Re: News from VW/Audi/Porsche

[rdh@sli.com (Robert D. Houk)]

   2.  Audi and Porsche will link up, for marketing purposes,  in the US (it
   sounds like it will require all Audi or Porsche dealers to carry both...or
   maybe it will just tie advertising and image).  It sounds interesting, but I
   just do not see the logic.  Will prospective Porsche buyers take an A4 or A6
   as an alternative?  Could prospective Audi buyers be convinced that what they
   really want is a two-seat supercar like the 911?   Cross marketing is not
   driving this idea. 

Actually, seems like perfect sense to me - Audi and Porsche certainly don't
compete with each other, they address complementary markets (at least in 
the U.S.). 

   This could only work in the US where the average Joe (present company
   excepted) can be led to believe that a Plymouth Voyager is a greater status
   symbol than a Dodge Caravan.

Well, there are differences in the same platform across different "brand"
names. There may not be any with the Voyager/Caravan (I could't care less
one way or the other), but the Dodge Colt and Mitsubishi Mirage were no-
ticeably different cars (and where the Plymouth whatever fit in, I have no
idea...). The Mazda M6 (?) and Ford Probe are very substantially different
beasts on the "identical" platform. So . . .

					-RDH