High End Brands

Podcast Episode: 0237
Automotive Prestige: Innovations and Challenges 

   What truly defines luxury in the automotive world, and how have opulent brands endured the test of time? Embark on a journey with us as we unravel the captivating history of luxury automobiles, from their golden era, to their evolution into symbols of status for the affluent high class of society.

​      Luxury. It's been around for a long time and in the automotive industry luxury has been king since the beginning. It's always been there, hell. The advent of the automobile was essentially a product for only the rich, but as time has passed and more people were able to get into the automotive industry, the luxury and even the high end of the luxury brands slowly diminished. And as everyone got into more and more automobiles, the top tier of the luxury world seemed to disappear. Only a few have managed to hold on to their presence and today it seems like a second coming of the ultra-luxury brands is among us. But what really did happen during those past times and why did the ultra-luxury makes disappear by the 1950s, one of the highest growth periods of the automobile in history? Well, that's a question that AutoLooks is going to take a look at today on this week's episode.
 
      Welcome back to the AutoLooks podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by, check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all on the Corporate Links website page, as well as help pages for you to find information about all kinds of different products that reach out into the small little tidbit of niche areas of the automotive industry, from clothing to websites that allow you to build your own vehicles and, hell, even 3D parts. They're all available on the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by PodBean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with either the AutoLooks Podcast, e-com entertainment group or the host of the AutoLooks podcast, Mr. Everett Jay, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. 

     So, like I said in the beginning, high-end brands. The original advent of the automobile created tons of high-end brands, top tier of the luxury world. You have to remember this is at a time that the automobile was starting to show us what it could be and because of its high value, it only catered to the top tier of the world. And at that point in time, in the early parts of the 20th century, the top tier of the automotive buying public was either government officials, rich millionaires or royal families. Yes, royalty reigned supreme at the beginning of the automobile industry and because of it, so many great automobile companies existed.
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        Back in the early days, even in my home country, Canada, we actually had some top tier luxury makes. One of them that actually appeared not too long ago when Prince William and Princess Kate, or Duchess Kate, whatever you want to call her got married. It appeared again a you want to call her got married. It appeared again A McLaughlin. Now, McLaughlin is not a big name that you would ever think of, not to the likes of Rolls-Royce, Duesenberg or even Bentley, but McLaughlin was there at the beginning and because they were so famous for building some of the most prestige cutters and carriages in the British Empire when they got into the automobile production, that's what they were building. They were building top tier luxury products. They were not building vehicles for your average consumer; they were building vehicles for royalty and with it they gave us some of the most amazing vehicles of the time.
 
     Like I said, back in the early days in the automobile, it was the rich and the royals who bought vehicles. Now, when Henry Ford started moving the moving assembly line and showcased to the world that you can build cars on a mass scale for your everyday employee, he made it so that anyone could buy a car Now, as Oldsmobile had brought us the moving assembly line to the automobile industry. Ford pioneered it and by building on mass scale he brought the price of the automobile down. But even during those days, during the 20s, the 30s, there were still lots of high-end luxury makes around the world, top tier of the luxury world, like we said. Mclaughlin was there in my home country, Canada, but you also had Rolls-Royce, Duesenberg, Packard, LaSalle, Bugatti, Bentley. You also had Rolls-Royce, Duesenberg, Packard, LaSalle, Bugatti, Bentley, pierce, arrow, Delage and, hell, even Mercedes. Back in those days were at the top of their game. They outran everything else. Luxury wasn't really a question. 

​      Now, as we talked about the divisions of the big three, how we went from the bottom tier of companies like Chevrolet to a top tier of LaSalle, luxury makes like Buick and Cadillac were still there. They were the ones that when you got out of that standard rut of being a general worker, a standard employee, somebody who just worked on the production line, and you made it up to a supervisor role, you can go out and buy that Buick. And then, as you moved up and you managed to get a seat on the board, you could afford that Cadillac. But unless you were the CEO, you weren't getting something like a LaSalle, you weren't rolling around in a Pierce Arrow or a Duesenberg.
 
      You have to remember the early days in the automobile for high-end brands that were very specific and with only Rolls-Royce still following that suit today. The high-end brands of the past catered to the people buying their vehicles. Whatever you wanted is what you got. If you want a gold leaf everywhere, they would do it. The coach building industry was so big at this point in time that no two high-end products were exactly the same. They were all catered to the purchaser. People buying these vehicles were the ones making the decisions about what they wanted. Like we said, companies like Bugatti, pierce Arrow and Rolls-Royce catered to all those people, and they did it because the automobile was a way to showcase your affluence in the world.
 
