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I don't share your confidence -- compare Genesis G80/G90 sales vs Kia K900 sales for example; or G70 vs Cadenza sales.
The K900 and Cadenza (which is no longer sold) are both part of the same (arguably failed) experiment to take Kia upmarket. But you continue to harp on my "confidence" while not explaining how you would have envisioned the Stinger as a Genesis. Simply badged differently and sold as a Genesis Stinger or a G75? Redesigned to match the G70 with which it shares a platform? Pick a door and we can move this conversation along.
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And I still don't understand your hang-up on the cost of federalization. They'd have to federalize it whether brought here as a Kia or a Genesis. If you mean the cost of offering both variations and federalizing both, the vast majority of the cost is MPG certification and crash testing, both of which they'd only have to do once even if sold under two different badges.
Again, you are refusing to hear me. The federalization of a body style means crash testing. If you're proposing that H/K simply re-badged the Stinger into a Genesis, that's one thing. It would have been a spectacular failure because its design language is way too crude for a Genesis, but it's true that it would cost H/K no extra money in federalization vs. current state. If you're proposing that H/K created a G70 with a liftback body style, that's completely different, because that body style does not exist (unless you were proposing that it made it instead of making the Stinger at all in the first place, which would have lost it two years of sales without much of an upside).
Furthermore, your offer of proof for its supposed success is the example of the A5? Look at the sales numbers for the A5 I posted recently. At its height, it barely outsold the Stinger (which, we can both agree is a very highly-priced "regular" car, so it shouldn't have and didn't sell in great numbers) in three body styles. And that's a well-established luxury brand in Audi. If anything, that's proof that "bringing the Stinger as a Genesis" would have doomed it to failure, not the other way around.
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Furthermore, while you may not understand it -- and clearly, neither did the Hyundai group for the better part of a decade -- upper-end US buyers DO care about other vehicles their potential purchase shares in a showroom.
Just like in the example above? What is your offer of proof here? Who has walked away from a 'vette sale simply because it shares a showroom with a $22K crossover? A $50K car is barely more expensive than the average car price in today's market. Nobody buying these is that fancy.
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Today's midsize fastback buyer is not prepared to spend $50K+ for a Kia, nor buy one with a four-cylinder motor. THAT's why it was a sales disappointment, as was the Cadenza, as was the K900.
Just like they won't buy an A5 or a BMW GC with the same engine? Pick a side to argue on. You can't have it both ways. Furthermore, the 4-cylinder Stinger never cost $50K+. Nor did the V6, for that matter (although with options it could get there).
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And of course the dealer network wasn't going to be the same at a Kia dealer as a BMW dealer -- how many of the 750+ US Kia dealers would be willing to spend the dough to upgrade their facilities to accommodate those buyers? That's the whole point of creating a more exclusive brand and separate dealer network like Genesis -- which is where the Stinger and the K900 should have been sold since day one.
If the goal was just to sell a fancier Kia under a luxury badge (rather than change the entire brand to be more luxury and performance-oriented), I'm sure the Stinger and the K900 would simply not have existed, as comparable Genesis models were already being planned/sold.
Last edited by highlanderfil; 07-11-2023 at 11:46 AM..
The K900 and Cadenza (which is no longer sold) are both part of the same (arguably failed) experiment to take Kia upmarket. But you continue to harp on my "confidence" while not explaining how you would have envisioned the Stinger as a Genesis. Simply badged differently and sold as a Genesis Stinger or a G75? Redesigned to match the G70 with which it shares a platform? Pick a door and we can move this conversation along.
The latter.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
Again, you are refusing to hear me. The federalization of a body style means crash testing.
Yes I'm aware of that, as evidenced by my prior specific reference to the cost of crash-testing. And I still don't understand why you keep raising this as an issue -- they'd have had to federalize it whether they brought it to market just as a Kia, or as a Kia AND a Genesis, or just as a Genesis. The cost to federalize is substantially the same in any of the above scenarios, so it's essentially a non-issue for the sake of this discussion.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
If you're proposing that H/K simply re-badged the Stinger into a Genesis...
I'm not, at least not without adopting the Genesis design cues.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
If you're proposing that H/K created a G70 with a liftback body style, that's completely different, because that body style does not exist (unless you were proposing that it made it instead of making the Stinger at all in the first place, which would have lost it two years of sales without much of an upside).
