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mike spinelli: what arethe best comebacks in automotive history? that's today on "roadtestament." alex roy is here. alex roy: gumpert apollo. mike spinelli: yeah, right. [theme music playing] mike spinelli: hey, welcome to"road testament." today we're talking about the comebackkids of the automotive industry, the brands that weredown and out, and they made a
big comeback. alex roy is here, freshfrom a season of-- what's your show again? alex roy: i've only showeredtwice since sandy started. mike spinelli: sandy sta-- what did she start doing? alex roy: two weeks ago,and i've had power the whole time, and water. mike spinelli: oh, thestorm, that [bleep]
us all up. alex roy: yeah, let's nottalk about my show. back next season,with surprises. mike spinelli: yeah. alex roy: let's get intothis episode right now. mike spinelli: all right,@drive on twitter, facebook.com/drivetv, and that'sall i've got to say. alex roy: the news of the weekwhich led to this episode is, suzuki's american distributorbankrupted, pulled
out of the us market. and by the way, didn't you andfarrah do something recently about brands thatshould pull out? mike spinelli: uh, bypull out, you mean-- alex roy: suzuki is one of thosebrands everyone's been saying for a while,should pull out. mike spinelli: oh, shouldn'tbe-- that should just pull out. alex roy: --in the us market,and now they are pulling out.
and they're making this thingwhich looks like a touareg with smaller, with-- mike spinelli: no, by the way,the sx4 is a really, really good car for the money. it's actually a funcar to drive. it's got really good dynamicsfor a tiny little car. a little high seating position,but it's good. and you can-- me and ian were talkingabout this before.
what is it, the, youcan get the-- -all-wheel drivewith a manual. mike spinelli: yeah, you can getall-wheel drive with the manual, which is getting a-- alex roy: how muchis this car? mike spinelli: i don't know. show up at the dealership withwhatever's in your pocket. lint, a button, they'lltake it. alex roy: so, it's not bad.
mike spinelli: no. alex roy: look at where theywere back in the day. mike spinelli: thesuziki swift gti. alex roy: a car that has abreakdown clock instead of a license plate-- the day, time,and location of breakdown. mike spinelli: thursdayat 3:43. alex roy: and that's exactlywhere we found this car. so suzuki actually was in a badspot, got good, and now they're gone.
mike spinelli: and they actuallyhad a comeback. and this is part oftheir comeback. you were talking aboutthe kizashi before. alex roy: the kizashi,four-wheel drive. mike spinelli: what'sgood about this? i actually have neverdriven one of these. alex roy: neither havei, but the ads make it seem really good. and the ads seem honest.
the ads basically say, doyou want an audi s4? can you not afford one? would you like onethat's smaller with a different brand? you can have this. mike spinelli: wow. well, i mean, it's agood looking car if you see it up close. i mean, it's pretty good.
but unfortunately, suzuki-- alex roy: they're gone. mike spinelli: the clockran out on suzuki. alex roy: in the words of southpark, aaaaand it's gone. mike spinelli: yeah so-- and also, so the other news thisweek which turned out to not really be news was thatlancia was going away. marchionne, head of fiat,somehow said that it was going away, and then it's not.
alex roy: what you mean is-- mike spinelli: lancia isdefinitely in trouble no matter what. alex roy: so they'renot a comeback kid. mike spinelli: no, theseare the ones-- this is the reason why we'retalking about comeback kids today, is because thereare brands-- alex roy: they'rego-away kids. mike spinelli: --that seemto be going away.
