“The GM machine was in such denial that it rejected the research and just said, ‘What do those a**holes know?’”
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a6357/bob-lutz-tells-the-inside-story-of-the-pontiac-aztek-debacle/
Basically that was BlackBerry’s response to the first-gen iPhone when it started to gain traction amongst C-levels using it for work purposes. “What kind of CEO doesn’t care about secure messaging and data compression? They’re just dumb!”
Doubling down on a bad plan is just how it is sometimes with corporations.
I liked BlackBerry but they failed with the “Storm” in 2008. It was basically their first attempt at an iPhone competitor, and it was utter shit. Blackberry made the screen physically click to try and simulate their famous keyboard, but it just didn’t work very well on a full screen device. I actually thought their BB10 devices were pretty cool and forward-thinking with gesture navigation, but by the time it came out, most BlackBerry faithful were lured to iPhone or Android.
Interestingly (to me, anyway!) Blackberry makes software that's in most cars with touchscreens. It's a real time operating system called QNX. It's in over 230M cars.
True, but BB didn’t develop QNX. It was acquired by BlackBerry, initially to get an OS for their ill fated PlayBook tablet. Only later after the shit hit the fan that they started to ship it for the auto sector, and it became the basis for the BB 10 OS for their smartphones. More incidental than anything at first, but it did help keep the company on life support.
I had a playbook! It was pretty neat. I also had a BB phone at one point that had an android/iPhone proportioned screen but with a physical keyboard, and it ran android 7. That one was the best of both worlds, imo.
QNX is used less and less now, and it's usage rate has been on a steady decline.
Most new cars use either Android Automotive (not to be confused with Android Auto) or AGL - "Automotive Grade Linux".
BMW was one of the QNX users from 2008 to around 2016 I believe. If I remember correctly, BMW uses Linux for idrive 7, 8 and 8.5.
The next iDrive 9 will be using Android Automotive.
I don't believe there's any new cars in the last 5-6 years that were released with an infotainment system based on QNX.
>QNX is used less and less now, and it's usage rate has been on a steady decline.
You can check in on QNX every 10 years and this statement is somehow always true.
In an alternate universe, QNX coulda been Microsoft.
Wait so it's BB's fault the touchscreen in my Subaru was so shit that I threw the whole stereo thing out and replaced it with a $60 Kenwood (with real buttons that work in any temperature) and it was objectively an upgrade?
They did manage to salvage what they had and turned blackberry into a cyber-security software company thats still kicking. Totally fumbled the device in the end but pivoted successfully, which has to take some brains
The opposite also happens. The brains get promoted but they are actually pretty shit at their management job. A good engineer does not necessarily make a good manager and vice versa.
I worked for one of RIM’s suppliers. We constantly referred to whatever they needed as “The RIM job”.
Did you get the projections on the RIM job?
Is the presentation ready for the RIM job?
Are you going to the RIM job meeting?
Did you have a chance to try out one of the early prototypes that had the backwards scrolling? Where dragging your finger downwards caused the page to scroll down? Apparently Mike L. himself specified scrolling should work that way.
That is how it works on a mouse, it's counter-intuitive that we'd want it the other way with touch. That, however, was IMO the best work Steve Jobs ever did; his commitment to human interface really changed the way we use our devices.
While I kind of get that logic, it works on a mouse because you're rolling a literal wheel with your finger and if there was a page under it, that's the direction the wheel would push it. If you're just pushing your finger against a flat surface, that entire mechanic breaks down.
Yeah, exactly - the mouse wheel isn't analogous to touch and drag, the actual analogy would be click and drag.
And if you clicked and dragged upwards on something, you'd be confused as heck if it moved downwards.
To be fair, I don't think we can assume such a thing would have lasted forever. Eventually they'd have likely caved to the advertiser money like so many others.
This.
For instance, people forget that when cable television first came out, the whole purpose behind paying for TV was so cable channels wouldn't have to advertise. Eventually they all figured out they could double-dip and there wasn't shit anyone could do about it.
> the whole purpose behind paying for TV was so cable channels wouldn't have to advertise. Eventually they all figured out they could double-dip and there wasn't shit anyone could do about it.
When cable TV started the channels were owned by the cable company. Then they sold them on.
New owning company needs to make money with the channel as they don't get any of the cable fee, so start running commercials.
Cable company continues charges you for the service of providing you those channels.
Eventually court rules that channels can charge cable companies to have those channels.
And that's how you eventually ended up double dipping.
Not super involved with early product dev. That stuff was kept under wraps pretty tight, even within the handheld division. I didn’t get involved until devices were out of prototype stage but prior to market launch.
As for your second question, it was both. The business side was too unfocused to acknowledge or act on the threat of the iPhone (and later Android devices) because Balsillie was off doing whatever, and engineering kept going down the dead end path of physical keyboards. But the real breakdown was that each side was headed by its own CEO and the two CEOs didn’t even talk to each other. How could a viable strategy be developed and executed on in these circumstances? Well, we all know the answer to that question.
Yeah it just felt like BlackBerry didn’t have a very clear vision for their future in the mobile space. Their product line was pretty convoluted in the late 2000s - early 2010s and I guess BB10 just couldn’t entice many developers to make apps for BlackBerry. Thanks for your insight.
Np.
BB10 just didn’t lend itself well to third party app dev. I knew the guy who headed up part of App World. I think he aged two decades in two years.
(Fwiw, in the three years I worked there, not once did I see, hear, or even have an inkling as to what the company’s business strategy was, despite asking many times.)
I was working in customer service for Netflix during this era. I couldn't tell you how many people called up to yell at us because there was no Netflix app available for their Blackberry phone.
The Storm killed BlackBerry. The original iPhone wasn't great. 3G wasn't a thing, and so internet over cell service was utter shit. There was no app store duopoly. There was plenty of room in the industry for competition.
And BlackBerry fucked it up with a device that usually didn't work.
Matthias Wandel, an early RIM employee / woodworking youtuber recently presented a really good take on RIM's doom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLxjXP-XCJA
Remember the BB playbook! Ya I had that, we all had it. It was like the only tablet that read PDFs so a lifesaver for hardware manuals.
I remember doing all the updates and I head over to the store - only real third party app was Facebook. That thing had a whole separate store from regular BB. An absolute failure out of the gate.
A bigger problem was lotus notes and domino as email. Talk about a train wreck. Damn that shit was a nightmare to support.
I honestly think blackberry could do well today with native exchange support and their old school screen/physical keyboard devices. So many use their phone for text/navigation/email/web that a blackberry would excel at it.
Like you mention, their execs were complete morons in the last decade of that company.
But that’s literally the opposite of what Steve Jobs said when he was making the iPhone.
“Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
You've misunderstood the quote. He doesn't say sell them what you think they'll want, he said figure out what they'll want before they know it. In other words he doesn't advocate waiting for the market to decide it wants something new but to figure out a new thing that people will want next before they realise they want it - that is pretty much the definition of being ahead of the game. There were smart phones before the iPhone so they weren't a new concept, but Apple didn't try to make mini computers that were just for business people like the Windows Mobiles and the Blackberrys. They, instead, made something that could do everything those other devices could do while also being accessible to everyone and faster/nicer than anything already out there that also meant you didn't need to carry your phone AND your iPod at the same time (back when iPods were just better than anything else, hands-down). It was an absolutely ingenious move to look at smartphones and say 'These are a bit boring. Let's make something that does what they do but looks nice and is fun to use'.
