When Henry Ford started to produce the first cars, the role of the car was to be a “horseless carriage”. It was seen as a means for transportation. Gradually the American consumers started to attach more attributes to the car, and it became an important status symbol. One of the key changes caused by this was the introduction of different colors of the car. The production line of Ford didn’t enable an easy change of color, and Ford resisted this trend vigorously. Consumers could have any color, as long as it was black! But GM exploited this and by offering a variety of colors, it could steal market shares from Ford, and finally also Ford had to give in. A car was more than just a means for transportation.
Today the car has increasingly become a status symbol in China as well. But here it is not as much the color that is the decisive attribute. In China size matter. The bigger the car, the more it indicates the power and influence of its owner. Because of this the GM Buick minivan has become such a successful product. The car locally known as GL8 and designed especially for the China market by GM and its Chinese partner has leather seats, flat-screen televisions and a remote-control sound system is selling very well despite the $45,000 price tag. Chinese sales totaled 26,000 in 2005.
In 2005, sales by GM’s joint venture with state´-owned Chinese vehicle markers increased more than 35% to over 660,000 vehicles, representing 11.3 % of the Chinese market, second only to Volkswagen. Whereas Volkswagen is losing money, GM has been profitable both in 2005 and 2004. One of the reasons for this is attributed to the strength of the Buick brand. (Further reading).
Buick was a status symbol back in prewar Shanghai, when Buicks were the ride of choice of the city’s wealthy traders and industrialists. GM has successfully benefited from this legacy, and subsequently fine-tuned the Buick product range to match the local preferences of the Chinese market. Starting from the skeleton of the Buick LaCrosse GM engineers and designers in China created a car with more of a European feel, with a higher front end, larger grill and faceted headlights, as well as a smaller, more fuel-efficient engine. The interior is also fancier, with “more craftsmanship and richer material”, according to Joseph Y.H. Liu, the vice president of vehicle sales, service and marketing for GM in China. One important thing is also that the buyers in China often let their chauffeurs do the driving. Subsequently designers have had to put emphasis on the back seat. In larger models, GM has installed DVD players as well as viewing screens, which are embedded in the rear of the font-seat headrests. And first-row seats can pivot 180 degrees to face thos in the rear so executives can conduct meetings on the road. (source: Gordon Fairclough, The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2006)