I'm proposing that IF H/K was to bring a mid-sized liftback to market at all, then the G70 should have been offered as a conventional sedan AND a coupe, much the same way an A5 is just an A4 fastback, an A7 is an A6 hatchback, etc. And how do you figure it would have lost two years of sales? The Stinger and G70 were co-developed and brought to market at the same time.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
Furthermore, your offer of proof for its supposed success is the example of the A5? Look at the sales numbers for the A5 I posted recently. At its height, it barely outsold the Stinger (which, we can both agree is a very highly-priced "regular" car, so it shouldn't have and didn't sell in great numbers) in three body styles. And that's a well-established luxury brand in Audi. If anything, that's proof that "bringing the Stinger as a Genesis" would have doomed it to failure, not the other way around.
I don't know where you get your numbers. Even as a niche model the A5 has handily outsold the Stinger, and I'd bet its relative success is one reason Kia brought the Stinger to market in the first place. Meanwhile, The A5 and A7 are still on the market over a decade later while the Stinger made it only half that long. Perhaps they should have taken stock of the fact that every mid- to full-sized fastback sold here save the Mustang (and the slow-selling VW Arteon, which has also been discontinued) is offered by a luxury marque, and should have done the same themselves?
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
Just like in the example above? What is your offer of proof here? Who has walked away from a 'vette sale simply because it shares a showroom with a $22K crossover?
Are you kidding me, like badge snobbery isn't a thing? Are we going to pretend that's not the whole reason the Genesis was spun off into its own marque in the first place, as an outlet for H/K to move higher-end products mostly to Americans who wouldn't be caught dead with a Hyundai or Kia badge on the snout of their car?
Yes there's plenty of cross-shopping between the Corvette and, say, a 718, an entry-level 911, Lotus Emira, etc. But you better believe there are a lot of sports car buyers who will continue to turn their nose up at the Corvette no matter how much it proves it can hang with and even out-perform its European rivals.
Who walked away from the SS even though it was a great car, simply because it had a Chevy badge on it? Why, everyone except police fleets, that's who. Too rich for Chevy sedan buyers, too pedestrian for everyone else in the $50K sedan market.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
Furthermore, the 4-cylinder Stinger never cost $50K+. Nor did the V6, for that matter (although with options it could get there).
Try to find a new Stinger V6 under 50 grand. Maybe you can if you do a lot of legwork and find a good deal.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
If the goal was just to sell a fancier Kia under a luxury badge (rather than change the entire brand to be more luxury and performance-oriented), I'm sure the Stinger and the K900 would simply not have existed, as comparable Genesis models were already being planned/sold.
Clearly their plan to move the Kia brand up-market in the US was too ambitious, which is kind of my whole point. The primary hang-up with the Stinger wasn't the Stinger, it was the Kia badge on it.
The K900 was developed primarily for the Korean domestic market so it would have existed even had they not subsequently brought to North America. And it forms the basis for the G80 and G90, where it sells better here in either iteration than it did as a Kia.
To be honest there's a good chance we'd have a Stinger V6 in our garage right now if my wife hadn't spent 3 years begging for a CX-5. If the Stinger were also or instead offered with Genesis design cues, I'd have been even more tempted to overrule her -- though I think I'd have been far more likely to sell her on getting the Genesis instead of a CX-5. The current Genesis line are simply the sharpest-looking vehicles in the luxury market this side of maybe Bentley.
My current ride (an Audi A6) is now 21 model years old and will be passed down to my daughter soon. I had a choice between a second-gen Panamera or a vacation/retirement property, and I chose the latter, so I may still end up with a Stinger as a consolation prize for my A6 replacement. That "may" would be a "sure thing" if it were offered in Genesis guise.
OK, that's fair. The problem then becomes, does it take away sales from the sedan? Or does it replace the sedan?
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Yes I'm aware of that, as evidenced by my prior specific reference to the cost of crash-testing. And I still don't understand why you keep raising this as an issue -- they'd have had to federalize it whether they brought it to market just as a Kia, or as a Kia AND a Genesis, or just as a Genesis. The cost to federalize is substantially the same in any of the above scenarios, so it's essentially a non-issue for the sake of this discussion.
The reason I bring it up is because if they had to bring it here as a Kia AND a Genesis, that'd be two body styles to federalize. But you've clarified this was not what you had in mind, so it is, indeed, a non-issue.
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I'm not, at least not without adopting the Genesis design cues.
Yep, we covered that.
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I'm proposing that IF H/K was to bring a mid-sized liftback to market at all, then the G70 should have been offered as a conventional sedan AND a coupe, much the same way an A5 is just an A4 fastback, an A7 is an A6 hatchback, etc. And how do you figure it would have lost two years of sales? The Stinger and G70 were co-developed and brought to market at the same time.