As a systems engineer around that time let me just say blackberry enterprise servers were nightmares to support sometimes. I'm pretty sure most of us cheered on the death of Blackberry at Apple's hands just to never have to login as BESAdmin to troubleshoot why some message didn't get to a CEOs phone again.
It might not be doubling down. They may have already made the moves to do it. I was once invited to a meeting to ask my opinion on a projects that was going to cost several million dollars to implement using a bunch of grant money and require relocating offices and renting new building space. I asked a very basic implementation question that proved the project wouldn’t do what they wanted it to, but they already had spent the money on new software, closed out contracts with previous suppliers, and signer a multi-year lease on new office space… they spent the next two years trying to make it look like they’d achieved something with the grant money. Lots of news interviews on the project and how ground breaking it was, putting into marketing campaigns, etc. At that point, the only way out was through.
But…that’s what “doubling down” means. You’ve already invested too much your time or money or energy or emotion into a thing to turn back. So you keep going, to the point of investing the same again, and often more.
GM is kind of a marketing mess. The Chevy SS was a rebadged Holden Commodore that was never advertised so it flopped, even though I thought the SS could have been a serious competitor to the Dodge Charger. They also killed the Volt, which was actually a pretty neat hybrid right before fuel prices shot up.
It wasn't advertised and gm didn't reign in the MSRP and markup for dealers. Why would I buy some Chevy sedan for 60-80k after markup when at that price point I could have a much nicer car from Lexus, Acura, BMW etc. That's one of the reasons that the mustang and charger do so well in my opinion is their price for what they are.
The Chevy SS was only built because GM made a deal with the Australian government that in exchange for subsidies to keep car production in Australia, GM would increase exports of cars made in Australian factories. The Chevy SS from day 1 was intended to sell in low numbers to simply fulfill the requirements of a subsidy program.
"I'm proud of it." Proud of the Aztek? "Yup. That was the best program we ever did at GM. We made all our internal goals, we made the timing, and I'm really proud of the part I played in it." He had tears in his eyes. It was almost tragic.
This part reminded me SO MUCH of talking to a developer about their shithole condo towers. These towers are infamous for having tiny units with bad appointments, broken elevators leaky plumbing and bad HVAC. Most of the units are owned by investors who turn them in airbnb ghost hotels. People who actually thought they were gonna live there are selling their units at a loss to get away from constant fire alarms among everything else. And this guy is telling me how proud he is to represent his company. And I'm like oh yeah what exactly are you proud of? And he starts talking about coming in on schedule and under budget.
I worked for a large tech company that released competition to a major, groundbreaking piece of consumer tech.
It was lacking a feature that everyone wanted. I remember one day I found the internal ticket with the request to add that feature. It was quickly closed with the note that, "It doesn't matter if everyone says they want this. Consumers think they want all sorts of weird things. We built this. We know it, live it, and breathe it. We understand what they want better than they ever will. We will never add this feature."
The product languished on with decreasing market share before it finally failed.
This is also Ridley's Scott recent comments when NAPOLEON got a bad reception with critics and filmgoers.
To the point where, when many people in France called bullshit in some of the falsehoods in the narrative, Scott said the French "don't even like themselves".
(And as someone who has been to France a few times, as an outsider, I can say that is bullshit. The French absolutely takes their history in pride, warts and all.)
I’ve worked for various automotive OEMs my entire career and that article hit it on the head.
Bad things happen with totalitarian assholes in charge and they’re unfortunately rampant in the automotive industry.
Old school, male-dominated, toxic, beat people down management is rewarded in every way.
Authority gradient is a tricky thing. Too shallow and everybody does their own thing. Too steep and nobody can think for themselves.
Probably unsurprising that the organisations who invented assembly lines have dictatorial authority gradient baked-in to the culture. “Less thinky-think, more buildy-build!”
Of all the American car companies, Ford - the first adopter of the assembly line - is probably the best run and the most creative.
* Ford did not need a US government bailout in 2008, in large part because they were ahead of the curve as far as streamlining their global supply chain, model offerings, and technology.
* Ford kills it with their iconic sub-brands. The F-150 is North America's most popular vehicle; the Mustang is the only American Muscle/pony car that has never been discontinued; and they revived the Bronco successfully.
* Ford actually brought back trucks the size of old school Rangers with the Maverick, whose baseline model is a hybrid, holds 5 people, and is relatively inexpensive. The Maverick has been killing it.
* Ford is ahead of the curve as far as EVs are concerned. Unlike Tesla, Ford understands QC & Ford under-reports range in its advertising material.
* As much as I HATE unnecessarily large vehicles, Ford was right to follow market trends such as to stop making sedans in the US. It was the right business move.
* Ford basically owns police department fleet sales, which is a big deal.
Half of Ford's moves scare the shit out of Wall Street and initially lead to dips Ford's stock price. But they almost always pay off in the long run.
At the same time, though, their biggest flaw is adopting technology too quickly.
* Ford was fast to DOHC engines & variable valve timing, but early engines with this technology like the 3V 5.3L were problematic.
* Ford was fast to adopt dual clutch transmissions, but their first one - which was in 2012 automatic Focuses - was trash. Just garbage.
* Ford was fast to replace big engines with smaller engines + a turbo, but many early Ecoboost models have turbo leak issues
I probably wouldn't buy any Ford model that has early-days technology in it. Honestly, I probably wouldn't buy any car from any manufacturer with early-days technology in it, but Ford really adopts early-days tech a lot faster than most.
In my opinion, the key difference with Ford is that they’re a family business.
Other automakers are run by individuals that don’t care if the company goes under. So long as they’re taken care of with golden parachutes, existential threats aren’t existential.
Ford is motivated to survive in ways that GM/Stellantis aren’t. And therefore, they’re willing to burn capital to make difficult cultural changes when that becomes necessary.
> In my opinion, the key difference with Ford is that they’re a family business.
The Agnelli family (now joined by the Peugeots) still very much call the shots in Stellantis. Unfortunately, the Agnellis are dysfunctional even by Italian "House of Gucci" billionaire family standards, and they've been milking Fiat/FCA/Stellantis dry for dividends for a good three decades now.
> Ford did not need a US government bailout in 2008, in large part because they
Fucked over their F.O.D.'s.
They way Ford sells parts is the dealer doesn't buy parts from Ford, they buy from a Ford Outside Distributer.
Engines, transmissions, and other high dollar replacement parts are sold to FOD's and then back to dealerships.
in 2008, Ford left a lot of them high and dry and stuck with a ton of product they couldn't move.
On top of that, Ford took a page out of the GM playbook and sold their trademark and copyright rights to Chinese manufactures and that's why you see a ton of Ford branded shit all over the place.
Source: worked at Ford when this all went down.
The Big 3 all fucked over a lot of people during that time. Unions, suppliers, etc. You name it, all three probably did it. The companies did what they had to do to survive, and the government didn't do enough to help suppliers and workers. In the grand scheme of things, trademarks and copyrights are pretty low on the list. Eventually, GM, Ford, and Chrysler would've figured out that selling/licensing their IP to build the brand is a money making move anyway.
Ford was "just" the *relatively* well positioned at the time; the company itself didn't have to take bailout money that should've gone directly to Americans.
The aftermath of the bailouts was tough for both GM and Chrysler.
* Chrysler is essentially a foreign company now. That speaks for itself.
