Karl on Cars - Talk Back Tuesday: Hummer Book, World Car and CTR

Talk Back Tuesday: Hummer Book, World Car and CTR

I don't have one topic worthy of a full Talk Back Tuesday post, but I do have a few mini topics from the past week that, when added up, almost equate to one worthy discussion...hopefully. Here goes:

In the spirit of "perfect timing" comes a new Hummer H2 book: Yes, just as oil passes $100-a-barrel and gas hits $4-a-gallon we get a new book that, according to the press release:

"With unfolded centerfold the book reaches a width of 237 cm (94.5 inches), wider than the subject of the book, the HUMMER H2, itself. HUMMER H2 - KING SIZE AMERICA! is the biggest and most exclusive car book in the world and is published in a limited edition of just 999 sequentially numbered and signed copies. On 200 gloss-laminated pages German automobile journalist Hans-Jürgen Tücherer tells a great many entertaining and amusing stories that surround this spectacular American SUV. More than 270 fascinating pictures up to 43 x 237 centimeters (17 x 94.5 inches) in size depict the HUMMER H2 in all its glorious details and from many highly unusual perspectives. HUMMER H2 - KING SIZE AMERICA! is available for 999 Euros. The German edition is on sale now. The English version will be available online at www.h2book.com starting in April 2008."

Yes, for a mere $1,500 you too can pay proper homage to your H2 with a book as obnoxious as the vehicle itself! Better reserve your copy today!!

Audi, BMW and Mazda Win World Car Awards: Because the world needs more car awards a bunch of journalists got together back in 2003 and created...the World Car Awards. Chosen by 47 jurors from 24 countries, the 2008 World Car winner is the Mazda2/Mazda Demio. I've only driven the Demio on Gran Turismo, but it seemed better than the Seat Ibiza.

Other World Car winners include the Audi R8 as both the World Performance Car and the World Car Design of the Year. This one I've driven in real life, and would agree its performance and design are among the best on the planet. Finally, the BMW 118d won World Green Car of the Year. Obviously we don't get the 1 Series diesel in the U.S. market (at least not yet), but the 1 Series is probably the most compelling all-new model I've driven in recent memory.

You Own It, So Please Rate It, and We'll Award It: We're launching a new award (did I mention the world needs more car awards) called Consumers' Top Rated (CTR). As you may have already noticed, we have both editor and consumer ratings for cars on Edmunds.com, and while the ratings help people as they browse the vehicle pages it seems logical to use them to identify the top rated cars. We already do this for the editors' ratings, called Edmunds' Top Recommended. Now it's time to extend the "of the Year" love to the consumer ratings -- but we need your help.

Simply go to any vehicle pricing page, click on the link next to the consumer review number and you'll see a detailed list of the existing consumer reviews, along with a large button at the top of the page to post your own review. For intance, if you own a $1,500,000 Bugatti Veyron you can go to this page to post your review of it. This system also works for more mainstream cars. We're planing to post the 2008 winners shortly after an April 30 deadline, so if you've got a car you want to rate don't wait -- do it now.

Posted by Karl Mar 25, 2008 6:00 am

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Comments

blackadder5639 - Mar 25, 2008 1:39 pm (#11 Total: 30)

Karl, so in your opinion, which of the awards matter the most? If you were a manufacturer, which award would give you the most satisfaction?

chevy598 - Mar 25, 2008 2:07 pm (#12 Total: 30)

blackadder, If Toyota had to make a choice they would pull out of the Japanese market before they would leave the american market. An even more extreme example, Toyota would pull out of the other 195 countries before they would pull out of the American market. I read Toyota makes over 80% of their money in North America.
Even the germans are completely dependant on the US market to make profits. When mercedes was loosing money a couple years ago it was because of the NA market.
VW is a perfect example. Record global sales mean nothing if your loosing market share in america. VW's president has said countless times the american market is make or break.
Americans underestimate how important we really are to the global economy. We might not be the only country, but we are the only country that matters when it comes to making money

editor_karl - Mar 25, 2008 2:42 pm (#13 Total: 30)

L.A. CA United States of America

"Karl if you want feedback, post praise for the Accord, slight the G8 in the same article, throw in something about manual transmissions, and for goodness sake don't forget fixed headrests on the rear seats, nor fingerprints when closing the trunk."

Don't forget a snipe at global warming, for good measure.

