Chevys driving down the Champs-Elysees?

Dan Carney • E-mail

After existing as an almost entirely America-only brand since its foundation by race driver Louis Chevrolet in 1911, General Motors is moving ahead with an ambitious plan to launch its Chevrolet brand in Europe.

The idea is to market Chevy — a brand most Europeans know only through American films and television — as “cool, distinctive Americana,” according to Wayne Brannon, executive director of Chevrolet Europe.

The effort has so far seen tremendous success, he notes, making Chevy the fastest-growing brand on the continent with 34 percent sales growth.

“We are winning big time in the marketplace,” Brannon said.

If you feel the notion of Impalas on the Champs Elysees and Tahoes in Milan is discordant, you’re right. Chevy is, after all, a company that for years photographed its new models wearing a front license plate that read “USA 1,” referring to Chevy’s then-perennial status as the top-selling brand in America.

“V6 and V8 engines sound great in Detroit, but they sound horrible in other parts of the world,” observed Rebecca Lindland, director of industry research for Global Insight.

That’s why GM launched Chevy in Europe with an array of small cars sourced from the company’s Korean subsidiary, the former Daewoo. This of course begs the question of whether Europeans feel misled by the company offering Korean compacts while promising “cool, distinctive Americana.”

“We are a brand in transition,” Brannon explained. “We still have some of the former portfolio of products in place.”

Even so, it’s difficult for a global brand to market itself with one strong identity because it can have a different brand image in each of the countries where it’s sold, Lindland said.

Chevy’s enjoying success in Europe right now, helping GM to post the largest sales growth — 9 percent — of any manufacturer in the region in 2007.

“It’s really working out well for us,” remarked Carl-Peter Forster, president of GM Europe. Adding Chevrolet to the existing Opel brand (sold in the United Kingdom as Vauxhall) made a good combination, he said, because “the brands don’t have a lot of overlap.”

chevrolet.co.uk The tiny Chevy Matiz city car is already available in Europe.

Over time, the Korean minicars sold in Europe will be replaced by more substantial vehicles from a variety of sources, including the United States. But first it was important to establish a foothold in the market with the kind of fuel-efficient, easy-to-park vehicles European consumers require.

This not only makes it practical for them to buy cars from Chevy as the company launches its effort, it also helps steer the public’s perception of the brand, said Brannon.

“The thinking was, ‘Chevrolet is too premium, it is not for me, they use too much fuel,’” he said. Selling small cars for a few years has helped open local consumers’ minds so that they now are willing to consider the bow-tie brand, he added.

With that necessary foundation of practical, affordable Euro-style small cars established Chevy will be positioned to start selling real American Chevys to satisfy those customers who want the real thing. The company already sells the Corvette in Europe, but that car was established previously as its own brand, separate from the Chevys being introduced now.

So the 2009 Camaro will be Chevy’s standard-bearer, providing authentic Americana to a limited number of customers. Because the Camaro is are not built with Europe’s new pedestrian protection standards in mind, sales are limited to 1,000 per year of each body style.

The flexibility of the definition of “body style,” however, means that the right-hand drive models for the United Kingdom count as a separate model, and so do convertibles, so Chevy can sell as many as 4,000 Camaros per year in Europe.

The next-generation Chevy Cobalt could also be a candidate for export to Europe, and that car will likely meet pedestrian protection requirements so it could be sold in larger volume. Future compact truck and SUV models are also obvious opportunities for Europe.

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