      Whereas today, owning an automobile is something of well, literally luxury for anyone, we've gotten to a point again where the automobile is a status symbol. Owning a car hell, owning multiple amounts of vehicles, is a status symbol in today's world. Owning some of these high-end brands means you don't need to take public transit. You can go about your business as you want. There are so many other ways to be mobile in the world today. The high-end makes are starting to come around Now.
 
     As the 1920s were roaring and tons of companies were out there making these cars, by the early 30s, the fall of the American economy and a global empire started to fall back upon itself. The automobile industry started to retract, and that's when we saw the loss of some of these high-end makes. Because the rich at the top were starting to disappear from the market. They had to scale back, and purchasing a brand-new custom-tailored vehicle to themselves every year or two was not something they could do. They just needed to keep their company going to ensure that they can sustain longevity in the marketplace that was disappearing underneath of them. 

​      Yes, the 30s really brought out the fall of the high-end makes and, with the world heading into a great war during the late 30s and into the 40s, production for these makes would soon disappear. The ones that couldn't make it to help the war effort would be lost forever. And the ones that made it to help the war effort would be lost forever. And the ones that could make it through the war effort, unless they can help on a grand scale, they may not be able to live on. And even though the 40s showed very little change in the automobile industry by its end. When all of those men and women were coming back from overseas and coming home, a lot of them were looking for jobs. They wanted to move to this new place called the suburbs, to own a house, to own a piece of property. They didn't care about the opulence of owning these luxury cars. The high-end brands were soon disappearing. Royal families were being taken over by mass governments, which means the opulence that could afford all these major high-end brands once before was disappearing on a global scale.
 
       Like we said, the 30s brought down some of the big players. Duesenberg and Pierce Arrow by the 1940s had succumbed to the fall of the industrial revolution. Companies like Packard had moved into bed with Studebaker and brought their image down from a high-end brand to a luxury tier. To sustain themselves in the automotive marketplace, Rolls-Royce and Bentley became one, with Rolls-Royce catering to royal families and Bentley catering to the high-end clientele. They managed to keep themselves together all the way up until the 1990s. Bugatti with the death of both Jean Etat's son and Mr. Bugatti himself, that company had lost its image. Its opulence was disappearing. We started losing some of the top makes. Companies like Lagonda, pierce Arrow, Duesenberg, Packard, Auburn, Delage, LaSalle, Hispano Suiza, Daimler, Prince Motors, Delahaye, hell, even Spyker, Peerless, Stutz, Ruxton all started disappearing because the market couldn't sustain so many high-end brands. 

​     People were looking at luxury. In America during the 1950s, owning a Cadillac or a Lincoln or a hell even a Chrysler, meant you were at the top tier of your game, not like today. Owning a Rolls Royce means you've hit the top. Why? Because your vehicle is catered to yourself. But during the 1950s people didn't care about that. They didn't care about these specialty vehicles. They just wanted something luxurious. They wanted to go down to the dealership and buy something. This isn't like the 1920s, the 30s and into the 40s where people would go down and buy products like a DeLay Fajardo, a Lincoln Continental Town Car, a Maybach Zeppelin, a Lagonda V12 Rapide or even a Horch 853A. They wouldn't go down and buy products like these. They were custom built to their tailored needs Because, like we said, during the early days of the automobile, everybody would go out and personalize as much as they possibly could.
 
      Why? Because we all wanted to be different. We didn't want to all own the exact same vehicle, and the high-end marketplace was the main part of that. People in the everyday products couldn't afford to customize their vehicles. They couldn't afford to go with different engines, they couldn't afford to go with different panel types, they couldn't afford to change up tires and wheels. They just needed a vehicle to get it from point A to point B.
 
    So, the only world of the aftermarket industry essentially was the personalization features of the high-end clientele. That's where companies like Lagonda, Horch, Graham, Maybach all made their money working with coach builders to build custom-tailored vehicles to their high-end clientele. These were vehicles specifically tailored to their needs and their wants, their desires and everything, everything else. These vehicles would be made to go with what watch, what suit and everything else that they owned. We were allowed to do that back then because it was the only way you could personalize your products that you owned. Today anybody can do that, literally. I can go down to either Walmart or Canadian Tire and buy aftermarket modifications for fake air ducts, a hood scoop, aftermarket rims, hell even buy cheap, crappy hub caps to make my car look a little bit different. You can customize your car to so many different variations and anybody can afford this. Even people who live in the bottom tier of the automotive world can afford to do this. Well, when everybody started coming back by the 1950s from the war effort, the aftermarket industry hot rodders you gotta remember the babies born during the war times were starting to get into driving during the 50s. These were the people who created the first hot rod markets. These were the first people to create aftermarket variations of standardized products.
 