I think the automakers like both editor- and consumer-based awards. The editor-based awards validate the car with "professionals" while the consumer-based awards validate the car with "real shoppers." Not sure if one is clearly better than the other in the eyes of the carmakers.

estreka - Mar 25, 2008 2:51 pm (#14 Total: 30)

subarctic north - Great Falls, MT

No, I think Chevy's right. As ethnocentric as it sounds, the big volumes are sold in the US. It's irritatingly true, but the world does revolve around the US. Over a quarter of the world's GDP passes through American hands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29
That's not to say the best cars are sold in the US (to my chagrin).
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That book is absurd. I'm usually pretty much a 'to each his own' kinda guy, but you've got to be a real idiot to buy something like that.
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Karl, I couldn't agree with you more about awards. The problem is car companies are willing to push big advertising dollars to any publication or automotive experts that produce another award. It's a liquidation of prestige.

7driver - Mar 25, 2008 3:11 pm (#15 Total: 30)

Another award? Jeez, after I saw the title I was looking forward to reading about Ruf's "yellowbird" group C supercar from the late 80's.

editor_karl - Mar 25, 2008 3:40 pm (#16 Total: 30)

L.A. CA United States of America

That was a superb vehicle. Still one of the best performance cars ever created.

srdriven - Mar 25, 2008 4:00 pm (#17 Total: 30)

I appreciate your sense of humor about mnorm1, Karl. Am I missing the part where someone is forcing him to read your blog? I figure he can skip it if he finds it so deplorable, eh?

Agreed on the RUF car. Spectacular, they do amazing work. I saw one of their latest, the CTR3, in person at the historics at Legua Seca 2 back, and it was breathtaking. Wonderful stuff.

boloti_troy - Mar 25, 2008 4:29 pm (#18 Total: 30)

chevy:

I agree that American economy is very important part of the World economy. However, if we talk about cars, or World car of the year, the situation is quite different.

Americans and Europians (which have even bigger GDP) have completely different taste for cars. In U.S. there are many trucks and big cars, but no good small cars. Europe is the opposite. Toyota Camry, which is the best selling car in U.S., had only a few sales in Europe (say ~1000 cars per year vs. ~300K per year in America - correct me i I'm wrong). So, how could you award that car World award if Europians didn't even see that car on the streets?

I don't want to argue which market is better, just want to note that World car doesn't have to be sold everywhere; it just has to be very nice car itself... it's the problem of the carcompany to offer it in big markets, like U.S....

Citroen, Peugeot, Seat and many other brands are not in the American market... Does that mean they are not capable of producing a car which would deserve World car award? I don't think so...

george2040 - Mar 25, 2008 6:06 pm (#19 Total: 30)

Surprised that anyone would make a limited edition book for the Hummer H2, a Chevy Tahoe in disguise. The Humvee /Hummer H1 or the 1935 through present history of the Chevrolet Carryall/Suburban/Tahoe, possibly the original SUV, would make for a more interesting book.

A friend works for a small defense contractor that owns a Humvee, complete with (disabled) gun turret. He said that other cars quickly get out of the way when they drive that Humvee on city streets.

A world car would be a car that can sell across several continents. Possible examples are the Mazda 3/Axela and the BMW 3 series. I agree that you have to at least try to sell in the largest car market to claim to be a world car.

daytona_500 - Mar 25, 2008 6:47 pm (#20 Total: 30)

That book sounds kind of neat I guess, but that price is obnoxious.

For a Talk Back Tuesday post maybe you could maybe do something where people post about how they're fighting high fuel prices, (provided it affects them) by taking transit, car pooling etc.

And for next week, do a post where we all get to vote on the next used long term car to be bought. (Buick GNX!)

sabastian - Mar 25, 2008 7:21 pm (#21 Total: 30)

I wouldn't despair too much about the World Car Award thing. The Mazda 2 can still be considered a true "world car" in some sense of the term as it shares a lot of bits with the upcoming Ford Fiesta, which will be coming to the states.

Edit: By the way, I wouldn't pay $1500 for ANY book, let alone one about the glitzy monstrosity that is the Hummer H2. Unbelievable.

blackadder5639 - Mar 25, 2008 7:42 pm (#22 Total: 30)

Chevy, my thoughts are pretty much the same as boloti_troy's.

"Citroen, Peugeot, Seat and many other brands are not in the American market... Does that mean they are not capable of producing a car which would deserve World car award? I don't think so..."

Me neither. It also doesn't mean they can't be successful/profitable. And VW are not making profits and high sales in the US, although they are having great sales worldwide overall.
Of course, a country with 300 million population and the largest middle and upper class is vital for the world economy so I'm not debating that....I'm merely saying that companies can still be very successful even if they don't do business here.

