Re: Throughly modern light line

[bearbvd@domain.elided (Greg Hermann)]

>Chris:
>
>Cheap! These folks. I don't think so. You should have seen the wedding my
>future brother-in-law threw (the dairy farmer I was talking about) for his
>daughter. Had to cost $50,000.
>
>My point wasn't that IH was bad. Just that the general public perception was
>that they were dated and very slow to change - slower than GM and Ford
>anyway. (Howard, you were there. Am I offbase here?) And "perception is
>reality" in the political and marketing world. Thus, IH sales just weren't
>happening.
>

I am more inclined to think that the IHC light line (and the Scout) were
more the victims of the DOT , the EPA, OPEC,  Jimmy Carter (who proves
beyond a doubt that being a relatively honest and moral man is no antedote
for being an incompetent, fuzzy headed moron!_) and of the damage that the
feds did to the agricultural economy than they were of poor marketing.

 IHC did not ever have to market their quality aggressively to sell
vehicles--just as it is now--those who  understood and appreciated did not
need to be told. Their prices were not out of line--$4,250 for a 1300 4x4
Cab and chassis was not a bad value in '71. You could not buy that good a
truck for $40K today. When a fair portion of the farm and ranch people who
appreciated IHC quality went belly up, so did IHC sales. These folks were
the HEART of IHC sales, and the source of a lot of the company's word of
mouth marketing. And they were simply wiped off of the map  by stoooopid
federal policies!

The later, "Anything less is just a car" marketing stuff was too little ,
too late. IHC had already begun to compromise their quality to cover the
costs of keeping up with the (still) ridiculous demands of the (then) new
DOT safety regs, and other hits. They took a huge hit in '74 with the oil
"crisis"--The 404/446 engine got delayed two full years, didn't get it out
till '76.  It was, I believe, intended to go into the light line when the
engines got set back in '74. Try to claim that that engine in the light
line would not have been progressive in '74--hell Ford did not use it, in
its dieselized form, until '83, nine years later! They also did stuff like
rush the 196 back into production, and bought engines from Datsun. None of
which were particularly profitable for IHC.

Rampant and blatant corruption in IHC's (Chicago based, SURPRISE!)
purchasing department was another HUGE factor in the problems.

Regards, Greg