Bumper Crop for 1999
The coupe is making a comeback, and computerized controls, convertible tops, curves and quasi-sport-utility station wagons are big as 1998 draws to a close and auto dealers’ showrooms across the country fill with all that is new for 1999.
The new model year is a transitional one for many car companies--about half the ‘99s were already introduced as early releases in the spring and summer--but there is still plenty of news.
Not only are auto makers holding the line on prices, but they’re also lowering them in many cases while offering more vehicle for the buck.
Technological advances continue to pile up, especially improvements in handling, engine efficiency and crash safety, making even the most basic of today’s new cars and trucks as good as or better than some of the best of two decades ago.
Influenced by a crop of young designers who are starting to make waves in automotive studios in Europe and the U.S., styling of the ‘99s--and for many of the cars and trucks waiting in the wings to be , introduced as new-millennium models--is the edgiest and most diverse in years.
Auto makers “are no longer going to be following the trends,” says J. Mays, the new vice president for design at Ford Motor Co. and, as former chief stylist at Audi in Germany, developer of the concept car that became the seed for Volkswagen’s retro-styled New Beetle and Audi’s revolutionary TT sedan, a car scheduled to arrive in the U.S. next year.
Designers born in the late 1950s and ‘60s, when cars still had personality, are now becoming senior stylists and studio directors and are intent on reintroducing the concept of character to the corporate automobile world, Mays says.
One of the first places Southern Californians will be able to see most of what is being offered for 1999 is the California International Auto Show, running Oct. 14-18 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
More than 600 new cars, trucks, vans and sport-utility vehicles will be displayed under one roof, representing the 1999 lines of 35 manufacturers from eight countries. The show, run by the Orange County and Long Beach-area new-car dealers associations (and sponsored by The Times), is the first of a string of ’99 new-car shows across the country through early spring.
It is the look of a vehicle--its design--that draws buyers. But it is technology, which determines dependability, function and performance, that makes a car or truck successful.
So one of the most important--and hardest to spot--things that auto makers do each year is improve the technologies and materials that go into their vehicles.
“There are almost no bad cars out there today,” says Jim Hossack, a consultant and analyst at AutoPacific Inc. in Santa Ana. “The cars with marginal reliability and durability have largely been driven out of the U.S. market.”
There is a bumper crop of technological improvements for 1999, from the composite-plastic intake manifold on Chrysler’s new 3.5-liter aluminum V-6 engine to the refrigerated glove box on the new Saabs from Sweden.
Computer-aided functions like remote locks and emission and fuel management systems have been around for years, but auto makers’ engineering and scientific departments are coming up with increasingly sophisticated applications.
Anti-lock braking systems are standard for 1999 on scores of cars and optional on most others. Now traction control--an incredibly complex system that helps cars keep their grip on the road by regulating power to individual wheels when things get slippery--is frequently showing up on top-of-the-line models.
More visible are offerings like on-board navigation systems, many with electronic voices that give the driver turn-by-turn directions. They are options this year on BMW models and the Acura RL and are coming soon for selected Infiniti and Lexus models and other luxury makes.
Cadillac, which has a less sophisticated navigation system--you make a call on your cell phone and get directions from a human attendant--will soon offer a revolutionary night-vision system. It uses infrared technology to project on the bottom part of the driver-side windshield a view of the road ahead, and of what’s on it, letting the driver “see” far ahead of what is illuminated by the headlights.
On the safety front, frontal air bags on the driver’s side have already been augmented with passenger and side-impact bags, and now the industry is installing head- and face-protection air-bag systems.
In new Saabs, a two-stage side air bag inflates the head-protection portion five milliseconds (that’s 1/200th of a second) after the lower-body portion inflates. And that other Swedish car maker, Volvo, is offering a front seat in its new S80 luxury sedan that is designed to reduce whiplash injury from rear-end collisions by sensing and reacting to the forces that snap the occupant’s head and spinal column back and forth, absorbing the shock and cushioning the head and back. The seat back will even recline up to 15 degrees to increase its shock absorption in a higher-speed crash.
It is a function of competition that all of those technical advances, wrapped up in some of the industry’s freshest designs--from Mercury’s “New Edge” Cougar to BMW’s love-it-or-hate-it M Coupe--are hitting the market in cars that are often priced lower than less advanced models of a year ago.
The decline of the Asian economies has forced Japanese and South Korean auto makers to look to U.S. sales to bolster their performance. And to get those sales, they have had to rethink their practice of ratcheting up prices each year. The new Mitsubishi Galant, for example, is about $500 less than a similarly equipped ’98 model.
“Consumers are getting more for their money than they ever have before,” says Lincoln Merrihew, chief economist at J.D. Power & Associates.
The primary reason for the intense competition is that the industry has more capacity to build vehicles than worldwide demand warrants.
“It’s overcapacity,” says economist Bill Wilson of Comerica Bank. “The Big Three almost resemble OPEC now--they just keep cutting prices.”
So to move its 1999 Taurus, for example, Ford is offering the most expensive model, the LX, for $1,000 less than a comparably equipped ’98. Ford and General Motors Corp. are also offering rebates or discount financing on some of their ’99 models, a marketing ploy usually reserved for year-end clearances.
Other auto makers have kept prices unchanged but added more equipment. The base price of the Audi A4 sedan remains $23,790 for ‘99, for example, but the car now comes standard with a keyless-entry system, lockable headrests and a first-aid kit.
Amid all that, the vehicles coming into the market for ’99 and beyond are starting to reflect U.S. consumers’ demand for more room and functionality.
Not everyone wants a sport-utility vehicle, although there are more on the market this year than ever before. But auto makers, taking a cue from the hordes of buyers who have already defected to the SUV and pickup market, are working feverishly to come up with alternatives.
The station wagon and the wagon-SUV hybrid are two approaches. Companies like Audi, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru and Volvo all have wagons or wagon-like sport-utilities that are doing well in the market. Buyers like them because they have lots of cargo and passenger room, offer more headroom and legroom than most sedans and are usually easier to enter and exit than passenger cars, but at the same time are not as bulky as SUVs and handle better than the truck-based utility vehicles.
“The luxury sports wagon is going to be a strong growth area,” says Wes Brown, an analyst at Nextrend in Thousand Oaks. “Audi in Europe tells us that the average Avant wagon buyer is 10 years younger than the average Audi car buyer.”
The same demand for vehicles that are not boring and predictable is fueling the resurgence of coupes and convertibles--once thought to be as dead as the steam engine. Toyota has brought out a new sports coupe, the Camry Solara, this year; Audi is about to hit the market with the TT in coupe and, later, topless versions; and Volvo and Mercedes are making coupes in several of their lines.
“People are still very attached to cars,” Brown says, “and our research shows that the attraction is growing as younger buyers come into the market from Generation X and Y.”
Times staff writer John O’Dell can be reached via e-mail at john.odell@latimes.com.
* NEW MODEL ROUNDUP: More stories and photos, W8-11
