Cut down in its youth, Fisker Automotive recently succumbed to an overdose of naïveté and random acts of mismanagement. The company will be mourned by Karma, a $96,895 plug-in hybrid luxury sedan with plunging resale values, and by sibling Atlantic, tragically stillborn after poking its head out of the birth canal and then thinking better of it.
We at Fisker will build advanced hybrids using only the dollar bills we find in our own wallets plus $171 million we find in the Department of Energy’s wallet. We will hire the GM engineer most responsible for the Chevy Volt, then get aggressive about not using him. The car must never be called a “loser” by Republicans. In fact, Mitt Romney will be our CEO when, on his third try, he becomes president. We may then build a car called the Fisker Mitt, totally up to us, our choice. No matter what, we will rely on one battery supplier with a really funny name that will go out of business before we do. We will realize a profit if we build 15,000 cars but will instead build 2000 or so, 338 of which will be fatally dunked in salt water by Hurricane Sandy, simultaneously dunking employee morale. To pull off all of this, we will rely entirely on good karma. Well, that and the promise of the Atlantic. But if we can’t build good karma or the Atlantic, we will board a plane real fast and cross the Atlantic. Hello, Denmark! Let Bob Lutz and Wanxiang’s Department of Certified Public Book-Cookers figure it out. Hey, is “Destino” one of Dean Martin’s kids? Boy, that was fun. Isn’t the coffee in Copenhagen terrific?
After several years of Do Not Resuscitate notices attached to its bedposts, American Suzuki Motor Corp. has slipped into a coma from which recovery is unlikely. The company leaves behind the personable Kizashi sedan and the spunky SX4, two pink-cheeked siblings brimming with potential but now as dead as week-old Hamamatsu tuna. Bereaved relatives further include a passel of smallish sport utes that never had a full set of teeth.
In America, Suzuki will earn initial enthusiast traction by producing a pocket rocket called the Swift GT, available only in an extra-small 1951-pound size that Americans will reject. In the meantime, we will make the world howl with our zany names: Suzuki Diamond Free, Suzulight, Mighty Boy, Ignis, Every Joy Pop, Cappuccino, and Jimny. We will spread this hilarity worldwide as we build cars for others: Bedford Rascal, Autozam Scrum, Mazda Spiano, Nissan Roox, and Opel Agila. We’re killing ourselves just thinking about it. For GM, we will even build Chevrolet Sprints and Geo Metros, which will foster no goodwill for either of us. For eight years, we will sue Consumer Reports, which will foster no goodwill for either of us. Meanwhile, U.S. operations will be left to peddle such slow leaks as the Daewoo-based Verona and Forenza. When that fails, we will rely on sales of motorcycles, ATVs, outboard motors, and the occasional wheelchair. Wait until you see the names we have for wheelchairs. Later, when the brand in America is fatally aswirl, we might just put our name on a Chevrolet TrailBlazer unless Isuzu or Saab does it first. In which case we will glue a Suzuki badge on a Nissan pickup truck. In the end, VW will become our biggest shareholder, and they will hate us and we will hate them. Hope for the best, right? Sometimes it works.
