GM’s Aztek: Caught You Looking
Rod Muller, owner of Muller Hood Pontiac Buick in Riverside, wasn’t amused when he saw pictures of the new Pontiac Aztek that would be coming to his showroom.
“When I first saw it, I was pretty much scared to death because it’s so different,” he says. “It doesn’t photograph well.”
Brad Hernandez, sales manager of Community Pontiac Buick in Whittier, was even more aghast: “The back end of the Aztek is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It looks like time was up and they stopped working on it. But we back it up against a wall and it looks great.”
And therein lies the heart of General Motors Corp.’s latest gamble, which has Pontiac marketers on the edges of their seats: The Aztek is definitely pushing the envelope. It’s an outrageously designed, stylistically extreme minivan with attributes of a sport-utility vehicle. You either go nuts over its bold design statements or hate it like nothing else.
GM, the world’s largest auto maker, is clawing for something to boost its battered image in design. The Aztek’s angular, chiseled looks and aggressive stance evoke a Stealth lunar rover on steroids. But it’s been lambasted as clunky, chunky and plain ol’ ugly in auto magazines, letters to the editor and chance street encounters. Even GM Chief Executive G. Richard Wagoner and design chief Wayne Cherry are said by insiders not to like it.
Rare is the car that inspires such powerful love-hate responses as the Aztek. DaimlerChrysler’s tres retro PT Cruiser, with its sensuous curves reminiscent of a ‘30s gangster mobile, comes to mind. But while reaction to the PT, introduced about two months ago, has been split, it’s nonetheless overwhelmingly positive.
“There’s little to criticize with the PT--it’s a very competent piece of work. Unfortunately, with the Aztek, I think the reverse is true,” says Carl Olsen, chairman of transportation design at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, a top training ground for auto designers.
So the Aztek, barely on sale, already has a reputation to overcome.
Don Butler, the Aztek’s 36-year-old brand manager, says that’s just fine.
“It’s the risk-taking vehicles that provide the most return,” says Butler, who holds a Harvard MBA. “Some gotta have it, others are turned off. But if we meet people’s needs, then we’ll engender loyalty and they’ll come back to us again and again.”
Aztek comes at a crucial time. Pontiac division sales, up 14.9% in 1999, were down 4.2% in the first half of this year.
Should the Aztek flop, it would spell trouble for other edgy vehicles GM is planning, such as the Aztek-based Buick Rendezvous, the Chevrolet Avalanche pickup and the Cadillac Evoq roadster.
The Aztek is also GM’s first real effort to move nimbly: It took only 26 months from design to production--the fastest for GM. And there’s always the brass tacks: GM is looking at about $1.5 billion in sales a year from the Aztek.
Of course, Pontiac’s immediate hope is that it boosts the division’s sales. Pontiac planners admit to harboring hopes that the Aztek will have a “halo effect” on the rest of the brand, its allure rubbing off on and helping sell more Firebirds, Grand Ams and Montana minivans--much in the way that Mazda Motor Corp.’s Miata and Volkswagen’s New Beetle increased showroom traffic for those brands when they first hit the market.
“Aztek is going to be a shot of adrenaline to the brand and bring more shoppers to dealers,” predicts Michael Wright, Pontiac’s Thousand Oaks-based regional marketing manager.
Jim Hall, an analyst at consultancy AutoPacific in Detroit, says GM should have no trouble selling the 65,000 to 70,000 Azteks it will produce annually in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.
“They should be able to do that falling off a log, as long as the vehicle is built halfway decently and they don’t have any weird hiccups in early production,” Hall says. “It’s far more mainstream for the year 2000 than the [American Motors] Pacer was for the year 1976, and the Pacer in its first year sold at 50% ahead of forecasts. Nobody remembers this.”
Aztek went on sale in California this month and will become available nationwide in September. The car was launched in California, brand manager Butler says, because “on the West Coast we don’t have the relevance we want with our prime target: 25-to-40-year-olds in the prime of their earning power.”
“Lots of them don’t have a reference point for Pontiac,” he says. “We haven’t been part of their buying pattern. We want to use Aztek to position Pontiac as an innovative company willing to take risks--and be noticed for it.”
But the real issue is that the General is trying to show it can design cool cars. Pontiac’s slogan for 18 years has been “driving excitement.” Butler says the Aztek will refine that motto by reaching for what recent GM research showed Pontiac needs most in the 21st century: to attract buyers with sporty, active lifestyles.