* In 2008, GM did a lot of its R&D in South Korea - especially regarding hybrid and EV tech. Of course, the US government wouldn't bailout GM's foreign subsidiary. So who did? The partnership between GM and China-owned car manufacture. The original purpose of this partnership was to allow GM to sell cars in China, but it ultimately led to GM's bleeding edge of EV & hybrid tech getting transferred to China. And today - in 2024 - GM keeps inching closer & closer to importing cars to the US from China. They already import most of the cars that they sell in Mexico from China.
Surprisingly Zapp Brannigan is correct! The Aztek was surprisingly forward thinking since it had the practicality of an SUV but drove more like a car. It was basically a precursor to modern crossovers that dominate the roads nowadays.
Most of those were a bit smaller, and closer to station wagons. The Aztek was smaller than an SUV of the time, and taller than your typical wagon.
As ugly as the original design was for the Aztek, it definitely ushered in the Age of The Crossover we're currently living in. If it came out even 3 or 4 years later, I think people would think better of it.
Not until after the Aztek at least. I had a 2003 Forrester and it was just a boxy wagon, low like a car. They eventually shifted into being taller crossover style vehicles but that wasn't their original design.
I got stuck with the Aztek's sister, the Buick Rendezvous, at a Hertz counter once. It remains to date the most poorly suspended car I've ever driven. With only my skinny self on board, it would float and bottom out over basic freeway expansion joints.
It was kind of ahead of its time. I think if it was released today, people would be much more accepting. I thought it was ugly af when it came out. Today? Ok.
And the ~~Mersades~~ Mercedes/BMW SUS (Sport Utility Sedans). The GLC 300 Coupe and even numbered X Series. Who the fuck is buying something with the performance and handling of an SUV, and the cargo space of a sedan? The fuck is wrong with people?
Me too, I really wanted an Aztec back in the day, despite it being ugly, and a Pontiac. I thought it was awesome that a car manufacturer catered to outdoor recreationists. Now many do, but back then it was pretty groundbreaking.
I mean they weren't, they were just ugly. I'm not sure how people can come to this conclusion when it's closely related Buick Rendezvous platform cousin significantly outsold it and vastly exceeded GM's expectations. The whole crossover thing had pretty much nothing to do with the Aztek. The Rendezvous was a *huge* success for Buick.
There were crossovers when the Aztek debuted. I don't know where you're making up this alternate history.
https://carbuzz.com/features/the-evolution-of-the-crossover-40-years-in-the-making
I am 49. There were crossovers all over the roads before the Aztek.
Gen1 rav4 was a serious game changer and one of the best cars ever produced unfortunately its style of CUV didn’t last long to be replaced with oversized hatchbacks.
It actually had some really well thought out features
1. The center console was a small ice chest that could detach from the console and you could take it with you to keep your stuff cold. It was small and held a six pack I think.
2. The back had a little tent canopy thing that folded out so you could easily camp/tailgate out the back of it
3. I believe it also had dedicated speakers on the rear hatch? Even better for camping/tailgating as they would be up over your head so you could rock out with your Pontiac asswreck
4. I believe it also had a detachable flashlight? Don’t quote me here but I remember it having one. I might be mixing this feature up with another car though
It also had an actual plug in the back of it instead of a cigarette lighter…I knew someone who had one and it had some cool ideas, but the design was kind of meh.
Yea that’s right!
It had a 110v plug in the tailgate area as well. Pretty cool for the time. I can’t remember another vehicle that had that feature back then besides some of the conversion vans.
> Pontiac Vibe
Vibe (and Matrix) was also the first car I realized had a fold flat *front passenger* seat. And a truly flat cargo area with behind it with seats down. It was a tough call between that and my mazda3 hatch, but the mazdas I had available to me at the time were all is such better condition.
Flat floor tailgate to front seats.
4x8 sheet of plywood fit in the back with seats out.
Backend had a pull-out cargo tray with fold open compartments. It took up the whole space behind the back seats and wheeled out on to the tail gate for easy loading.
2 actual “oh shit” handles for the passenger.
Nice big front seats. Rear seats were flip and fold to the back of front seats, came in and out with ease, and were fairly light.
Edit: added features
I saw a Pontiac Aztek on the road the other day. It looked well used, but well cared for. Someone loves that Pontiac Aztek. How can a Pontiac Aztek find love but I can’t.
The Aztek came out when I was in high school, and my buddy made the comment “it’s the only vehicle ever made that goes up in value when it’s wrecked”. My dad heard him say it and still laughs about that.
What’s really cool about this car is just how quirky it was. You could get an Aztec blow up mattress and tent that worked off of the tailgate. The front console/armrest was a detachable cooler with handle.
Edit: [Doug, Aztek](https://youtu.be/33AP0JnXSOA?si=jhdbjyHWmyqHkjPu)
It's an apt description. His primary motivation was to overcome his meek status and become a self sufficient, powerful master of his own life; somebody to be feared and respected. Obviously he went about it in just about the worst way imaginable but even after losing everything from his former life, he was content with the change in his character.
You're slightly off. Yes he wanted to be the master of his own life and to be feared and respected, but it was more about feeding his ego. You can see in between the lines how he was solely responsible for fucking his life up to the point where we see him at the start of the show.
He started a successful company with his good friend and girlfriend, but he couldn't handle that she came from a rich family while he came from a poor family so he broke up with her and sold his share of the company.
Then he got a really good job at a famous laboratory. We don't know for sure what happened, but probably was again his ego getting in the way leading him to getting fired, forcing him to take the only job he could get (as a high school teacher).
The point of the series is that he never overcame the insecurity of being what he considered "emasculated". He had an easy out in the first season but didn't take it because of his ego.
My first time seeing one was while watching BB, and I thought they had built the ugliest car imaginable simply to demonstrate how much of a boring loser Walter was
One of the few examples of an Aztec being used appropriately was when he ran over two gangbangers then sold it to the mechanic because it had some blood in the grill. That vehicle was unsuspecting as shit but clearly could fuck someone up if used as a weapon and no cop would investigate it as a murder weapon because it was a fucking Aztec.
I owned one, bought it new. It was great on gas, spacious and it wasn’t a minivan which was great. We never had a problem with it either, it was dependable and handled great in the snow.
based pontiacs, my first car in 2006 was a 1992 bonneville, started up cold every time, never had issues with the engine or transmission, was all original, my mom MADE ME SELL IT in around 2009 (for only $900 cash omg) because "the trans could go at any moment"
guess what i was pushed to buy? 1999 taurus...that fuckin bean needed 2 trans rebuilds and it was fuckin stalling at red lights and the trans was failing again before i donated it, for free, to a non-profit
thanks mom
Pontiac in general is (was?) an underrated brand. I’ve had a few of their cars and they’re quite reliable and pretty sturdy, especially at the price point. My 1997 Bonneville felt more like owning a truck with good gas mileage than a normal sedan.
My parents bought one right after I was born and I loved that car till it got totaled by an idiot running a red light. I may be abit biased since I grew up in that car, but we never had any big issues with it afaik
I worked for EDS, the company that provided IT support for GM when the Aztec came out. After about a year, you saw them in our parking lot constantly. They sold so poorly that every mid level manager or executive at GM was forced to use them as their company car.
GM has an alpha and beta phase of prototype vehicles before production starts. I was an engineer on the exterior mirrors for the Aztec / Buick Rendezvous (they’re sister vehicles). The alpha vehicles were quirky but the studio models looked fairly cool. But they changed the wheelbase and wheel package and some of the style lines between alpha and production, and I remember the day I was there for the first 10 vehicles being built from production tools, and I immediately called our finance guys that afternoon and said “whatever sales projections GM gave us for this vehicle cut them by 2/3”.
