Re: Elusive Success?

norgo@cybertrails.com
Mon, 05 Jul 1999 10:29:26 -0700

I'd rather have someone with the wisdom and maturity that tends to
come with age rather than some callow twenty something at the helm.
(Chairman Folz, by the way, is in his mid forties.) Aside from that,
Peugeot can't come back at the moment: the 406 doesn't pass US crash
tests and the other models are too small for the US market. Peugeot
wouldn't make it here on the 206 alone. Peugeot had the choice (as
Folz said they can't be everywhere at once) between an emerging market
(i.e. South America) and the mature US market where it has a lousy
reputation. It wisely chose the former. (Thus the present winnowing
out of Peugeot dealers in the US is simply part of Peugeot's withdrawl
from this market as the number of Peugeots left on our roads diminishes
because of attrition,nothing more.) It seems to me that Folz made a
sound financial decision not to return Peugeot to the US.

Hugo
'87 505 STX
d2760300.24b1544-@aol.com> wrote:
original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/peugeot-l/?start=894
> In a message dated 99-07-04, Brian O. wrote:
>
> << I'd have to agree with you wholeheartedly, Mort. Peugeot's
products are
> sound, at least nowadays, but their 'non can-do attitude' of their
> supposed leadership in Paris is what has been holding them back from
the
> US market now for years. Until they get some younger people with
> different ideas in charge, perhaps we'll never be able to purchase a
new
> Peugeot here. I figured that new guy that took over after Calvet
would
> bring his own 'sea-change', but he's just spewing the same old shit
the
> previous leaders did. What a disappointment........
> Brian O.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Brian,
> "Different ideas" yes, new ideas yes, but what's this sh*t about
"younger"?
> I've spent my entire career in performing arts marketing, mostly
symphony
> orchestras, and I hear this "younger" crap all the time. What's
wrong with
> "older"? Do they stop thinking? Is their money somehow worth less?
Is
> *lack* of experience some kind of virtue?
>
> At 44, I'm as baby boomer and as yuppie as you get, but I have never
> understood this knee jerk reverence of youth which, in my experience,
is
> indeed wasted on the young. For fresh thinking "outside the box"
give me an
> old Colin Chapman or Ferdinand Porsche over some focus-group quoting
MBA
> anyday.
>
> Rob Gold
>