over-crowded auto business. Invent one kind of vehicle where there isn't any competition, build as much of it as possible off an existing platform and clean up with high-profit business.

When the fad fades, or the competition gets too rough, then get out of the market. Kill the vehicles rather than spend huge amounts of money and manpower to redo them every few years when competition is growing and interest flagging.

Find them, fabricate them, flog them and forget them.

The world, as Robert Lutz, the new vice chairman and product czar of General Motors once said, is not to the big but to the fast.

The latest flavor of the month is the station wagon. Right, that old favorite of suburban families, which in the 1980s was replaced by the minivan. There has been talk of a station wagon revival for years, but frankly, it hasn't come.

The bestseller has been the Ford Taurus wagon, but its sales have been dragging, maybe had 45,000 sales last year. I doubt that the next Taurus line in a couple years will even include a traditional wagon. A few $50,000-type Mercedes and BMW wagons are being sold, too, but this doesn't make a trend.

At the bellwether Detroit auto show this month, wagons were the stars. Of course, they were called sport wagons, or tourers--not station wagons. These new versions have all-wheel-drive (or have it available), luxurious interiors, and they certainly aren't for mom, pop and kids spilling ketchup from their Whoppers. They seem to be the bond traders' wagon, but then they also are supposed to be aimed at active people. Indeed, Detroit doesn't seem interested in selling to anyone who doesn't have terrific abs or buns of steel.

These new wagons are a variation of what we call crossovers, but they abandon the traditional husky SUV shape for a slick new wagon look.

Most important was the Chrysler Pacifica. With three rows of seats and all-wheel drive, it is to go into production in about a year. Chrysler talked about a price starting in the middle $20,000s, but I would say $31,000 to $35,000 might be more like it for a well-equipped model. Volume? They didn't say, but I hear the target is 130,000 a year. This is a huge number. Subaru, one of the leading wagon makers, sells about 80,000 AWD wagon-like vehicles a year, but they are generally priced between $26,000 and $28,000.

Audi presented the Avantissimo, a show car, but hinted that it, or something like it, is on the way. Volkswagen named one such show car Magellan, to indicate it was seeking new directions. Another entry, the Mercedes Vision GST (Grand Sports Tourer) might be built in a few years in the Mercedes Alabama plant. Nissan's Infiniti division displayed the FX45, which, supposedly, resembles an upcoming vehicle. Within a year, the Volvo XC90 will be in production; the Cadillac SRX crossover is due in the spring of 2003.

All were shown in Detroit, and that's a trend.

My guess is that if the Chrysler Pacifica hits big, there will be many more of these super wagons. Chrysler is betting a good piece of the farm on the Pacifica. One thing: It's bound to do better than the Aztek.

How big will the wagon market get? It's hard to tell. The minivan still is more reasonable for family use. But lots of women--and men--don't want to be seen behind the wheel of a "soccer mom" vehicle. Personally, I was cheering along with all of America when our soccer girls beat China for the World Cup. I was pretty proud of soccer moms that day.

If the wagon isn't the next thing? Well, Honda showed this very strange-looking box, ugly, too, which it says it will build soon. You never know what the next flavor of the month will turn out to be.