Malcolm Bricklin has made a few changes in his plans to import 250,000 low-cost minicars from China to the United States starting in January of 2007.
Bricklin now says he isn’t going to sell any $6,000 cheapos here and as a result, he isn’t going to start importing until mid-2007 at the earliest.
Bricklin is founder and chief executive officer of Visionary Vehicles, which will import cars from Chery Automobile Co. in China.
“I’ve said the cars would come out in January of ’07 and that’s exactly what would have happened, but our engineers met with Chery engineers and we decided on major changes,” Bricklin said in a phone interview.
“Now the goal is to redefine luxury while everyone else talks about under $10,000 cars,” he said, referring to Toyota, Nissan and Honda, which all will start importing low-cost minis to the United States next year.
Starting at $19,000
“Now that I’ve seen what Chery can produce we’re going to have cars starting at $19,000,” Bricklin said.
“Our first car now will be a sedan the size of a (compact) Audi A4 with all-wheel-drive, leather and wood interior, a 10-year/100,000 mile warranty and a price tag of $19,000 vs. $30,000 for the Audi.
“In the second year, we’ll go after the Mercedes S and BMW 7-Series with a rear-drive/all-wheel-drive, V-8-powered sedan starting at $35,000 vs. their $70,000 and higher,” he added.
“We decided we have to go after Audi, BMW and Mercedes because someone who buys a Mercedes isn’t going to buy one of my vehicles, but someone who buys a Toyota will,” he said.
“We are going to end up with Lexus dealer profits on Toyota dealer volumes,” he said.
Chery had come up with a 3-liter V-6 and 4-speed automatic for Bricklin’s car.
“But we wanted a 3.6-liter V-6 and 6-speed automatic. That’s what we’ll get but it means the project will slow down and rather than the first delivery in January 2007, it will be six months later. There may be some more changes and if that means postponing (the introduction) by another month or so, we’ll do it.”
Many considered Bricklin’s goal overly ambitious in the first place, so a production delay isn’t surprising.
Bricklin insists there’s another reason for opting to go uplevel.
Success will bring quotas
He expects Chinese imports will sell so well that the U.S. government will impose quotas on sales here.
Back in 1981, the Japanese established voluntary quotas to avoid a government proposal for strict import limits. With those voluntary quotas, however, the Japanese turned to importing higher-profit midsize cars than low-profit economy cars. U.S. automakers have faltered ever since.
Bricklin says he’ll start with high-end cars rather than wait for quotas to force him to do so.
Automotive News, a trade publication, suggests another reason for the production delay. It said Bricklin hasn’t signed enough dealers (at $2 million each for a franchise) to raise the $200 million needed to begin production.
Bricklin wanted 200 dealers, but says he has signed “a little shy of 50” so far.
But he dismisses any hint that a lack of money prompted the delay and insists he has the dough.
He said Visionary was to come up with $200 million once the Chinese government approved the joint venture between Visionary and Chery.
“We haven’t come up with the $200 million because we don’t have to until the venture is approved. It hasn’t been as yet, but we expect it to be in the first quarter of next year and have been assured it will be.”
The saga goes on.
Stay tuned.
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(Write to Jim Mateja, Chicago Tribune, 616 Atrium Drive, Vernon Hills, IL 60061-1523, or send e-mail, including name and hometown, to jmatejatribune.com.)
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AP-NY-12-09-05 0559EST
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