ON THE TABLE

August 3, 2011

 Honda. Editor-in-Chief's Note: Just how treacherous is this image wrangling stuff? Consumer Reports just blasted the 2012 Honda Civic, dropping it 17 points on its rating scale and calling it "too low to be recommended." Ouch, Baby. This is after the Civic has been the darling of the magazine for years. To its credit, Honda fired back saying, "In virtually every way, the completely redesigned 2012 Civic is a step forward. The new Civic excels in areas that matter to small-car customers, including fuel efficiency, safety, and reliability," in a released statement. So what is going on here, exactly? First of all, did Honda all of a sudden "unlearn" how to build cars? Of course not. Is the new Civic the "wow machine" everyone was expecting? No, but it's not 17 points worse than the old one, which means to us that the Honda image has taken such a beating of late that even the hand-wringers at Consumer Reports have to find fault with it. It's as if they were let down and wanted to spank Honda for it. We don't think much of CR around here, never have. But we know a lot of people take their word as the be-all and end-all, which is too bad. Could Honda have done better? Absolutely. But the reality is their short-term thinking and hyper conservatism is starting to bite them in the ass. The Civic is a decent car, although the cheapened interior bits are inexcusable. (The Civic Si is an excellent car, btw.) But the Bottom Line here is that Honda has lost its mojo, both internally and with much of the car-buying public. Even with CR. Like I've said many, many times before in this publication, developing, establishing, honing and maintaining an image is the most delicate task in this business. Get it right and it pays dividends for years to come. Get it wrong, and well, it takes years and years to recover. Mercedes-Benz had it right for a long time with "Engineered Like No Other Car in the World" and BMW did as well with its "The Ultimate Driving Machine" tag lines. And yet you can blow-it up real good in just a couple of quarters, like Mercedes did with "Unlike Any Other" and BMW almost did with it's "Joy" misstep. Honda needs to get real about its current lot in automotive life. People used to believe in the brand with an unwavering devotion. Now? There are too many choices out there equal to or better than Honda, and besides, what does Honda stand for again? Exactly. - PMD

Toyota. The Japanese automaker reported a quarterly loss of $1.4 billion, but it plans on delivering a profitable year despite all of its travails and the residue from the earthquake aftermath. But don't expect Toyota to curl up in a ball and whimper their days away in a "woe is me" bout of depression. No, Toyota is still formidable and they're going to come out swinging. Count on it.

Fiat. The new tag line for the Fiat 500 launch advertising campaign is "Simply More." One part of the campaign links the new 500 with the 1957 model in an attempt at establishing the car's ultra hipness, and it fails miserably. We hope all of those Chrysler dealers out there who were hot to get their hands on the 500 enjoy the ride because once the first-on-the-block types get their fill of the car, it's going to be slim pickings from there on out.

Alan Mulally. The Ford CEO is going to be a guest on David Letterman tonight at 11:35 p.m. EDT. Do you think Dave will bring up the fact that Ford didn't take the money? Count on it, and a few other things too. It should be very interesting...

The New MPG Standards. Why didn't the automakers put up more of a fight over the new CAFE standards? That's easy: 1. It would be a PR nightmare if they even raised a hand in question against the standards because every card-carrying member of the green "intelligentsia" would crucify them in the media. And 2. The likelihood of those standards being in effect by then? Uh, 50-50 at best. Don't believe it? Oh, just watch...

Sergio Marchionne. The good news? He tells reporters at the Traverse City Management Conference that he will eventually leave (and here we thought he'd micromanage his way to oblivion). The bad news? It won't be until 2015 or 2016. The really bad news? His micromanagement "style" will leave an organization dependent on his "vision" - and totally dysfunctional to boot. Good times.

BMW. The Bavarians have opened a can of serious Whup-Ass on their competitors of late. U.S. sales are up 13 percent for the year to date, and 12 percent for the month of July. BMW is the No. 1 luxury-performance brand in the U.S. market and has hammered Mercedes-Benz for four months in a row. Sounds like Mercedes-Benz dealers in the U.S. are going to need more than a pep talk from Uncle Dieter...