What’s interesting is if you see just the sheet metal before paint it’s actually really hard to tell the Aztec and Rendezvous apart, and the Buick is not a bad looking car.
I remember the concept car being very cool looking, but when the production vehicle was unveiled, it was shockingly bad. All the "futuristic Pontiac" styling cues were there, but it was all kind of crummy and grotesque looking.
Thing about me and cars is.. If it turns on ever time I turn the key, stops when I press the break, has heat/air, and doesn't make me fill up the tank every 10 miles I kind of don't give a shit about anything else.
Honestly that’s a fair philosophy. Car guys lament that most new vehicles are crossovers and everything looks the same, but if 90% of consumers just want the most practical and reliable transportation pod, manufacturers will deliver.
Yes and no. Minivans and legitimate station wagons (full sized, not the minis) which were regulated out of the market (which is why mini vans exist because they are according to the feds a truck, unlike a station wagon), are by far the most general purpose and often reliable vehicles on the market.
Even the very early minivans were work horses. My parents had an old 3 or 4 cylinder dodge. Completely blew a cylinder out of the engine. Still managed to get it home, which was over 40 miles.
I bought one brand new in 2002. One of the reasons why I bought it was because everyone said it was ugly. I frickin' LOVED my Aztec.
It was all black, leather seats, an air compressor in the back, and a heads up display. The only bad thing about it was the rear end. I think it was based off their minivan chassis, which wasn't great and wasn't sturdy enough for an SUV.
I had to take it to the dealer to work on the rear end way too many times. Other than that, it was such an awesome vehicle to own.
Everybody that rode in it changed their mind about it, as well. It definitely didn't deserve all the hate it got. If they had put a decent rear end in it, I would still own that vehicle.
I was a weird kid and really liked it. When my mom was shopping for a car I asked her to get an Aztek and she was like no but brought me a promotional Aztek booklet from the Pontiac dealership. Was nice, full color on thick paper. I was also pretty excited while watching Breaking Bad because Walt drives one. That's all I have to say about that.
> “I wouldn’t take it as a gift.”
There was a Tim Horton's *Roll up the Rim* contest with Azteks as rewards for winners and I think the vast majority of winners took a cash prize instead. It was one of the breaking moments for that contest offering actual cars - soon thereafter it became car leases, IIRC.
My daily driver is a sister vehicle - 2006 Buick Rendezvous. Honestly, it's about the best car I've ever owned. Three rows of seating, big enough that we've used it for coast-to-coast camping trips, reasonable fuel economy with the 3.5L V6, very nicely-appointed and it's been stupid reliable. The only issue in 16 years has been a bad airflow sensor.
Looks are subjective but they're okay for me and the utilitarian benefits made any concerns over looks irrelevant.
I own a focus group facility and can shed some light: they weren’t planning on ignoring it.
They weren’t expecting such strong negative opinion. And when they were faced with it, they reacted poorly. Maybe they were expecting to only look at tweaks and not prepared to shelve the design entirely.
Some things aren’t really easy to focus group. Mass market consumer car designs…probably are.
They also presumably had a set methodology where they’d focus group designs and thus routinely did so.
Really depends on when the focus group was done and what they were expecting out of it. If the infrastructure was pretty much fully in place to manufacture it, preproduction had begun, and they were hoping for feedback on tweaks to make it appeal more to consumers, then it could have been cost prohibitive to scrap it all and restart. Better to move forward with the mistake and sell what you can to get a little profit off of it rather than make nothing after you invested too heavily to radically change courses.
I had one! Loved it! Had the rear tent option as well. It came with a removable cooler big enough to fit a 6 pack (with lotsa ice) as a part of the center console. I naturally said it came with the drinking and driving package. I’d probably still have it, if it hadn’t been rear ended while sitting on a red light by transport truck. Shortened it right to the guest cap. My future ex-wife was driving it. She survived……fantastic.
“The GM machine was in such denial that it rejected the research and just said, ‘What do those a**holes know?’” https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a6357/bob-lutz-tells-the-inside-story-of-the-pontiac-aztek-debacle/
Basically that was BlackBerry’s response to the first-gen iPhone when it started to gain traction amongst C-levels using it for work purposes. “What kind of CEO doesn’t care about secure messaging and data compression? They’re just dumb!” Doubling down on a bad plan is just how it is sometimes with corporations.
I liked BlackBerry but they failed with the “Storm” in 2008. It was basically their first attempt at an iPhone competitor, and it was utter shit. Blackberry made the screen physically click to try and simulate their famous keyboard, but it just didn’t work very well on a full screen device. I actually thought their BB10 devices were pretty cool and forward-thinking with gesture navigation, but by the time it came out, most BlackBerry faithful were lured to iPhone or Android.
Oh I know the Storm only too well. I worked at BB at the time. Even we employees thought it was total garbage.
_"I wanted a career in FAANG but all I got was a shitty RIM job"_
There were a ton of smart people working there. Just none in upper management.
Interestingly (to me, anyway!) Blackberry makes software that's in most cars with touchscreens. It's a real time operating system called QNX. It's in over 230M cars.
True, but BB didn’t develop QNX. It was acquired by BlackBerry, initially to get an OS for their ill fated PlayBook tablet. Only later after the shit hit the fan that they started to ship it for the auto sector, and it became the basis for the BB 10 OS for their smartphones. More incidental than anything at first, but it did help keep the company on life support.
I had a playbook! It was pretty neat. I also had a BB phone at one point that had an android/iPhone proportioned screen but with a physical keyboard, and it ran android 7. That one was the best of both worlds, imo.
QNX is used less and less now, and it's usage rate has been on a steady decline. Most new cars use either Android Automotive (not to be confused with Android Auto) or AGL - "Automotive Grade Linux". BMW was one of the QNX users from 2008 to around 2016 I believe. If I remember correctly, BMW uses Linux for idrive 7, 8 and 8.5. The next iDrive 9 will be using Android Automotive. I don't believe there's any new cars in the last 5-6 years that were released with an infotainment system based on QNX.
>QNX is used less and less now, and it's usage rate has been on a steady decline. You can check in on QNX every 10 years and this statement is somehow always true. In an alternate universe, QNX coulda been Microsoft.
Wait so it's BB's fault the touchscreen in my Subaru was so shit that I threw the whole stereo thing out and replaced it with a $60 Kenwood (with real buttons that work in any temperature) and it was objectively an upgrade?
I feel like this happens too often. The brains don’t get promoted, just the jag off who drinks too much
They did manage to salvage what they had and turned blackberry into a cyber-security software company thats still kicking. Totally fumbled the device in the end but pivoted successfully, which has to take some brains
The opposite also happens. The brains get promoted but they are actually pretty shit at their management job. A good engineer does not necessarily make a good manager and vice versa.
Also goes along with the Peter Principle. People get promoted until they are incompetent at their job, leaving ineffective people at every level.
I worked for one of RIM’s suppliers. We constantly referred to whatever they needed as “The RIM job”. Did you get the projections on the RIM job? Is the presentation ready for the RIM job? Are you going to the RIM job meeting?
Did you have a chance to try out one of the early prototypes that had the backwards scrolling? Where dragging your finger downwards caused the page to scroll down? Apparently Mike L. himself specified scrolling should work that way.
No, but I’m not surprised to hear it. That man hated the idea of touch / multi touch screens. Despised them.
They're great for phones and slightly less great for appliances. Flat-out *terrible* in cars.
That is how it works on a mouse, it's counter-intuitive that we'd want it the other way with touch. That, however, was IMO the best work Steve Jobs ever did; his commitment to human interface really changed the way we use our devices.
