Its Friday, its the Vroom Room, with a long week end on the horizon, come in make yourself comfortable, join the conversation.

If you got the feeling that we are busy, yes we have been extremely busy with a myriad of activities during the past few weeks, and are perhaps playing catch up at this stage. Its turning around, and slowly coming back to where it should be. Yes we will have more details as we go along.

Have you noticed that long auto finance terms are starting to blip on various radar screens of various folks, we were musing about the same a few months ago. The sweet sopt of the auto industry is 36 months, and as much as everything changes, 36 months remains the sweet spot.

In case you missed it Money for the Deal.

The same with luxury, when manufacturers start looking all over the place to cover all the market possibilities, and eventualities, something gets diluted, something gets lost, and somehting will come back and bite some individuals in the you know what....by then they will have moved on to other levels of their career. 

It becomes a case of the "cheap luxury" being all over the place. Agreed at some point we should share our thoughts on "cheap luxury". 

We installed a new set of high performance summer tires on one of our cars....wow what a revelation, and it reinforces our belief that the second half of high performance tires is not as good as the first half. Especially when you have summer and winter tires on different wheels, and cycle them through a few years, you tend to forget how good they were when they were newer....

With a new Governor at the Bank of Canada, there is renewed thought vector to raise interest rates, an informative white paper from CD Howe.

Our habitual old race cars from Mille Miglia Concorso 2013

This morning we have The Colonel, who has been involved with luxury vehicles for a few decades, lets see what he has to say....

Q- Colonel Good Morning! What is going on in the luxury market?

A- Its morphing and getting diluted for the sake of volume.

Q- Luxury does not imply volume....or does it?

A- You can push the boundaries up to a point, and then you cross the line sort of thing, some manufacturers getting close to crossing the line.

Q- Care to mention names.

A- We all know who they are, its the same ones that for the past few decades have constantly pushed the boundaries, and continue to push the boundaries.

Q- They also had good levels of success by pushing the boundaries through the years...which has always encouraged them to continue.

A- Yes...I agree several efforts generated exceptional results, the inevitable misses were simply part of the process. 

Q- Can you provide an example?

A- Here is a thought...for the past 60 years a Corvette has specific features that make it a Corvette, while reinforcing the brand...small block Chevy, fiberglass body, terrible interior, composite leaf springs, manual transmission with a clutch pedal. Look at AMG cars, its a blower, then its naturaly aspirated, then its twin turbos, its an automatic, then its paddle shifts, then its something else. At some point it begs the question, what does AMG stand for?

Q- That has nothing to do with luxury cars...or near luxury cars.

A- Yes it does...how far can you carry the brand before its gets overly diluted? When the entry level vehicles have become "pedestrian", why should someone pay a premium for the top of the line cars.

Q- Pedestrian...you mean they are all over the place.

A- Precisely...and as you know they all go by the same brand name, its not Ford/Lincoln or Chevrolet/Cadillac.

Q- Similar to what happens to a Corvette when it becomes a turbocharged 4 cylinder with front wheel drive, and is still called a Corvette. 

A- Precisely...its called a Corvette, but is it still a Corvette. 

Q- There is also talk of providing superlative service to these entry level luxury customers. 

A- Do you guys really want to go there, superlative luxury service requires a superlative luxury customer. 

Q- They are all looking at upscale hotels to see how they do it. 

A- Think of this, if you are a luxury manufacturer, dealing with luxury customers, your customers frequent these luxury hotels...need I say much more. If you are a luxury manufacturer, dealing with entry level luxury customers that do not frequent luxury hotels...its a different story. 

Q- We notice these entry level luxury cars are plentiful. 

A- You are being polite, thoughtful, and subtle....I agree they are all over the place, the exclusivity factor is dramatically diluted.

Q- Will this dilution enhance the brand value of other less established makes?

A- Good point, the lines are blurred, and there is the risk of blurred brands which will advantage other brands.

Obvious that going for an early morning drive is priceless...