The Hatchback’s Comeback
If the 1970s can find new life in 2001 on dance floors and in hip furniture and fashion stores, can automobile showrooms be far behind?
The short answer is no, they’re right here, right now.
But relax, we’re not talking about the revival of the five-door Dodge Omni. Instead, auto makers are hauling out and freshening up for the U.S. market a ‘70s concept called the hatchback: a passenger car with a cargo area and tailgate, or “hatch,” where the trunk used to be.
Long relegated to the junk drawer in auto design studios in this country, hatchbacks and their close kin--the small sport wagon--have remained popular in Europe, where car buyers tend to fixate on function and fuel economy.
Today, with sleek styling to help disguise their utility in a market that prefers fast and furious in its cars, they are making a reappearance on U.S. roadways. And their numbers will be growing in coming years.
“We’re seeing the atomizing of the auto industry in terms of design and function,” said George Peterson, president of Tustin-based marketing consultants AutoPacific Inc.
After a decade in which it seemed almost everyone was lusting after lumbering sport-utility vehicles that kept getting bigger and thirstier, there has been a shift in the market.
SUVs are by no means dead--even $2-a-gallon gasoline can’t kill them, say consultants who monitor consumer attitudes.
But a growing number of shoppers, often after having owned full-blown SUVs or minivans and discovering they didn’t use most of the features or didn’t care for the bulk, are looking for something that offers the high or “command” seating of an SUV and the roominess of a wagon, van or SUV, yet has the ride and handling of a well-tuned car.
There also is a potentially huge market among younger new-vehicle buyers who grew up in their parents’ minivans and SUVs and want something different for themselves.
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They are shopping in what, at best, is a fairly loose category with many offerings, from economy to luxury. Roughly anything that is not demonstrably an SUV, pickup truck, minivan, full-size station wagon or traditional passenger sedan or coupe can be squeezed in.
Thus a few small and sporty station wagons such as the BMW 3-Series and Volvo V40 may be considered hatchbacks, along with the wagon-like Mazda Protege5, which consumers refused to call a wagon when they viewed it in early focus group studies, the company says.
The minivan-based Pontiac Aztek and Buick Rendezvous siblings fit in as well. They are, after all, not traditional vans, and they sure aren’t SUVs in the mold of a Ford Explorer or Chevrolet Tahoe. Then there are pure five-door hatchbacks such as the new Lexus IS 300 SportCross and the Volkswagen Golf wagon.
And that’s just this year.
In the next few years, auto makers are planning to introduce at least half a dozen more, starting with a five-door hatchback version of the Ford Focus, dubbed the ZX5, next year.
American Suzuki plans a sport wagon next year modeled after the SX concept it showed at the New York Auto Show in April, and Toyota and Pontiac have jointly developed a sport wagon-cum-hatchback that Toyota will call the Matrix and introduce next year and Pontiac will call the Vibe and introduce in 2003.
For the 2003-05 time frame, Honda reportedly is considering a five-door version of the Civic for the U.S.; Volvo is working on a sporty wagon that will be positioned in its lineup below the small V40 wagon; and Ford, Lincoln, Cadillac and Chrysler all have sport wagons on their product lists.
Some of those vehicles, particularly from the domestic companies, probably will end up categorized as “crossovers”: truck-car blends that look like traditional SUVs but are built on passenger-car platforms for improved ride and handling.
Others, though, will fit into the sport wagon-hatchback class. They differ in that they are more wagon-like in profile, with lower roofs, less ground clearance, and usually, more performance-oriented handling than crossovers such as the Toyota RAV4 or Ford Escape.
“It’s a way to recycle the idea of the station wagon,” said Jeff Schuster, an analyst with J.D. Power & Associates in Troy, Mich. “Put some SUV characteristics with it and call it a sport wagon, and it’s a category that’s got some legs.”
The key is that the term “station wagon” isn’t frightening to many younger consumers, said Wes Brown, an industry consultant with Nextrend in Thousand Oaks.
“So it’s cool to buy one as long as it looks hot, and a lot of these new wagons and hatchbacks are pretty hot,” he said. “They look a lot better than the sedans they’re based on. And they do everything the van or SUV did except have that high seating, but they also can scoot around corners and accelerate a lot better.”
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Such pro-hatchback sentiment is far from universal.
Ron Pinelli, president of Autodata Corp. in New Jersey and a specialist in tracking automotive sales trends, said that he believes the market for many of the sport wagons and hatchbacks to be limited and that most buyers will continue to gravitate to the crossovers.
Historically, five-door hatchbacks have been popular in Europe but have failed in the U.S., said automotive product consultant Gordon Wangers of AMCI in Vista, Calif. “Personally, I love ‘em because you can stick so much stuff into them, but I’m not sure that consumers are out there asking for them.”
In their defense, auto makers say they are merely responding to consumer requests.
“They want something that’s practical and stylish and fun to drive,” said Jay Amestoy, vice president of public and government affairs for Mazda North American Operations in Irvine. “They are younger and active and they want something they can strap their kayaks on, or stuff their mountain bikes into, and still carry the groceries and the new baby. But they don’t want a traditional SUV or a minivan.”
Or sometimes, they have one or more of the above and just want something that puts a bounce back in their step.
Joe LaBlanche, a 38-year-old high school administrator from Minneapolis, said he parked a supercharged Mazda Millenia two months ago and has been tooling around in his bright-yellow Protege5 ever since.
“It’s a great car. It handles nice, especially around the city here, and it looks just great,” he said. “That’s why I first got interested, because of its style.”
LaBlanche and his wife, Libby, have six children, so they don’t use the five-seater for family outings--there’s a minivan and a mid-size SUV for that.
“This is my fun car,” LaBlanche said. “The kids all love it and they all want to go for rides, and the [students] at school think it’s really cool. It put the sports-car guy back in me.”
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Times staff writer John O’Dell covers the auto industry for Highway 1 and the Business section. He can be reached at john.odell@latimes.com.
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Wagon Trail
The burgeoning category of new vehicles that we’ll call five-door hatchbacks and sport wagons is a pretty diverse grouping: Where else would the Pontiac Aztek and the BMW 3-Series wagon find common ground? As illustrated by data compiled by J.D Power & Associates, they vary widely in the types of buyers they attract--and what those buyers are paying:
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U.S. buyer % Price less # Days Vehicle age Female cash rebate to sell Sales # Audi A4 Avant 40 39.0 $30,956 29 4,408 BMW 3-Series 44 36.7 35,819 42 4,788 Buick Rendezvous* 51 32.9 29,180 17 3,640 Mazda Protege5** 37 31.2 17,867 19 -- Pontiac Aztek 42 38.9 23,408 76 27,690 Saab 9-5 44 32.9 35,947 70 5,796 Subaru Impreza 41 45.5 19,290 51 14,408 Volkswagen Golf 36 40.8 17,925 45 30,136 Volkswagen Jetta*** 38 49.0 21,355 26 2,363 Volvo V40 43 42.4 26,877 53 5,088
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# July 2000 to June 2001, from Power Information Network daily sales reports from key dealers in 21 major U.S. markets
* Went on sale May 2001
** Went on sale July 2001
*** Went on sale March 2001
Source: J.D. Power & Associates
