The Customer is Almost Never Right

The customer is always right; unless they are wrong.  It seems counterintuitive, but it is usually the case that the very attributes that drew you to something in the first place are not what you would want to keep, given the chance to "improve" it.  It happens constantly.  Remember Hardee's Turkey Burger?  Nobody else does either.  But when a research council posed the question to a panel of consumers, almost everybody said the best way to improve the Thickburger was to reduce the fat and calories.  The Turkey Burger was the perfect solution.  It was exactly what the consumers asked for.  It was a big, thick burger with fewer calories and fat than the cow version.  Except it was dry and bland, tasting more like an old work boot than anything resembling food.  New Coke, Doritos Wow chips, and Crystal Pepsi are all examples of marketing studies that not only missed the mark, they ruined the original product. 

What has tortilla chips that cause diareah to do with The CamFollower?  As it turns out, many cars fall victom to the same market research disambiguation.  Almost uniformily, things are ruined by "improvements."  An easy example: back in the 1950's GM capitalized on the notion that they could wrest a few dollars from the hands of young successful veterans.  Instead of buying an MGA or Triumph TR3, the red-blooded American hero could get a Chevrolet equivalent.  As a result, the newly introduced Corvette was an instant success, despite the weak performance. This pushed Ford to counter with the Thunderbird a year later.  It was just as fetching, but with more power and sophistication it soundly trounced the Corvette.  Of course, it took Chevy only a few years to catch up with the 1956 Fuel Injected Corvette.  But by then Ford had asked the buyers of the original Thunderbird what could be done to improve it. 

And in 1958 Ford introduced the "all-new and improved" Thunderbird.  Instead of svelte looks and performance to match, it had a back seat.  When asked, the average consumer wanted a little more room in their two seat sports car.  Later ford added another set of doors to its two door coupe, because consumers wanted  easier access to the back seat.  Thus in a few short years the Thunderbird was ruined utterly. 

A similar story is the Cadillac Seville STS.  When introduced even Jeremy Clarkson liked it.  It had presence, with a wide stance, laid back windshield, and thick C pillars.  Not only was it was a looker, it had shocking performance from a 32 valve 4 cam V8 that could run without coolant.  But when queried, focus groups wanted better visibility, easier access to the reat seats, and a softer ride.  The 1998 Seville STS was the right anwer, but to the wrong question.  The STS had gone from a credible BMW alternative to a nice Oldsmobille.  Similarly, the 1997 Camry was a pale shadow of the previous generation, but it ticked all the boxes of the customer research questionare.  The Porsche 928 was never better than the 911 it was to replace.  The 240Z could not be improved, no matter how many numbers and letters were

added.  The RX8 is hardly one better than the RX7.  And the original Honda CR-V reflects its Land Rover roots, while the later iterations were more Civic than Rover.

Luckily, there are a few examples of purity of intention.  The Dodge Viper is probably the easiest to identify.  It was originally a marketing ploy by Bob Lutz, then the man at Chrysler.  Something was needed to bring the ailing giant out of the K-Car age, and nothing would do it quite like the Viper.  Its original premise was "more power and more speed than anyone else."  There is nothing in there about comfort, economy, safety, technology or anything else that consumers find important.  It made a superbike seem practical.  Somehow the Viper never lost the plot.  It didn't gain a back seat, it usually had hood stripes and sidepipes, and the roof was always an option.  Driving the Viper was mostly terrifying, requiring a real superhero feat of concentration and skill to operate quickly.  But with practice, it is rewarding like no other car in recent memory.

So, be careful what you wish for, it might not turn out exactly how you expect it to.