GM, Subaru May Team for Aztek Replacement
General Motors Corp. is considering replacing the slow-selling Pontiac Aztek sport-utility vehicle in 2005 with a model jointly developed with its Japanese alliance partner Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., according to a senior executive working with the alliance.
Fuji Heavy, which makes Subaru-brand vehicles, is at work developing the SUV with GM. The model, as yet unnamed, is to be produced at the Indiana factory that Subaru shares with Isuzu Motors Ltd., also a GM alliance partner, the executive said last week during the preview of the Tokyo Motor Show.
The Aztek, introduced late last year, has been selling well below its projected pace, a fact industry analysts have attributed to its controversial design. GM had hoped for annual sales of about 70,000 units, but through the first nine months of this year the company had sold only 22,018.
The GM-Subaru model is projected to be a semi-luxury seven-seat “crossover” vehicle, somewhat shorter than a typical SUV and with the handling characteristics of a passenger car. It would be built with Subaru’s signature horizontally opposed six-cylinder engine and compact all-wheel-drive system, said the executive, who would not be quoted by name.
He said the new model would be aimed just below the Lexus RX 300, BMW X5 and Acura MDX. The Lexus and Acura SUVs start at $34,000, the BMW at $39,000. The Aztek sells for $20,000 to $23,500, a reduction of about $1,000 for 2002 models after GM determined that it was overpriced.
Bob Lutz, the industry veteran GM hired last month as vice chairman to take the lead in product development, said the forthcoming vehicle will raise the level of GM’s offerings in that SUV class.
“I hate to confine that vehicle at this point to the Aztek role,” Lutz said at the Tokyo show. “If we view it as an Aztek replacement, I think we’re limiting ourselves. The minute you designate a vehicle as a replacement for something else, you’re already limiting it in terms of its market scope and its pricing scope and so forth.
“I would hope it would be much better than the Aztek, much more premium, filling a different role within General Motors and potentially selling at a much higher price. I would like to see it more upmarket, which is where Subaru would like it too.”
Executives of GM and Fuji Heavy would not give additional details about their joint vehicle. But Subaru took the wraps off a seven-seat concept car, the WX-01, which gives hints about the direction of the SUV project.
Although the Aztek has been much maligned in the automotive press, critics rave about its spacious, well-planned interior, which includes a removable ice chest in the center console and stereo controls in the rear. It was ranked the “most appealing” entry-level SUV in a recent customer survey by market research firm J.D. Power & Associates, and this month the Aztek received a rating of four out of five stars in government rollover tests, the first time an SUV has scored so high.
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Terril Yue Jones is The Times’ Detroit bureau chief. He can be reached at t.jones@latimes.com.