I can believe that a company like Honda can have 80% of their profits from the US. But considering how Toyota is popular everywhere because of their legendary reliability, I doubt that less than 40% of their profits come from the US.

estreka - Mar 25, 2008 10:26 pm (#23 Total: 30)

subarctic north - Great Falls, MT

I thought someone might bring up the EU. Yes, the EU combined carries more GDP than the US. But the EU is more comparable to NAFTA. NAFTA still carries more weight than the EU. It is awfully close, though.

For the record, I don't think sheer numbers determine a car's greatness. But any consumer-derived award should have capita bias. If a car is truly great, people should be willing to pay more for it. And nobody pays more for cars than 1st world nations.

chevy598 - Mar 25, 2008 10:56 pm (#24 Total: 30)

" And VW are not making profits and high sales in the US, although they are having great sales worldwide overall. "
That's the point i'm trying to make. Most of the car companies barley break even in those other markets. There's really not much money in selling cars outside the US. Toyota will be lucky to make a half a billion in a market like china this year, but they'll knock down five or six billion in the US.

""Citroen, Peugeot, Seat and many other brands are not in the American market... Does that mean they are not capable of producing a car which would deserve World car award? I don't think so..." "

Name one car company thats making billions of dollars that doesn't have a sucessful North American unit? Fiat and Citroen struggle to make money without a US network. Every year it gets harder for them to compete with companies raking in billions in the USA.

I just checked it out. In 2007 Toyota made 50% of their profits in the USA. It should have been closer to 60%, but their eating tons of money on the Tundra right now. Toyota sold 3 million cars in the usa and made a profit of over $7 billion. In the rest of the world they sold 5.9 million cars, and made a profit of over $7 billion. So basically they have to sell almost twice as many cars outside the usa to make the same amount of money.

I don't know how any car can be considered a "world car" when it's not for sale in a market the size of Europe. A great "world car" should be for sale in every major maket. If it was just an award for the greatest car wouldn't most of the winners be prosche, lamborghini, ferrari, Bugatti, and cars like the GT-R. In my opinion a Camry or an Accord is by far a greater "world Car" then a GT-R. I'd take the GT-R in a heart beat over a Camry, but it's not a better global car.

blackadder5639 - Mar 26, 2008 9:00 am (#25 Total: 30)

Chevy, I'm surprised about Toyota's profits in the US! Wow! I never imagined the US would be so huge for them! I guess they probably sell larger cars in the US.....that would explain the profits, since the larger cars are more profitable. (Outside of the US the most popular Toyota by far is the Corolla.....being a small car it probably doesn't have a large profit margin.)

Yeah, you're right: Fiat and Citroen aren't huge financial sucessess, although in their case it's probably due to factors other than US sales. Fiats, especially Alfa Romeo, are not exactly known for reliability.....they make VWs look like Toyotas. From the little I've seen of Citroens back in Africa, they're worse than Alfa Romeos! I'm surprised better brands like Peugoet aren't selling in the US, though.

Anyway, I think the term "world car" has more to do with geography than pure economics. If a car sells in just about any other country except the US, it's hard to argue that it's not a world car because it's doesn't sell well in the US. It's like saying football (I mean the real football: soccer) is not world sport just because it's not popular in the US.....just like it's almost ridiculous calling the NBA champs "World Champs".

mnorm1 - Mar 26, 2008 12:02 pm (#26 Total: 30)

srdriven,
You have misinterpreted my comment. A few dear readers of this blog go over the edge if their favorite vehicle is slighted, or if a dispised vehicle is praised. Karl, I think, understood my meaning - the global warming reference.

editor_karl - Mar 26, 2008 2:42 pm (#27 Total: 30)

L.A. CA United States of America

mnorm is correct.

mnorm1 - Mar 27, 2008 2:52 pm (#28 Total: 30)

Karl,
I just found out that you and I believe the world is flat.

The towering midget Algore says denying man made global warming is akin to believing the world is flat. I need a safety line so I won't fall off.

Another reminder to fill up now. There are only 91 years 345 days of oil left. Time does fly.

editor_karl - Mar 27, 2008 7:58 pm (#29 Total: 30)

L.A. CA United States of America

Damn, I better get that used septic tank (filled with gasoline and buried in the back yard) quick!

I'll throw you a safety line if you send me a life preserver. I only live 7 miles from the coast...and I commute on PCH five days a week!!!

Maybe I should buy that Geneva show car that can dive under water, just as a precaution.

technetium99 - Mar 29, 2008 8:39 am (#30 Total: 30)

>>>Maybe I should buy that Geneva show car that can dive under water, just as a precaution.

Naw, just get an AmphiCar. They have a cool factor and stop and stare factor that you should be used to with your Ford GT. Gets better gas mileage too.