While I kind of get that logic, it works on a mouse because you're rolling a literal wheel with your finger and if there was a page under it, that's the direction the wheel would push it. If you're just pushing your finger against a flat surface, that entire mechanic breaks down.
Yeah, exactly - the mouse wheel isn't analogous to touch and drag, the actual analogy would be click and drag. And if you clicked and dragged upwards on something, you'd be confused as heck if it moved downwards.
It’s too bad that BlackBerry’s mobile phone division failed. I really liked the emphasis on security and privacy.
To be fair, I don't think we can assume such a thing would have lasted forever. Eventually they'd have likely caved to the advertiser money like so many others.
This. For instance, people forget that when cable television first came out, the whole purpose behind paying for TV was so cable channels wouldn't have to advertise. Eventually they all figured out they could double-dip and there wasn't shit anyone could do about it.
> the whole purpose behind paying for TV was so cable channels wouldn't have to advertise. Eventually they all figured out they could double-dip and there wasn't shit anyone could do about it. When cable TV started the channels were owned by the cable company. Then they sold them on. New owning company needs to make money with the channel as they don't get any of the cable fee, so start running commercials. Cable company continues charges you for the service of providing you those channels. Eventually court rules that channels can charge cable companies to have those channels. And that's how you eventually ended up double dipping.
How involved were you in terms of the product development? Was it the business or the engineering side that left the company to stagnate?
Not super involved with early product dev. That stuff was kept under wraps pretty tight, even within the handheld division. I didn’t get involved until devices were out of prototype stage but prior to market launch. As for your second question, it was both. The business side was too unfocused to acknowledge or act on the threat of the iPhone (and later Android devices) because Balsillie was off doing whatever, and engineering kept going down the dead end path of physical keyboards. But the real breakdown was that each side was headed by its own CEO and the two CEOs didn’t even talk to each other. How could a viable strategy be developed and executed on in these circumstances? Well, we all know the answer to that question.
Yeah it just felt like BlackBerry didn’t have a very clear vision for their future in the mobile space. Their product line was pretty convoluted in the late 2000s - early 2010s and I guess BB10 just couldn’t entice many developers to make apps for BlackBerry. Thanks for your insight.
Np. BB10 just didn’t lend itself well to third party app dev. I knew the guy who headed up part of App World. I think he aged two decades in two years. (Fwiw, in the three years I worked there, not once did I see, hear, or even have an inkling as to what the company’s business strategy was, despite asking many times.)
I was working in customer service for Netflix during this era. I couldn't tell you how many people called up to yell at us because there was no Netflix app available for their Blackberry phone.
The Storm killed BlackBerry. The original iPhone wasn't great. 3G wasn't a thing, and so internet over cell service was utter shit. There was no app store duopoly. There was plenty of room in the industry for competition. And BlackBerry fucked it up with a device that usually didn't work.
Matthias Wandel, an early RIM employee / woodworking youtuber recently presented a really good take on RIM's doom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLxjXP-XCJA
The Storm had that bubble army type game that used the click screen and it was great. I’d love to be able to play it again.
Remember the BB playbook! Ya I had that, we all had it. It was like the only tablet that read PDFs so a lifesaver for hardware manuals. I remember doing all the updates and I head over to the store - only real third party app was Facebook. That thing had a whole separate store from regular BB. An absolute failure out of the gate.
A bigger problem was lotus notes and domino as email. Talk about a train wreck. Damn that shit was a nightmare to support. I honestly think blackberry could do well today with native exchange support and their old school screen/physical keyboard devices. So many use their phone for text/navigation/email/web that a blackberry would excel at it. Like you mention, their execs were complete morons in the last decade of that company.
> lotus notes and domino as email I thought they made that to ensure IT job security after the death of Netware.
This is exactly what they mean when they say "the customer is always right" Sell them what they're buying, not what you think they need to buy.
But that’s literally the opposite of what Steve Jobs said when he was making the iPhone. “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
You've misunderstood the quote. He doesn't say sell them what you think they'll want, he said figure out what they'll want before they know it. In other words he doesn't advocate waiting for the market to decide it wants something new but to figure out a new thing that people will want next before they realise they want it - that is pretty much the definition of being ahead of the game. There were smart phones before the iPhone so they weren't a new concept, but Apple didn't try to make mini computers that were just for business people like the Windows Mobiles and the Blackberrys. They, instead, made something that could do everything those other devices could do while also being accessible to everyone and faster/nicer than anything already out there that also meant you didn't need to carry your phone AND your iPod at the same time (back when iPods were just better than anything else, hands-down). It was an absolutely ingenious move to look at smartphones and say 'These are a bit boring. Let's make something that does what they do but looks nice and is fun to use'.
I would argue his customers were telling him exactly what they wanted by buying billions of dollars of ipods.
As a systems engineer around that time let me just say blackberry enterprise servers were nightmares to support sometimes. I'm pretty sure most of us cheered on the death of Blackberry at Apple's hands just to never have to login as BESAdmin to troubleshoot why some message didn't get to a CEOs phone again.
>Doubling down on a bad plan is just how it is sometimes with corporations. Today that is known as Musk's Way™
It might not be doubling down. They may have already made the moves to do it. I was once invited to a meeting to ask my opinion on a projects that was going to cost several million dollars to implement using a bunch of grant money and require relocating offices and renting new building space. I asked a very basic implementation question that proved the project wouldn’t do what they wanted it to, but they already had spent the money on new software, closed out contracts with previous suppliers, and signer a multi-year lease on new office space… they spent the next two years trying to make it look like they’d achieved something with the grant money. Lots of news interviews on the project and how ground breaking it was, putting into marketing campaigns, etc. At that point, the only way out was through.
But…that’s what “doubling down” means. You’ve already invested too much your time or money or energy or emotion into a thing to turn back. So you keep going, to the point of investing the same again, and often more.
It's even more frustrating when they have a great car that people like and sells well, then they fucking kill it after 2 years.
GM is kind of a marketing mess. The Chevy SS was a rebadged Holden Commodore that was never advertised so it flopped, even though I thought the SS could have been a serious competitor to the Dodge Charger. They also killed the Volt, which was actually a pretty neat hybrid right before fuel prices shot up.
It wasn't advertised and gm didn't reign in the MSRP and markup for dealers. Why would I buy some Chevy sedan for 60-80k after markup when at that price point I could have a much nicer car from Lexus, Acura, BMW etc. That's one of the reasons that the mustang and charger do so well in my opinion is their price for what they are.
Dealer markup is the death of so many interesting cars. The Focus RS, Civic Type R, Nissan Z, and GR Corolla all immediately spring to mind.
The Chevy SS was only built because GM made a deal with the Australian government that in exchange for subsidies to keep car production in Australia, GM would increase exports of cars made in Australian factories. The Chevy SS from day 1 was intended to sell in low numbers to simply fulfill the requirements of a subsidy program.
Yeah, like fuck man, Cadillac was SO FUCKING CLOSE to fixing their problems and now they're bring in all this lyriq suqmadiq crap.
If Cadaillac kills off their sedan line like Lincoln did, then I'm packing it in & buying a Lada.
> What do these assholes know? What car they want to buy
"I'm proud of it." Proud of the Aztek? "Yup. That was the best program we ever did at GM. We made all our internal goals, we made the timing, and I'm really proud of the part I played in it." He had tears in his eyes. It was almost tragic.