exactly. alex roy: but look, there's areason lancia should go away. mike spinelli: yeah, lookat where they were. alex roy: right. look at what they'regiving us now. mike spinelli: so they wentfrom the integrale to the lancia grand voyager. alex roy: also known asthe grande aventura. but you know something,this car might
have a reason to exist. not as a lancia in europe,because if you're in europe and you have a lot of kids,what do you buy? renault espace, peugeot 806,these cars, they're cutting production because companiesare in trouble themselves. mike spinelli: there's nothingthis big, this capable, if you've got a big familyin europe. i mean, they have zeropopulation growth, so i don't know how much--
alex roy: lanciashould go away. mike spinelli: but anyway,you're right. i mean, if lancia is on thegrille of a minivan coming from its roots in rallyingand in design, it's bad. alex roy: it's not good. mike spinelli: it's bad. so anyway, whatever happensto lancia, we'll just keep an eye out-- alex roy: but before we evenswitch to the next slide, it
is sad that i'm reminded ofhow old i am-- almost 41-- by how many people, girls imeet, don't remember that some brands, like bmw and audi, werenot good at one point. they weren't good. mike spinelli: and the first onewe're going to talk about is actually really interesting,because there's a parallel with toyota-- alex roy: today. mike spinelli: --recently.
alex roy: what's the next-- mike spinelli: so it's audiback in the '70s. so this is like a'78, '79 5000. alex roy: this car is so goodthat today, aftermarket rims look just like the stockrims of '79. and look at the head rests. i mean-- mike spinelli: yeah,and the gts used to have the mesh in between.
this is a very, very cool periodin audi's history. alex roy: and think about itjust for a second, this car is a direct evolution ofthe nsu, which audi purchased in the late '60s. so audi was really kicking itearly '80s with this car. mike spinelli: and then, bymid '80s, they had evolved into the 5000. alex roy: the 5000 cs. mike spinelli: right.
and around this time, "60minutes" ran their-- alex roy: swift boated them. mike spinelli: --well, sortof swift boated them. they had their unintendedacceleration problem, which really kind of messedthem up-- alex roy: destroyed them. mike spinelli: --asthey were-- mike spinelli: yeah, as theywere just getting a foothold in america.
they were persona non grata. alex roy: and it took 10 yearsbefore the audi a4 was released in '96. mike spinelli: and $1.3 billionin development to develop that a4. but the thing about this caris that the unintended acceleration stuff wasnever really proven. alex roy: it was never proven. mike spinelli: and itwas really just
apparently older people-- alex roy: pedal sizing andmistaken driver error. mike spinelli: well because--right, i mean basically they had been conquesting sales frombuicks and american cars. alex roy: did you sayconquesting sales? not the dodge conquest. alex roy: not the-- go on. mike spinelli: but i mean,americans were buying this and americans were used tohaving the pedal--
like, they didn't have anyheel and toe action. it was just like, giant gaspedal, giant brake pedal. and these were european. they were close together. alex roy: and you bringup that people-- taking sales from buick. the mercedes e class was justcoming out during this time. there was no mid-sizedmercedes to buy. mike spinelli: that'svery true.
i forgot about that. alex roy: and the 5 serieswas ancient. it was like seriously,a brick, with like-- mike spinelli: that 5 serieswas the bavaria, right? i mean it came to americain the mid '70s. so it still had thesame design. so you're right. this was a period where-- alex roy: this was a reallybig deal, this car.
mike spinelli: and salesfell off a cliff. alex roy: next. look at this guy. mike spinelli: so thisis the comeback. so audi is-- by now, obviously, thisis a couple of decades into their comeback. but that the a7 is absolutelya beautiful car. and that's where audi is now.
alex roy: it's like bringinga t1000 to a t101 fight. mike spinelli: [laughs]. alex roy: this thing is really,really cool looking. mike spinelli: exactly. so audi, total comeback kid. interestingly, it was the a4,though, that brought it back, and it cost them more than $1billion to make that car. alex roy: and i hada first gen a4. it was a good car.
mike spinelli: yeah,very good car. all right, next. what's next. comeback kid. ah, porsche. all right, so you knowabout this era. you owned a car from this era. this is a 968. by the early '90s--
so there was a globaleconomic downturn. i don't know if anybodyremembers. alex roy: so by the late '80s,you had the end of a 15-year evolution of the 911. i have an '87 targa,great car. alex roy: and in '90, theycame out with the worst 911 ever made. and then they had this-- mike spinelli: the964 was the--
alex roy: and then theyhad this, it was an evolution of the 944. alex roy: and sales were what,a couple thousand cars? mike spinelli: i mean,they went from sales in the 30,000 range-- i guess that would be northamerican sales? alex roy: i don't know. mike spinelli: somethinglike that, to, like, 4,000 sales a year.
