Wave goodbye to the Mayflower. It's about to be scuttled.
The well-known sailing ship logo that has adorned the hoods of Plymouth automobiles for three-quarters of this century will be retired for good, parent company DaimlerChrysler AG confirmed Wednesday, admitting what everyone in the industry has seen coming for some time.At the end of the 2001 model year, the Plymouth nameplate and its modest stable of models will be no more.
In reality, Plymouth hasn't been carrying its weight for a long time, but Chrysler Corp. couldn't bring itself to cut the marque loose. Chrysler president Jim Holden admitted as much Wednesday, saying, "This was an emotional decision because Plymouth will always be an important part of our heritage."
But Germany's Daimler-Benz, maker of the Mercedes-Benz line of upscale autos, has no sentimental attachment to the Plymouth nameplate. When Daimler merged with Chrysler last year, industry watchers knew Plymouth's days were numbered.
There was a time, when Detroit's "Big Three" ruled, that the dropping of a major brand like Plymouth would have rocked the industry, much as the death of Packard, Hudson and Studebaker did in their day. Today, with some 40 major brands on the U.S. market offering some 225 different models, Plymouth's demise will scarcely be noticed.
"It's like when the Eagle went away; it's a non-event," said John Mecham, president of John Mecham Chrysler, Plymouth, Jeep in Salt Lake City. Chrysler Corp. inherited the Eagle when it bought American Motors but eventually jettisoned the marque.
Mecham said the concept of brand loyalty still exists in today's market, but it's much weaker than it was in the '50s and '60s when generations of car buyers often stuck with a brand for life.
"We were a Buick dealer for a long time, but we've converted a lot of the Buick guys to Chrysler guys," Mecham said.
Chris Smith, sales manager for Doug Smith Autoplex, a Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth dealer in American Fork, said that in the case of Plymouth, the only thing that's really retiring is the name because all but one of its models are duplicated in the Chrysler and Dodge brands.
The Plymouth Breeze sedan is the same as the Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Cirrus. The Plymouth Voyager minivan also exists as the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country, and the Plymouth Neon is the twin of the Dodge Neon. Standard equipment varies among the models, with Plymouth being the entry level, Dodge occupying the middle segment and Chrysler taking the luxury end of the market.
Only the Plymouth Prowler, DaimlerChrysler's ode to the hot-rod roadster culture, exists solely as a Plymouth, and it would be easy to simply remove the Plymouth logo and replace it with the Dodge Ram badge if, that is, the low-volume Prowler is kept in the DaimlerChrysler stable at all.
Smith is not quite as sanguine about losing the Plymouth marque as Mecham is, even though he contends it won't cause his dealership to lose any business.
"I may be a different personality, but I still like the Plymouth name, and I hate to see it go. It's kind of a trademark for us. I don't like change, and it seems as though everyone's mom and dad had a Plymouth when they were growing up. It's kind of sad ."
Smith says most of his customers have a loyalty to the overall Chrysler -- now DaimlerChrysler -- group rather than to the Plymouth brand individually. "They know that a Chrysler Cirrus and Plymouth Breeze are the same car," he said.
But both Mecham and Smith agree that current Plymouth owners need not lose any sleep worrying about future availability of parts and service for their cars since Dodge and Chrysler parts are interchangeable with Plymouth.
Plymouth was originally marketed as Chrysler's entry-level car for people who would later move up to Dodges and then Chryslers. Ironically, after Chrysler Corp. was launched in 1925, hot demand for its Plymouth model allowed the company to prosper during the Great Depression and for 15 years supplant Ford as the nation's second-largest carmaker behind General Motors.
In the 1950s, Plymouth's popularity waned in the face of post-war prosperity when Americans wanted larger, flashier cars. But in the 1960s and '70s, the brand underwent a metamorphosis. The Plymouth Road Runner, driven in NASCAR races by Richard Petty, epitomized the "muscle car" era, and sales of Plymouths rose to 750,000 a year.
Last year, sales were half that figure, and Plymouth Breeze sales are down 10 percent this year when overall auto sales are up that amount.