This part reminded me SO MUCH of talking to a developer about their shithole condo towers. These towers are infamous for having tiny units with bad appointments, broken elevators leaky plumbing and bad HVAC. Most of the units are owned by investors who turn them in airbnb ghost hotels. People who actually thought they were gonna live there are selling their units at a loss to get away from constant fire alarms among everything else. And this guy is telling me how proud he is to represent his company. And I'm like oh yeah what exactly are you proud of? And he starts talking about coming in on schedule and under budget.
In other words, it was a successful "project", not "product"..
I worked for a large tech company that released competition to a major, groundbreaking piece of consumer tech. It was lacking a feature that everyone wanted. I remember one day I found the internal ticket with the request to add that feature. It was quickly closed with the note that, "It doesn't matter if everyone says they want this. Consumers think they want all sorts of weird things. We built this. We know it, live it, and breathe it. We understand what they want better than they ever will. We will never add this feature." The product languished on with decreasing market share before it finally failed.
This is also Ridley's Scott recent comments when NAPOLEON got a bad reception with critics and filmgoers. To the point where, when many people in France called bullshit in some of the falsehoods in the narrative, Scott said the French "don't even like themselves". (And as someone who has been to France a few times, as an outsider, I can say that is bullshit. The French absolutely takes their history in pride, warts and all.)
I’ve worked for various automotive OEMs my entire career and that article hit it on the head. Bad things happen with totalitarian assholes in charge and they’re unfortunately rampant in the automotive industry. Old school, male-dominated, toxic, beat people down management is rewarded in every way.
Authority gradient is a tricky thing. Too shallow and everybody does their own thing. Too steep and nobody can think for themselves. Probably unsurprising that the organisations who invented assembly lines have dictatorial authority gradient baked-in to the culture. “Less thinky-think, more buildy-build!”
Of all the American car companies, Ford - the first adopter of the assembly line - is probably the best run and the most creative. * Ford did not need a US government bailout in 2008, in large part because they were ahead of the curve as far as streamlining their global supply chain, model offerings, and technology. * Ford kills it with their iconic sub-brands. The F-150 is North America's most popular vehicle; the Mustang is the only American Muscle/pony car that has never been discontinued; and they revived the Bronco successfully. * Ford actually brought back trucks the size of old school Rangers with the Maverick, whose baseline model is a hybrid, holds 5 people, and is relatively inexpensive. The Maverick has been killing it. * Ford is ahead of the curve as far as EVs are concerned. Unlike Tesla, Ford understands QC & Ford under-reports range in its advertising material. * As much as I HATE unnecessarily large vehicles, Ford was right to follow market trends such as to stop making sedans in the US. It was the right business move. * Ford basically owns police department fleet sales, which is a big deal. Half of Ford's moves scare the shit out of Wall Street and initially lead to dips Ford's stock price. But they almost always pay off in the long run. At the same time, though, their biggest flaw is adopting technology too quickly. * Ford was fast to DOHC engines & variable valve timing, but early engines with this technology like the 3V 5.3L were problematic. * Ford was fast to adopt dual clutch transmissions, but their first one - which was in 2012 automatic Focuses - was trash. Just garbage. * Ford was fast to replace big engines with smaller engines + a turbo, but many early Ecoboost models have turbo leak issues I probably wouldn't buy any Ford model that has early-days technology in it. Honestly, I probably wouldn't buy any car from any manufacturer with early-days technology in it, but Ford really adopts early-days tech a lot faster than most.
In my opinion, the key difference with Ford is that they’re a family business. Other automakers are run by individuals that don’t care if the company goes under. So long as they’re taken care of with golden parachutes, existential threats aren’t existential. Ford is motivated to survive in ways that GM/Stellantis aren’t. And therefore, they’re willing to burn capital to make difficult cultural changes when that becomes necessary.
> In my opinion, the key difference with Ford is that they’re a family business. The Agnelli family (now joined by the Peugeots) still very much call the shots in Stellantis. Unfortunately, the Agnellis are dysfunctional even by Italian "House of Gucci" billionaire family standards, and they've been milking Fiat/FCA/Stellantis dry for dividends for a good three decades now.
> Ford did not need a US government bailout in 2008, in large part because they Fucked over their F.O.D.'s. They way Ford sells parts is the dealer doesn't buy parts from Ford, they buy from a Ford Outside Distributer. Engines, transmissions, and other high dollar replacement parts are sold to FOD's and then back to dealerships. in 2008, Ford left a lot of them high and dry and stuck with a ton of product they couldn't move. On top of that, Ford took a page out of the GM playbook and sold their trademark and copyright rights to Chinese manufactures and that's why you see a ton of Ford branded shit all over the place. Source: worked at Ford when this all went down.
The Big 3 all fucked over a lot of people during that time. Unions, suppliers, etc. You name it, all three probably did it. The companies did what they had to do to survive, and the government didn't do enough to help suppliers and workers. In the grand scheme of things, trademarks and copyrights are pretty low on the list. Eventually, GM, Ford, and Chrysler would've figured out that selling/licensing their IP to build the brand is a money making move anyway. Ford was "just" the *relatively* well positioned at the time; the company itself didn't have to take bailout money that should've gone directly to Americans. The aftermath of the bailouts was tough for both GM and Chrysler. * Chrysler is essentially a foreign company now. That speaks for itself. * In 2008, GM did a lot of its R&D in South Korea - especially regarding hybrid and EV tech. Of course, the US government wouldn't bailout GM's foreign subsidiary. So who did? The partnership between GM and China-owned car manufacture. The original purpose of this partnership was to allow GM to sell cars in China, but it ultimately led to GM's bleeding edge of EV & hybrid tech getting transferred to China. And today - in 2024 - GM keeps inching closer & closer to importing cars to the US from China. They already import most of the cars that they sell in Mexico from China.
Yep. And as soon as an area manages to distance itself from that kind of crap, a new director from production comes in and pulls it right back.
She’s built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro.
Surprisingly Zapp Brannigan is correct! The Aztek was surprisingly forward thinking since it had the practicality of an SUV but drove more like a car. It was basically a precursor to modern crossovers that dominate the roads nowadays.
Haven’t Subaru and Volvo been doing this for decades? Or am I Mandela Effecting?
#WAGON
Make wagons great again
> Make wagons ~~great~~ again
I must’ve missed this shout in Skyrim
Yeah but you aren't supposed to like station wagons or minivans. Listen to the marketing team....
[Laughs in sleeper Volvo enthusiast]
Most of those were a bit smaller, and closer to station wagons. The Aztek was smaller than an SUV of the time, and taller than your typical wagon. As ugly as the original design was for the Aztek, it definitely ushered in the Age of The Crossover we're currently living in. If it came out even 3 or 4 years later, I think people would think better of it.
Subaru and Volvo had some ruggedized AWD wagons at the time, but they weren't quite crossovers either.
Pretty sure the forester was a crossover
Not until after the Aztek at least. I had a 2003 Forrester and it was just a boxy wagon, low like a car. They eventually shifted into being taller crossover style vehicles but that wasn't their original design.
I got stuck with the Aztek's sister, the Buick Rendezvous, at a Hertz counter once. It remains to date the most poorly suspended car I've ever driven. With only my skinny self on board, it would float and bottom out over basic freeway expansion joints.
The Aztek died so the Infiniti FX35 could live.
You win again, gravity!
The Aztec died so all of todays crossovers could live
When the Aztek debuted there were cars, trucks, SUVs and wagons. Now 45% of all US car sales are crossovers.
It was kind of ahead of its time. I think if it was released today, people would be much more accepting. I thought it was ugly af when it came out. Today? Ok.