4,000 cars a year sold. alex roy: another brand thatpeople forget today, every chick you meet in a clubtoday forgets, porsche was at one time-- mike spinelli: they wereon their ass back then. alex roy: knees, knees. mike spinelli: oh, sorry. knees. (with german accent)on the ass.
how do you say kneesin german? mike spinelli: well, anyway-- but the back story is that the911 hadn't progressed because the plan had originallybeen, 928, 944-- those were the pillars ofthe brand-- and 911 was going to go away. alex roy: so in '90 to '93, wehad some really wretched 911s, except for the 3.6 turbo. mike spinelli: but, right, ok.
alex roy: really bad cars. oil leaks-- i had a '90 c4, terrible car. and then in '94, '95,they brought out the 993s, which were good. and then, '96, '98, they had thelast greatest ever 993s, last, best air-cooledporsches. but the car that really savedthem was the next slide. mike spinelli: was thisone, the boxster.
alex roy: '96? mike spinelli: yeah, '97. and there was so much latentdemand for this thing that they couldn't stockthem fast enough. i mean, all right, granted,sales fell off a cliff in a couple years. they never sold, i guess, asmany as they did in the first but it did kick start them intothe era of the cayenne, and the money-making era.
and then they developed the911 into what it is now. alex roy: well, i got tobelieve this car was the new buyer car. new porsche peoplegot this car. mike spinelli: well, the problemthat porsche had was they had been going for scale. they wanted volume. they sold so many damn cars,but their margins were thin on them.
what they decided was to changecourse, and to sell fewer cars but to make moremoney on them, to pare down the line. and you're right. they had improved. i mean, the 993-- look at what 993-era bmw-- 993-era 911s are going for rightnow, it's ridiculous. alex roy: you want to buy a '98carerra s today, i mean,
is an expensive car. you can spend morethan on a 991. mike spinelli: yeah, and it'sinteresting that we talk about this as the comebackin terms of money. but rebuilding the 911, like,taking the 911 and redoubling its efforts on it was reallywhat happened-- alex roy: you know, you couldalmost do a whole episode just about the comeback of the 911. because the 911 has beena promethean brand.
going up the mountain, and theyfall back down again. although now, they're ona pretty good roll. and maybe they'renot going to-- i think they may be reachingthe volume that they were back then. but that's now all of-- alex roy: no, they'reway above. they're way-- mike spinelli: they're way--
but they're about 100 andsomething thousand a year. alex roy: all i know is, as longas they're getting people like my mom to option outboxsters, so that their retail price is double the base price,they're going to be ok. mike spinelli: they'redoing fine. yeah, so there you go. porsche's back, after a scare. oh, jag, so this isthe saint's car. i know our young viewers won'tknow what the hell this is.
alex roy: and if they do,they're going to think of the val kilmer edition. mike spinelli: yeah,not that saint. alex roy: they didn't evengive him a jag in the val kilmer version of "the saint,"because it was so terrible. mike spinelli: i never saw it. what did he drive? it wasn't a jag. -it was the c70 volvo.
alex roy: oh god! mike spinelli: a c70 volvo? interesting. alex roy: oh, god. mike spinelli: so, the segwayof luxury cars. alex roy: you have thisthing, which was an evolution of the xke. mike spinelli: sorry-- no, it was a fine car.
continue. alex roy: so here you had thisthing, which came after the xke, which is itselfan embarrassment-- mike spinelli: well, followingthat, the xj-- i kind of like it. well, go to the nextone again. all right, so thisis the xj12. coming from the xke, it issort of interesting-- there is an interesting parallelbetween this--
how's your foot? alex roy: my legstarted going. mike spinelli: it justfell asleep? mike spinelli: but we boughtthis new couch just for you. alex roy: go on. mike spinelli: all right, sothere's an interesting parallel between this-- between porsche and jag, is thatthey both went upmarket. porsche did the 928.
