AUTOMOBILES New models are being launched at top speeds

Automakers are trying to give customers just what they want.
WASHINGTON POST
When Amy High and Tim Gale pulled into a Chrysler dealership in April, they were transfixed by an odd-looking vehicle that seemed to defy definition. It wasn't quite like a car, an SUV or a minivan, but it was exactly what the couple wanted.
The Chrysler Pacifica, which was just then hitting showrooms, had enough space for their growing family. Yet it was sportier than a minivan, more fuel-efficient than a giant sport-utility vehicle and bristling with gadgets such as a DVD player and a satellite navigation system.
The car seemed designed especially for High and Gale -- and in some ways it was. The Pacifica is in the vanguard of a wave of new vehicles aimed at increasingly specific groups of customers.
Over the next three years, U.S. car buyers will have an unprecedented number of choices as manufacturers roll out nearly twice as many models as usual. Automakers are aiming for every niche of a marketplace that has fragmented with the rest of popular culture.
"Haven't we, as a society, become catered to?" said George E. Hoffer, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies the auto industry. "Everything has become so much more segmented, whether it's restaurants, category-killer stores, radio, TV and now automobiles."
Variety
Americans no longer satisfied with a standard-issue car like the Ford Taurus will find bewildering variety, from safe sports cars to hip family sedans to spiffy little trucks.
For the racing enthusiast who wants to go off-road, Porsche offers the new Cayenne. For the responsible type who wants a little spice, there is the new Cadillac XLR convertible sports car. Chrysler will try to revive the big rear-wheel-drive sedan in 2005 with the 300C, while Nissan goes for the heartland trucker with the 2004 Titan pickup.
"We haven't seen anything like this in terms of new product niches, ever. In terms of frequency of change [of existing models], we haven't seen it in 35 years," said Art Spinella, an industry consultant with CNW Marketing Research in Oregon.
Automakers hope that by feeding the public's desire for choice, they will entice people to keep buying even if the economy stays soft. A new model or a fresh style is the single greatest factor that motivates car shoppers, Hoffer said -- more than price, advertising or overall economic conditions.
A flood of desirable new products could allow the Big Three U.S. manufacturers -- General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler -- to raise prices and wean themselves from the discounts and free financing that are eating up thin profit margins.
But that is a tricky line to walk. Developing and producing new cars and trucks is expensive, and with everyone doing it at the same time, manufacturers run the risk of getting lost in the crowd.
"It's a very unforgiving market," said David Littmann, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Detroit. Carmakers "can't afford to even stumble, much less trip. So the survivors will be those who have the best record at producing quality products quickly and in quantity at competitive prices."
Even if a company does all those things, there are no guarantees. Experts hailed the Pacifica as a top contender in the current craze for "crossover" vehicles, or SUVs that are more like cars than trucks. While High and Gale of Alexandria, Va., agreed, others have been slow to catch on.
Under par
Chrysler has sold nearly 11,500 Pacificas since its rollout in late March, a rate close to 44,000 for the year and far short of the 60,000-unit target for 2003. The company already is resorting to an incentive on it, $1,000 off for returning Chrysler customers.
The Pacifica might be struggling to find its niche because it is so hard to categorize, industry consultant Spinella said. That could become a common problem as the market gets more and more crowded.
For the 2003 model year, automakers introduced 39 products, up from 32 the year before, said John Casesa, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & amp; Co. Next year, Casesa predicts 52 new models, then 63 for 2005 and 73 for 2006.
As the new vehicles enter the marketplace, the average age of all product designs will drop to a historically low level, reaching 2.2 years in 2006, Casesa said. Just over a decade ago, the average new car or truck was a four-year-old design, he said.
Some vehicles lagged far behind that average. The Chevrolet Cavalier, for example, has been essentially unchanged for nearly a decade, and Ford has not updated the Taurus since the mid-1990s.
Consumers will no longer tolerate such stale designs, said Karl Brauer, editor-in-chief of Edmunds.com. "Generally speaking, buyers are looking for something different. They do not want to buy what everyone else is buying," Brauer said.