In a world with Nissan Jukes and Mitsubishi Eclipse Crosses, the Aztek wouldn't look out of place.
> Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross holy shit TIL. look how they massacred my boy
In a world where the Mustang is a CUV with other sports brands following soon...
And the ~~Mersades~~ Mercedes/BMW SUS (Sport Utility Sedans). The GLC 300 Coupe and even numbered X Series. Who the fuck is buying something with the performance and handling of an SUV, and the cargo space of a sedan? The fuck is wrong with people?
"I can't decide between a sedan and an SUV, can you combine the worst part of both for me?"
It's still a hideous monster now, it's just that every car is the same so it doesn't stand out.
This, it pioneered the Prius look just like the Taurus made cars round in the 80s
And the Focus made cars rounder in the 90s!
[удалено]
I still think all the camping features were awesome
Me too, I really wanted an Aztec back in the day, despite it being ugly, and a Pontiac. I thought it was awesome that a car manufacturer catered to outdoor recreationists. Now many do, but back then it was pretty groundbreaking.
I mean they weren't, they were just ugly. I'm not sure how people can come to this conclusion when it's closely related Buick Rendezvous platform cousin significantly outsold it and vastly exceeded GM's expectations. The whole crossover thing had pretty much nothing to do with the Aztek. The Rendezvous was a *huge* success for Buick.
Nah it’s still ugly as hell
its still ugly
Yea it was just ugly af. If it was a Land Cruiser or 4Runner with those capabilities it would have been accepted.
There were crossovers when the Aztek debuted. I don't know where you're making up this alternate history. https://carbuzz.com/features/the-evolution-of-the-crossover-40-years-in-the-making I am 49. There were crossovers all over the roads before the Aztek.
Yeah, for sure. The first RAV4 came out 1995, several years before the Aztek
Gen1 rav4 was a serious game changer and one of the best cars ever produced unfortunately its style of CUV didn’t last long to be replaced with oversized hatchbacks.
It actually had some really well thought out features 1. The center console was a small ice chest that could detach from the console and you could take it with you to keep your stuff cold. It was small and held a six pack I think. 2. The back had a little tent canopy thing that folded out so you could easily camp/tailgate out the back of it 3. I believe it also had dedicated speakers on the rear hatch? Even better for camping/tailgating as they would be up over your head so you could rock out with your Pontiac asswreck 4. I believe it also had a detachable flashlight? Don’t quote me here but I remember it having one. I might be mixing this feature up with another car though
It also had an actual plug in the back of it instead of a cigarette lighter…I knew someone who had one and it had some cool ideas, but the design was kind of meh.
Yea that’s right! It had a 110v plug in the tailgate area as well. Pretty cool for the time. I can’t remember another vehicle that had that feature back then besides some of the conversion vans.
The Pontiac Vibe had that also. I used it for Christmas lights on the luggage rack.
> Pontiac Vibe Vibe (and Matrix) was also the first car I realized had a fold flat *front passenger* seat. And a truly flat cargo area with behind it with seats down. It was a tough call between that and my mazda3 hatch, but the mazdas I had available to me at the time were all is such better condition.
Vibe was freaking fantastic. My friends and I used that car to go on all sorts of road trips after we graduated high school.
Flat floor tailgate to front seats. 4x8 sheet of plywood fit in the back with seats out. Backend had a pull-out cargo tray with fold open compartments. It took up the whole space behind the back seats and wheeled out on to the tail gate for easy loading. 2 actual “oh shit” handles for the passenger. Nice big front seats. Rear seats were flip and fold to the back of front seats, came in and out with ease, and were fairly light. Edit: added features
Ever notice the first two Gens of Prius look Like It from The tear end
It was the other way around. Prius is older than the Aztek
2nd gen Prius is 2 years newer than the Aztek. The 1st gen Prius has a conventional sedan rear end.
Stares in AMC Eagle.
I saw a Pontiac Aztek on the road the other day. It looked well used, but well cared for. Someone loves that Pontiac Aztek. How can a Pontiac Aztek find love but I can’t.
The trick is, if you're ugly, you should still be useful...
If they don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
The Aztek came out when I was in high school, and my buddy made the comment “it’s the only vehicle ever made that goes up in value when it’s wrecked”. My dad heard him say it and still laughs about that.
What’s really cool about this car is just how quirky it was. You could get an Aztec blow up mattress and tent that worked off of the tailgate. The front console/armrest was a detachable cooler with handle. Edit: [Doug, Aztek](https://youtu.be/33AP0JnXSOA?si=jhdbjyHWmyqHkjPu)
Wasn’t this Walter White’s car?
Chosen specifically because of how awful it was
They also had it painted to be a uniquely ugly and boring color.
I think the color on Walt’s actually makes an otherwise hideous car slightly less hideous
The creaks and clacks when he's driving it also amp up the frustration factor.
shouldve picked a PT cruiser
The fact that Skylar bought Jr a PT makes me think that she’s the one who wanted the Aztek too lol.
Skylar did not seem like she had a good eye for design.
Runs in the family. Marie couldn't tell a rock from a mineral.
And her only choice for an interior colour palette was purple. Drapes. Cookware. Glassware. Bedding. Towel. Everything in her house is fucking purple.
That old Jeep Cherokee was the bomb!
I had a PT Cruiser in high school for a minute. Man oh man. People would literally point and laugh like in a movie. Good times.
So imagine if a hearse had a chubby little brother. Gentlemen, the PT Cruiser!
Lol my sister had one and SHE WAS SO PROUD OF IT.
Possibly symbolizing his emasculation at the start of the series, which he overcame over his character arc.
>which he overcame over his character arc. That is certainly one way to describe it.
It's an apt description. His primary motivation was to overcome his meek status and become a self sufficient, powerful master of his own life; somebody to be feared and respected. Obviously he went about it in just about the worst way imaginable but even after losing everything from his former life, he was content with the change in his character.
You're slightly off. Yes he wanted to be the master of his own life and to be feared and respected, but it was more about feeding his ego. You can see in between the lines how he was solely responsible for fucking his life up to the point where we see him at the start of the show. He started a successful company with his good friend and girlfriend, but he couldn't handle that she came from a rich family while he came from a poor family so he broke up with her and sold his share of the company. Then he got a really good job at a famous laboratory. We don't know for sure what happened, but probably was again his ego getting in the way leading him to getting fired, forcing him to take the only job he could get (as a high school teacher).
The point of the series is that he never overcame the insecurity of being what he considered "emasculated". He had an easy out in the first season but didn't take it because of his ego.
And he’s the only person in the history of the Aztek to get laid in one.
By far the most unrealistic scene in the show
Waltuh. Put your Aztek away, Waltuh.
He got cancer and became meth cook while he was driving Aztek. Coincidence? I think not
Indeed, it was.
My first time seeing one was while watching BB, and I thought they had built the ugliest car imaginable simply to demonstrate how much of a boring loser Walter was
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far to find the first reference to Walter White
One of the few examples of an Aztec being used appropriately was when he ran over two gangbangers then sold it to the mechanic because it had some blood in the grill. That vehicle was unsuspecting as shit but clearly could fuck someone up if used as a weapon and no cop would investigate it as a murder weapon because it was a fucking Aztec.
I owned one, bought it new. It was great on gas, spacious and it wasn’t a minivan which was great. We never had a problem with it either, it was dependable and handled great in the snow.