jag did the xj, and neglectedthe bread and butter, which was the xke. it was a-- alex roy: they also neglectedthe buyers of the cars, because i knew at agenine that jags had electrical problems. i knew this. and even today, i wouldn't buyone because of my latent memory of that.
if there is one person aliveat jag who was employed at that time, i will not buy a jag,because his influence is somewhere in the company. i mean, they were really thelaughing stock of high-end cars, equivalent to maserati. they had to be. mike spinelli: well,even worse. but the thing about jag isthat it was amazing that people still bought them.
i mean there were jokes aboutjaguar years and years and years before. but people kept buying them. and they never ran outof brand equity. alex roy: i'd love to know whatpercentage of jaguars were sold in england basedon nationalist loyalty. and then after that, whatpercentage were sold in connecticut. that has to be--
mike spinelli: because ofnationalist loyalty? alex roy: southeastern englandand connecticut had to be the major markets, because the rangeof the vehicle prior to breakdown was limited to yourcity house to your manor. alex roy: and that was it. mike spinelli: actually veryinteresting parallel. you're right. it's like a very london to-- alex roy: london todownton abbey.
mike spinelli: downton abbey. thank you very much. alex roy: that's the distance. mike spinelli: so then ford tookthem over and put them under their wing. alex roy: and then they losteveryone who was classist against ford, but gaineda new audience. mike spinelli: they did,but although-- in the uk, ford hada better image.
alex roy: ford does havea better image in the uk than here. mike spinelli: fordwas a pretty-- what was the-- ford cosworths andall that stuff. the aj-v8 came out of thisperiod, which was actually a pretty good thing to-- alex roy: well, thisthing came out in 1996, is that correct?
mike spinelli: somethinglike that. alex roy: ok, and think aboutit, in '96, this was a pretty big deal-- mike spinelli: it wasa giant deal. alex roy: --because this wasclearly not an evolution of prior models. it was fresh. it didn't turn me on, but boy,if you're a jag buyer, this thing was a big turn-on.
mike spinelli: and notonly that, it's not totally not as [bleep] as the stuff that becamebefore it. alex roy: yeah, it'sa decent car. mike spinelli: i mean, iwould almost buy one of these right now. i'm just-- alex roy: that's whereyou and i differ. but let's go to thenext slide.
mike spinelli: but they wereon their way back. and now, here we are. alex roy: now we have this. mike spinelli: right, the x-- xk-- ugh. together: --rs mike spinelli: thankyou very much. alex roy: yeah, thisis pretty business.
mike spinelli: thisis business. alex roy: i mean, again, it'snot my cup of tea, but this is not a car to be ashamed of. this is a badass car. alex roy: i'm with you. mike spinelli: it's not the besthandling thing, you know what i mean? it's not going to winthe numbers games. but it is-- when you drive thisthing, you feel like--
alex roy: here's where i'llgive jaguar props. mike spinelli: --the saint. alex roy: richard hammond wassaying not that long ago that the biggest problem with thecar industry is, everybody wants to be bmw. everybody wants to have thebest comfort and the best handling, which is impossible. if it was possible, 7 seriessales wouldn't suck compared to s class.
there are people whowant comfort. and jag has really done a greatjob of maintaining the comfort while adding handling. and they've not trying to builda pure handling car. and they shouldn't. mike spinelli: you know, thisis sort of the british corvette with more style. alex roy: it's thebritish supra. [laughter]
alex roy: let's move onto the next brand. mike spinelli: anyway, no,but wait a minute. alex roy: next model. mike spinelli: so by the way--right, so to complete the comeback, the f series-- alex roy: this is agreat looking car. mike spinelli: --is a reallygreat looking car. alex roy: and it's so great. it's like what the ferraricalifornia should be, because
it's not a poser bs sportsconvertible. it is really good looking. it's the car jaguar shouldhave been making for the last 20 years. and it's-- mike spinelli: perhaps. alex roy: i'm excitedfor them. mike spinelli: yeah, me too. alex roy: i would--
again, i don't want one. but i would put iton the list. because it's the right size,it's cool, it's got pedigree, it's got brand, it'sgot history. and i bet you it's goingto be a great car. mike spinelli: yeah,i can imagine. also, with land rover and theevoke doing really well, they're making money handover fist in china. so economically, they'redoing great now.