The Stinger went on sale in 2017 as a 2018 model. The G70 went on sale in 2018 as a 2019 model. Not two years - about a year and a half.
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I don't know where you get your numbers. Even as a niche model the A5 has handily outsold the Stinger, and I'd bet its relative success is one reason Kia brought the Stinger to market in the first place. Meanwhile, The A5 and A7 are still on the market over a decade later while the Stinger made it only half that long. Perhaps they should have taken stock of the fact that every mid- to full-sized fastback sold here save the Mustang (and the slow-selling VW Arteon, which has also been discontinued) is offered by a luxury marque, and should have done the same themselves?
This is where I get my numbers from: A5, Stinger. In the years both had been available, the A5 outsold the Stinger by about 50%, but the Stinger came in one body style and the Audi in three.
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Are you kidding me, like badge snobbery isn't a thing? Are we going to pretend that's not the whole reason the Genesis was spun off into its own marque in the first place, as an outlet for H/K to move higher-end products mostly to Americans who wouldn't be caught dead with a Hyundai or Kia badge on the snout of their car?
I don't deal in conjecture. No, badge snobbery is not a topic that comes up in automotive boardrooms. For that to happen, there would first have to be enough self-awareness among the C-suite types to even consider that their brand is subject to such. I've worked with Lincoln execs. Not once did I hear them acknowledge the fact that people think of most Lincolns as tarted-up Fords. Not once have I heard platform separation mentioned. It just doesn't come up, for better or worse.
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Yes there's plenty of cross-shopping between the Corvette and, say, a 718, an entry-level 911, Lotus Emira, etc. But you better believe there are a lot of sports car buyers who will continue to turn their nose up at the Corvette no matter how much it proves it can hang with and even out-perform its European rivals.
There are also hundreds and thousands of people who scream bloody murder online about the Mach-E not being a real Mustang and that they will never buy a Mustang now. Problem is, none of them were ever going to buy one in the first place. Actual buyers very rarely operate in those terms.
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Who walked away from the SS even though it was a great car, simply because it had a Chevy badge on it? Why, everyone except police fleets, that's who. Too rich for Chevy sedan buyers, too pedestrian for everyone else in the $50K sedan market.
I don't even think police fleets bought it (unless you're referring to what GM called the new Caprice). GM didn't market it correctly (or at all), but it certainly wasn't pedestrian. Meanwhile, $50K+ Scat Pack Chargers are flying off the lot. What is Mopar doing that Chevy wasn't?
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Try to find a new Stinger V6 under 50 grand. Maybe you can if you do a lot of legwork and find a good deal.
You were, if memory serves, talking about a 4-cyl at 50 grand, not a V6. As for the V6, that dealers are charging markups on the remaining 300-some cars isn't particularly shocking to me, but it's not really indicative of anything.
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Clearly their plan to move the Kia brand up-market in the US was too ambitious, which is kind of my whole point. The primary hang-up with the Stinger wasn't the Stinger, it was the Kia badge on it.
That is if you assume that the Stinger was a failure on its own. I don't know, and neither do you, if H/K consider it as such. Given H/K aren't throwing cash on the hood to move the remaining units, and dealers are still charging markups for them, I think it's safe to say they sold however many they thought they would sell. But coupled with the lack of success of the K900 (which, IIRC, H/K did have to incentivize to move) and the take-off of Genesis as a brand, the whole "move Kia upmarket" exercise was no longer necessary. The Stinger is not just getting pulled from the U.S. (which would have indicated a local failure); it's going away in the rest of the world, as well.
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To be honest there's a good chance we'd have a Stinger V6 in our garage right now if my wife hadn't spent 3 years begging for a CX-5. If the Stinger were also or instead offered with Genesis design cues, I'd have been even more tempted to overrule her -- though I think I'd have been far more likely to sell her on getting the Genesis instead of a CX-5. The current Genesis line are simply the sharpest-looking vehicles in the luxury market this side of maybe Bentley.
As I mentioned upthread, had the G70 been available as a wagon, I'd likely have tried to convince the wife to give up her Fusion. I just drove a rental G70 sedan with a 3.3 turbo and busted rotors and didn't care one bit. One of the best highway cruisers I've ever driven.
^^ There must be SOME awareness among the C-Suite that badge snobbery exists here. This is after all how mid-luxury brands like Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, and yes, Genesis, came to be in the first place -- that's what it took for the Asian car companies in particular to start moving their higher-end stuff in the US. And it's why Buick and Cadillac continue to co-exist alongside Chevy.
Also, Stingers aren't being marked up as far as I can tell. The V6 STARTS at 52 grand and I'm seeing some offered a bit below sticker.