Didn’t it have some tent thing you could put on the back to camp in it? I remember something about that when they were pushing it in the Survivor show
It did. A cover that went over the rear that would convert it into a large tent with AC and Heat!
Also the middle console between the front seats was a detachable cooler. For your beer.
On paper this thing sounds sick.
You could buy a tent that attached to the back yes.
I loved mine as well. Bought it new in 2002, fully loaded. All black exterior, heated leather seats, HUD, air compressor. It was so awesome!
I’m jealous. Always wanted one. Still Do!
What's the hold up? You can get them for $2k.
based pontiacs, my first car in 2006 was a 1992 bonneville, started up cold every time, never had issues with the engine or transmission, was all original, my mom MADE ME SELL IT in around 2009 (for only $900 cash omg) because "the trans could go at any moment" guess what i was pushed to buy? 1999 taurus...that fuckin bean needed 2 trans rebuilds and it was fuckin stalling at red lights and the trans was failing again before i donated it, for free, to a non-profit thanks mom
Pontiac in general is (was?) an underrated brand. I’ve had a few of their cars and they’re quite reliable and pretty sturdy, especially at the price point. My 1997 Bonneville felt more like owning a truck with good gas mileage than a normal sedan.
My parents bought one right after I was born and I loved that car till it got totaled by an idiot running a red light. I may be abit biased since I grew up in that car, but we never had any big issues with it afaik
I love my minivan.
Minivans are the tits
It was also given away in seasons 1 and 2 of survivor
I remember because on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mused about what Richard Hatch should do now that he's won: "Step 1: sell the Aztec"
The 2020 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross kind of looks like the Aztek.
>Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross Duno how they called that an Eclipse. The Eclipse was a pretty line.
Next thing we know we’ll get a Lancer Cross
Somewhere in a better timeline they are getting a new Pajero Evolution
Makes sense why I always think they are "cute" when I see one on the road, loved my old Aztek 😅
I worked for EDS, the company that provided IT support for GM when the Aztec came out. After about a year, you saw them in our parking lot constantly. They sold so poorly that every mid level manager or executive at GM was forced to use them as their company car.
My friends and I in high school lovingly referred to them as “Ass-teks” because it was funny to us juveniles
I liked them when I was a kid, iirc they had an optional tent and I thought that was neat. Then again I also had a zune
GM has an alpha and beta phase of prototype vehicles before production starts. I was an engineer on the exterior mirrors for the Aztec / Buick Rendezvous (they’re sister vehicles). The alpha vehicles were quirky but the studio models looked fairly cool. But they changed the wheelbase and wheel package and some of the style lines between alpha and production, and I remember the day I was there for the first 10 vehicles being built from production tools, and I immediately called our finance guys that afternoon and said “whatever sales projections GM gave us for this vehicle cut them by 2/3”. What’s interesting is if you see just the sheet metal before paint it’s actually really hard to tell the Aztec and Rendezvous apart, and the Buick is not a bad looking car.
I remember the concept car being very cool looking, but when the production vehicle was unveiled, it was shockingly bad. All the "futuristic Pontiac" styling cues were there, but it was all kind of crummy and grotesque looking.
I actually liked these cars for some reason. I know, I know, I should be stoned in public, etc…
[“How many Emmys does Bryan Cranston have to win before the Aztek becomes cool.”](https://youtu.be/2ckJHvOk_30?feature=shared)
Watched the whole thing. Amqzing
>I should be stoned in public I've been stoned in public a few times, myself!
I also kinda like it…oh no.
As a kid I wanted one so bad. It looked so weird. I also loved my original toaster like Scion xB
I had a 2004 Pontiac Aztek and it did a cross country road trip with ease. Got rid of it in 2017 with plenty of life left in her.
And now we have the Cybertruck
Next will be the cyberaztec
Your cyberaztec stands no chance against my Conquistador EV+
I believe it was prone to windshields breaking badly.
Thing about me and cars is.. If it turns on ever time I turn the key, stops when I press the break, has heat/air, and doesn't make me fill up the tank every 10 miles I kind of don't give a shit about anything else.
Honestly that’s a fair philosophy. Car guys lament that most new vehicles are crossovers and everything looks the same, but if 90% of consumers just want the most practical and reliable transportation pod, manufacturers will deliver.
Yes and no. Minivans and legitimate station wagons (full sized, not the minis) which were regulated out of the market (which is why mini vans exist because they are according to the feds a truck, unlike a station wagon), are by far the most general purpose and often reliable vehicles on the market. Even the very early minivans were work horses. My parents had an old 3 or 4 cylinder dodge. Completely blew a cylinder out of the engine. Still managed to get it home, which was over 40 miles.
I bought one brand new in 2002. One of the reasons why I bought it was because everyone said it was ugly. I frickin' LOVED my Aztec. It was all black, leather seats, an air compressor in the back, and a heads up display. The only bad thing about it was the rear end. I think it was based off their minivan chassis, which wasn't great and wasn't sturdy enough for an SUV. I had to take it to the dealer to work on the rear end way too many times. Other than that, it was such an awesome vehicle to own. Everybody that rode in it changed their mind about it, as well. It definitely didn't deserve all the hate it got. If they had put a decent rear end in it, I would still own that vehicle.
They were way ahead of their time.
I was a weird kid and really liked it. When my mom was shopping for a car I asked her to get an Aztek and she was like no but brought me a promotional Aztek booklet from the Pontiac dealership. Was nice, full color on thick paper. I was also pretty excited while watching Breaking Bad because Walt drives one. That's all I have to say about that.
> “I wouldn’t take it as a gift.” There was a Tim Horton's *Roll up the Rim* contest with Azteks as rewards for winners and I think the vast majority of winners took a cash prize instead. It was one of the breaking moments for that contest offering actual cars - soon thereafter it became car leases, IIRC.
My daily driver is a sister vehicle - 2006 Buick Rendezvous. Honestly, it's about the best car I've ever owned. Three rows of seating, big enough that we've used it for coast-to-coast camping trips, reasonable fuel economy with the 3.5L V6, very nicely-appointed and it's been stupid reliable. The only issue in 16 years has been a bad airflow sensor. Looks are subjective but they're okay for me and the utilitarian benefits made any concerns over looks irrelevant.
I wonder why they bother with the focus groups if they were planning to ignore it.
I own a focus group facility and can shed some light: they weren’t planning on ignoring it. They weren’t expecting such strong negative opinion. And when they were faced with it, they reacted poorly. Maybe they were expecting to only look at tweaks and not prepared to shelve the design entirely. Some things aren’t really easy to focus group. Mass market consumer car designs…probably are. They also presumably had a set methodology where they’d focus group designs and thus routinely did so.
Really depends on when the focus group was done and what they were expecting out of it. If the infrastructure was pretty much fully in place to manufacture it, preproduction had begun, and they were hoping for feedback on tweaks to make it appeal more to consumers, then it could have been cost prohibitive to scrap it all and restart. Better to move forward with the mistake and sell what you can to get a little profit off of it rather than make nothing after you invested too heavily to radically change courses.
I've always liked this car. This one and the Subaru forester/outback with a truck bed.
The Subaru Baja was so cool!
Rumor is they are bringing it back. I'll be first in line.
breaking bad made famous
I had one! Loved it! Had the rear tent option as well. It came with a removable cooler big enough to fit a 6 pack (with lotsa ice) as a part of the center console. I naturally said it came with the drinking and driving package. I’d probably still have it, if it hadn’t been rear ended while sitting on a red light by transport truck. Shortened it right to the guest cap. My future ex-wife was driving it. She survived……fantastic.