their profits are up. and so they can keep using-- they can do the porsche thing,just keep using that money to build better sports cars. alex roy: i'll say somethingreally-- i'm going to take a lotof heat for this. this is one of the rare carswhich, if you're looking at buying a boxster, you canactually compare-o-shop against this.
and there's not many people whoare making a car that can comparison shop againsta boxster. mike spinelli: well, it'sinteresting because i'm totally curious to seeif this will come anywhere near a boxster. because boxster is probably thebest-driving car that you can buy right now. alex roy: but remember, theperson who buys this car is not looking for thebest-handling car.
and the majority of boxsterbuyers don't give a [bleep] [bleep] about handling. they're buying it because it'sthe only car of its kind at its price from a luxury brandthat happens to be good. alex roy: and this doesn'thave to be the best-handling car. it just has to be good, and theywill steal boxster sales. mike spinelli (with britishaccent): it's a jag.
alex roy: what's next? oh. mike spinelli: oh, the catera. so you guys may recognizethis as the-- alex roy: opel. mike spinelli: the opel omega? no, opel senator? opel congressman. alex roy: an opel.
mike spinelli: as theopel congressman. alex roy: the opelchamberlain. and this was soldas a cadillac. mike spinelli: so they broughtit over here as a cadillac. and they call it the caterabecause it sounded like-- alex roy: a hot italianchick's last name. mike spinelli: a hot italiandental assistant, lisa catera. so they actually-- for the commercials, the--what do you call it?
not the side kick. they used a duck,like a little-- alex roy: you're gettingtoo complicated. go to youtube and lookup lisa catera. lisa catera. there's an ad-- they actually had nbc or abcplace a character in a show named lisa catera asa pun on the-- mike spinelli: did theyreally do that?
that i didn't even know that. alex roy: as a pun onthe, lease a catera. mike spinelli: sothey wanted to-- because they were going afterlease buyers, and they were going after women with this. and so they had a littleduck animated character that would follow-- it was like the caddy thatzigs was the line. and the duck wouldfollow the--
cindy crawford wouldbe driving. i mean, they were reallygoing heavy on-- alex roy: the only thing worsethen selling an opel as a caddy would have been ifcadillac bought excalibur-- [laughs] --and just sold those. mike spinelli: soldexcaliburs? alex roy: it was probably aneither/or, and they thought this was less risky.
i mean, horrible cadillac. and i had a '77 fleetwood. it was my dad's car. it's a great car. this was really the bottom. mike spinelli: and by the way,at the same time, they were making northstar v8s. they were making a-- alex roy: a good car.
mike spinelli: --an overhead camv8 that was pretty good. alex roy: but it wasn'tbig enough. the sts northstar v8was the right car at the wrong audience. it was the car that bmw buyerswould have been interested in. but they wouldn't, because theentire brand lineup was tainted by this. well, the other thing isthat-- you're right. i mean, luxury in america hadtaken a turn toward germany.
and so cadillac executivesdecided that they were going start incorporating europeanideals into some of their cars. alex roy: by rippingoff mid-grade, second-tier german sedans. mike spinelli: and they didjust the worst job of it. i mean, it was reallyjust a hack. and then you ended up, this wasjust the final straw at the end of it all, was thatthey brought this opel.
alex roy: people forget. mike spinelli: people forget. alex roy: and then you hadthe comeback vehicle. mike spinelli: so the comebackvehicle was basically-- alex roy: well, this was theinterim comeback car, the cts. mike spinelli: so the cts wasa pretty good platform. and ultimately ifyou continue-- and i don't want to say that thects wagon was the comeback thing, because they soldabout five of them.