Finally, I wasn't claiming a Stinger 4cyl costs 50 grand. I was claiming today's mid-size liftback buyer is neither interested in 4cyl model nor would they pay 50 grand for a Kia-badged car -- a dual claim I did not articulate very clearly. And maybe I'm wrong about the former, the A5 2.0T seems to fill its market niche just fine.
^^ There must be SOME awareness among the C-Suite that badge snobbery exists here. This is after all how mid-luxury brands like Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, and yes, Genesis, came to be in the first place -- that's what it took for the Asian car companies in particular to start moving their higher-end stuff in the US.
They don't view it as badge snobbery. They view it as expanding the customer base.
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And it's why Buick and Cadillac continue to co-exist alongside Chevy.
They continue to exist because GM is doing an admirable job of separating them from their Chevy platform-mates (something Ford has not done). Although, how Buick is still alive is a bit beyond me. It certainly doesn't have the luxury cache of even an Acura.
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Also, I wasn't claiming a Stinger 4cyl costs 50 grand. I was claiming today's mid-size liftback buyer is neither interested in 4cyl model nor would they pay 50 grand for a Kia-badged car -- a dual claim I did not articulate very clearly.
Right, this
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Today's midsize fastback buyer is not prepared to spend $50K+ for a Kia, nor buy one with a four-cylinder motor.
could have easily been misinterpreted, which sounds like what I've done.
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And maybe I'm wrong about the former, the A5 2.0T seems to fill its market niche just fine.
Yeah, I don't think the ubiquitous 2.0T I-4 is the deterrent today that it once was.
They don't view it as badge snobbery. They view it as expanding the customer base.
However they view it, that's WHY they had to create new marques to move their higher-end offerings in North America and to some extent in Europe. They didn't have to do it in their domestic markets, although they eventually did.
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Originally Posted by highlanderfil
They continue to exist because GM is doing an admirable job of separating them from their Chevy platform-mates (something Ford has not done). Although, how Buick is still alive is a bit beyond me. It certainly doesn't have the luxury cache of even an Acura.
It looks like they're trying to position Buick as the "up-market CUV" marque for dolled-up Chevy/GMC CUVs. Plus it's a huge brand in China for some reason, and maybe GM thinks it will lose a lot of its cachet there if the brand is axed here?
IMO they should have axed Buick and kept Pontiac as a home for cars like the SS/G8 and performance variants of other GM models. De-contented Pontiac versions of various hi-po Cadillac coupes/sedans would have been interesting. Instead they torpedoed the "Excitement" brand with crap like the Montana and the G3.
However they view it, that's WHY they had to create new marques to move their higher-end offerings in North America and to some extent in Europe. They didn't have to do it in their domestic markets, although they eventually did.
Sure, but it has nothing to do with snobbery. It's just a desire to cater to a new (to them) customer base. If you remember, there were plenty of similar headwinds when Genesis got started, too, but they managed to overcome them by just making good product.
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It looks like they're trying to position Buick as the "up-market CUV" marque for dolled-up Chevy/GMC CUVs. Plus it's a huge brand in China for some reason, and maybe GM thinks it will lose a lot of its cachet there if the brand is axed here?
China is likely the main, if not the only, reason Lincoln and Buick still exist.
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IMO they should have axed Buick and kept Pontiac as a home for cars like the SS/G8 and performance variants of other GM models. De-contented Pontiac versions of various hi-po Cadillac coupes/sedans would have been interesting. Instead they torpedoed the "Excitement" brand with crap like the Montana and the G3.
Just like Ford should have kept Mazda and/or Volvo and dropped Lincoln. Alas...
Sure, but it has nothing to do with snobbery. It's just a desire to cater to a new (to them) customer base. If you remember, there were plenty of similar headwinds when Genesis got started, too, but they managed to overcome them by just making good product.
But they had to create whole new marques to reach that new customer base in this market to distance their higher-end products from the pedestrian reputation associated with their existing marques. THAT'S where "badge snobbery" enters the equation. If just making a good product were sufficient, the Genesis and Equus would still be sold as Hyundais and there would still be K900s on Kia lots. Instead they had to make good products AND call them something different AND set up a whole new dealer network.
China is likely the main, if not the only, reason Lincoln and Buick still exist.
A main reason for keeping Buick was to pair it with GMC. In the late 90's, GM dealerships began to consolidate GMC/Buick/Pontiac into single stores. With the demise of Pontiac, GM had to keep Buick to give GMC dealers something else to sell. Standalone GMC stores would never survive.
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