When Lee Iococca came out with the Omni/Horizon Americas he justified the low price by saying he was saving manufucturing costs by limiting your choices--limited color, trim and options packages. You could pick your car from about three options packages. He made the offer, he claimed, to thank America for the bail out. I always suspected the car was getting long in the tooth and this was a clever way to capitalize on old tooling and a fully depreciated design. Nice gesture though..
Why bring this up? The whole idea that options on cars would be limited was very foreign to U.S. buyers at the time--mid '80s. Virtually everybody that bought new ORDERED exactly what they wanted. The pick lists were endless. It was extremely unusual to go down to a dealership and actually BUY something in stock. We always assumed that folks that did that were in some sort of hurry and probably criminals but certainly out of their minds. It was unAmerican to buy this way.
When the Wisconsin (Janesville?) Assembly plant outbid Flint Assembly for the Chevy Suburban, everybody knew they could not possibly honor their bid. That was precisely because Suburbans are still marketed the old fashioned way--every possible option is available on every truck so most Suburbans are truly unique. That factory never made good on their commitment, I am told. Local management did not fully comprehend the complexity of building 1700 custom trucks a day per line.
Take a look some time at something as simple as the pick list on a '68 Dodge Dart that could be ordered with a slant six, several small block options, a 440 and even the venerable hemi. Those were just the engine choices.
It seems inconceivable to me that anybody would have purchased a prestige care without ordering exactly what they wanted.
Thoughts?
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