Hence the Aztek’s design as “a party on wheels” waiting to happen. Its fold-down tailgate is designed to be sat on and even has two cup holders. There are rear stereo controls so tailgate partyers can blast their tunes 50 feet out the back; four power outlets; a sliding rear cargo tray; and a CD-cassette holder that doubles as a removable ice chest.
Recent encounters with consumers in southeastern Michigan revealed that consumer reaction is mixed at best.
Samantha Ajagu brought her Chrysler Cirrus to an abrupt halt in a burger joint’s parking lot near Detroit Metro Airport, gesturing wildly at the bright-red Pontiac.
“Who makes that car? Is it for sale now?” she gushed. “It’s beautiful!”
Ajagu, 34, bounded out of her car, packed with four kids in back and a friend up front, and marveled at the features. “I know a lot of people won’t like it,” Ajagu said with a grin.
T.J. Spencer, 49, also liked the Aztek, especially its wide-opening rear door and the sliding cargo shelf.
“I’m a chiropractor, so the first thing I noticed was that a lot of people would benefit from not having to reach over for things,” he said at a Dairy Queen in Dexter, Mich.
His daughter Olivia Spencer, a 23-year-old graphic designer, is another fan.
“I spend a lot of time playing with elements of things and trying to achieve a balance between the aesthetically pleasing and the functional,” she said. “And I like it, especially this line [across the back window hatch].”
Don’t tell that to Don Semones, an auto supplier sales manager from Ann Arbor, Mich.
“It’s just ugly and kind of gimmicky. It has all these facets, but they don’t come together for me,” he said after taking a spin in one. “It’s like they put all the designers in separate rooms and said, ‘You design one thing’ and ‘You design another,’ then put it all together.”
Dennis Reid, 49, of Ann Arbor looked skeptically at an Aztek parked at a shopping center. Told that Aztek chief designer Tom Peters is now working on the sixth-generation Corvette, Reid was unimpressed: “I hope he does a better job on that--or it’ll be the sixth- and last-generation Corvette.”
Peters, an easygoing 46-year-old with closely cropped hair and a penchant for Swiss army watches, has heard it all: the good, the bad and the butt-ugly. But he takes it in stride.
“GM’s criticized for being conservative, doing things that don’t strike home,” he says. “Our job with the Aztek was to do something that was jarring, a completely different take on design to shake things up.”
Though GM marketers worry about alienating older customers by targeting the Aztek at buyers in their 20s and 30s, dealers are reporting serious interest across the age spectrum.
Muller, the Riverside dealer, says he is surprised at the range of interest that the Aztek has generated in his showroom. Sales manager Hernandez in Whittier has sold two Azteks to couples in their late 50s and early 60s.
Pontiac executives tell of a woman who was jogging past a dealership near Malibu when an Aztek caught her eye. She bought it on the spot.
But then there’s the red Grand Prix carrying four college-age men that sidled up to its big Pontiac cousin on the westbound Interstate 94 leaving Detroit, its driver giving the Aztek a thumbs-down sign.
It’s too early to make the call, but the Aztek will end up at one end or the other: the kind of vehicle that has a slow start but grows on consumers, much as the last Dodge Ram pickup did, or just another one of those cars that people love to hate.
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Not Your Father’s Pontiac
Love-it-or-hate-it looks aside, there’s more to what makes the Aztek tick:
* Price: $22,000 to $28,000
* Engine: 3.4-liter, 185-horsepower V-6
* Fuel economy: 19 miles per gallon city, 26 mpg highway
* Production: General Motors will make 65,000 to 70,000 a year in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.
* Platform: Pontiac Montana minivan
* Target customers: Surfer crowd; buyers in their 20s and 30s who like outdoorsy pursuits such as rock climbing, mountain biking, beach parties; young couples; families with young children.
* Features: Think of it as the ultimate party car, with a removable front-center console that can be used as an ice chest; stereo controls near the tailgate; four power outlets; an optional inflatable mattress; and a tent extension for the end of the car.
* Good buzz: Party on wheels waiting to happen.
* Bad buzz: Ugly as a mud fence.
* Competition: Jeep Cherokee, Nissan Xterra.
* Prospects: Likely to attract active-lifestyle buyer. The jury is out on whether its looks will kill (its sales).
*
Angelic Autos
General Motors is counting on the Aztek to achieve a “halo effect,” with its hoped-for allure boosting the entire Pontiac brand. Significant halo cars of the past:
* Chevrolet Corvette
(introduced in 1953)
* Ford Thunderbird (1955)
* Ford Mustang (1964)
* Mazda Miata (1989)
* Volkswagen New Beetle (1998)