alex roy: but it'sa great car. mike spinelli: it'sa great car. so we just wanted toput it up there. alex roy: because youknow something? you know a brand is going in theright direction when they decide to make a low-volumesports wagon that even for brands that do it well,doesn't sell. how many m5 wagons are sold? not many.
but it's a halo car. it's a halo car. but the real comeback car forcadillac was the escalade. mike spinelli: it reallywas the escalade. alex roy: which isreally a yukon. it's just a dopeygm large suv. alex roy: and the firstgen escalade-- we don't have a picture of ithere-- but the first gen of the escalade literallywas a denali with a
cadillac badge on it. but it really wasn't until thesecond or third year that this became a bling-tastically,like, a seriously high-end car. and this changed everythingfor them. i love the escalade. i have to say, i used to thinkit was an affront to everything that was goodunder the sun. alex roy: me too.
mike spinelli: it really is-- we drove one of theseto a shoot once. and i'm telling you what, thisis the new american luxury. this is our s class. alex roy: this isour range rover. mike spinelli: no, butyou know what-- alex roy: it is, it'sthe whole thing. mike spinelli: it isreally our s class. alex roy: it's thewhole thing.
mike spinelli: becauseyou drive a range rover, it's still-- alex roy: it's goingto break down. this might actually last. mike spinelli: but the rangerover at least has a little bit of a sort of englishcountryside sporting feel to it. this is nothing but cruiser-- there's so much space.
it's like, you look around andit's like being outside, but you're inside. alex roy: and nobody elsedoes it as well. even today, afterall these years. because the cayenne, if youthink about it, it's great. but it's really small comparedto this thing. alex roy: and the range rover,i don't care what it is or what it ever becomes, it'snever going to last. and everyone knows this.
try to lease one. it's a joke. i mean, a three-year-old rangerover is 80% off depreciation. these things-- good. what's next? mike spinelli: that's it. @drive on twitter. alex roy: we forgot one.
mike spinelli: ok? alex roy: the ultimate comebackbrand that only alex roy would ever thinkof, morgan. mike spinelli: boy, they neverreally want away, did they? alex roy: not true. they did go away. in the mid '90s, there wasa show called "business confidential" in england, wherethey'd go and analyze businesses that are failingand give advice.
and peter morgan, theson of hfs, who founded it, was the ceo. and charles was at that pointout of college, or who knows what he was doing. and they basically told petermorgan, you're done, dude. you are toast. the delivery times areup to 10 years. a 10-year wait to buy a car. and the cars were unchangedfor 15 to 20 years.
mike spinelli: what,did they have three people building them? how did that-- alex roy: and after seeing theshow, charles morgan, jr. went to his father. and he said, give me a job. and we're going to turnthis thing around. and about seven years later, theaero 8 came out, in 2002. and then they had the aeromax, the aero supersport.
mike spinelli: iremember that. alex roy: and now they havethe three-wheeler. and if you go tothat factory-- mike spinelli: and youhave one of those. alex roy: and i boughta three-wheeler. if you go to thatfactory today-- i mean, talk about turnaround. the bigger the company, themore likely it will turnaround.
small ones usually go away. anyway, let's move on. next week, we're coveringgumpert apollo and brands that actually did go way that no oneknew did when they went. because they just filedfor bankruptcy and got refinancing. cool. alex roy: we'll discuss vehiclesfor disasters, the power of diesel--
mike spinelli: and yeah,by the way, right. i mean, that's the thing. sandy, the hurricanethat we just had-- i don't know if youremember that. everyone's power was out. and so we've had gas lines-- i mean, we are living in theapocalypse right now. and the only peoplethat are living large like they should--
alex roy: diesel drivers. mike spinelli: --diesel drivers,because there is plenty of diesel availableat these gas stations. alex roy: thanksfor having me. i'm going to go homeand shower. mike spinelli: you're goingto be on next week, too. alex roy: yeah, i'll be here. mike spinelli: and mattfarah is going to be on next week, too.
alex roy: look forwardto seeing him. mike spinelli: look atthat, the old gang. all right, see you guys later. alex roy: bye. mike spinelli: "roadtestament."
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