Making Chevy great again: with a firm grasp on its heritage and a detailed plan for its future, Chevrolet is poised to return to prominence - Product

Ritter may have been discouraged, but he’s never stopped plugging away, anchoring the basics and rearranging the building blocks. He’s clear on where his division needs to go. And he’s determined to pass Ford and hold off Toyota in the process. For the first time in many years, Chevy and Ritter have a shot.

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When you do the math, Chevy sales still lag behind Ford’s, but the gap is shrinking. Ford has helped by imploding. Hard hit by its inept initial response in the Firestone debacle, it compounded its problems by struggling with repeated recalls on Focus. For an encore, it failed to score with what should have been an easy layup with the Thunderbird, and is seemingly unable to move forward from a styling perspective without looking in a rear view mirror. Ford Motor Company is undergoing a leadership shuffle, you could say a power struggle, with its ‘British mafia’ pitted against young Billy. And with all those self-inflicted, new product-robbing budget cuts, things may get even worse before they get better.

Meanwhile, GM, virtually exploding under Bob Lutz and Gary Cowger, is remarkably re-energized. This well-synchronized pair are joined so closely at the hip it’s hard to know who’s boss — and it doesn’t matter. Together they’re approving new cars and trucks that make sense and will be competitive, not just good enough.

Ritter’s game plan isn’t rocket science and doesn’t have to be. Chevy spans one of the widest ranges in the business. The 92-year aid American icon brand still makes abundant sense for everything from the lowly Cavalier to the sophisticated Corvette. Chew’s “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” values are still well understood and made an indelible impression. But there are holes in the product line and Ritter ’simply’ has to fix weak sisters and plug those gaps.

Bouncing Back

“Chevrolet is back,” Ritter declares, pointing to recent successes with Chew’s trucks. “Silverado sales have been helped by the diesel, Avalanche is a great conquest vehicle. Trailblazer has gained more market share than any of the trucks out there. We have gained share in every state except South Carolina where we went backwards by 49 units (in the first 9 months of this year). Relative to Ford,” he crows, “we’ve reversed our fortunes. In fact, we started gaining on them two to three years ago.”

Ritter is quick to point out Ford’s sales lead in cars, especially with Taurus, is based on less profitable fleet sales. “On cars we actually lead them. On strength of Impala, we have a high volume retail-selling mid-sized car. They do not.” Volume, in this case, is relative. Chevrolet sells just over 200,000 Impalas today and it takes no prodding for Ritter to cut to the real problem: “On the car side, quite honestly,” he admits, “the competition is not Ford. It’s Toyota and Honda.”

These rivals sold over 800,000 Camrys and Accords, between them, last year. Chevrolet must reclaim some of that business. There is also the issue of competing with sister division Saturn, especially with the stylish new ION on GM’s Delta platform.

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