     Like I said, what does that have to do with the high-end marketplace? Well, as we all saw, by the 1940s most of these high-end brands had disappeared. Why? A global economy failed, an American economy failed and royals were soon being replaced by governments. Many countries changed during the World War and with-it royal families disappeared. There were no czars in Russia. It was now the USSR. There may have been a communist government, but there were no czars running it. There was no royal family. There was nobody who wanted these specially catered vehicles. You only had to build them for government officials and that's it. You could do that with a standard luxury make, and in North America we had the continental brand, the imperial brand that spawned out of both Chrysler and Lincoln. Those were our only high-end vehicles that we ever saw again In North America. As it is today, lucid is the closest thing you could find to a high-end brand in the American marketplace. High-end products don't exist.
 
      In the 1950s, when everybody came back and the economy started to grow, the demands from the high-end marketplace were not there. Giant CEOs can roll around in a Cadillac just as much as anyone else. Your famous Hollywood actors wouldn't show up in a custom-built Auburn Speedster anymore. They'd roll up to a Premier in a Cadillac Eldorado. They would do it in the same cars that you and I could enjoy. Sure, the 50s started giving us some product, like the Lagonda 3-liter, the Imperial Crown limos, the Jewel 4-runners or hell, even the Imperial LeBaron's. We got some high-end clientele coming. 

​      Through the 50s and into the 60s, the high-end marketplace did start to rebound only because of a growing economy. As the world's economy started to grow, money was changing more and more hands, we were getting more millionaires and we were getting more people who would look for opulence. But this is also a time when products like the brand-new released Lamborghini came onto the world and people asked Ferruccio, why do you think the world needs another luxury sports car? The market was there. The 50s and 60s were a major time for growth in a global economy. But by the end of the 60s the baby boomers were starting to move into the economy and with so many of them, the demands for jobs far outstripped the ones that existed. This led to a slide in our economy once again.
 
       Sure, the baby boomers were creating an economy that could support so much, but the rise of the flower power and a generation that did not want anything to deal with opulence and showing off shied away from all these high-end brands. Wanting a Mercedes-Benz or a Cadillac Okay, yeah, we can afford it, but we don't care. This personalization of opulence wasn't there. It was there at the bottom end, with muscle cars and pony cars, but at the top tier, the high-end marketplace was not there. Coachbuilders were only involved in the creation of emergency vehicles. Now, they built limos for airport shuttles, held the Meteor Ambassador, the car that became Ghostbusters, ecto-1, the Cadillac Fleetwood Ambulance was from Coachbuild. These were companies who, decades before, were building custom-built Duesenberg’s and Pierce Arrows for clientele that demanded them, that demanded specific types of wood, demanded opulence in their car. But, like we said, the market was bigger now than it was 30 years previous. So why didn't the high-end marketplace come back? Well, but, like we said, the market was bigger now than it was 30 years previous. So why didn't the high-end marketplace come back? Like we said, the world didn't demand it. The world had one of the largest amounts of middle-class income earners that history had ever seen. There were more people in the middle than there was at the top, and the people at the top just did not want to showcase what they had compared to everyone else. 

​​       Luxury was not king, and as the fall of gas prices and another global slip in our economies during the 70s and 80s took hold, high-end brands eventually took a back seat and were completely whittled down. As both the imperial and continental brands disappeared, Mercedes became an average luxury brand. Companies like Packard no longer existed. Same with Vanden Plas, Lagonda. Maserati stepped back into the light as just a standard luxury makes. These were companies that weren't about opulence, because the top tier of the high-end marketplace was non-existent by the mid-70s. Big burly engines and expensive vehicles were only to a select few. It really wasn't until the late 90s, when Rolls-Royce got taken over by BMW and Bentley got picked up by Volkswagen, that these high-end brands started to showcase what they could do for the world yet again.

      The rise of the Fast and the Furious days of the early 2000s gave rise to personalization not seen in the luxury industry in decades. You have to remember, the high-end brands that existed in the early days of the automobile were all about personalization. Like we said, no two Pierce Arrows were exactly the same. Same with Duesenberg’s, Rolls-Royce and Maybach they were all different. Duesenberg’s, Rolls-Royce and Maybach’s they were all different. Sure, similar running gears, same designs, but they were built on a personal level for each individual. The Fast and the Furious days showed us that and BMW realized that they needed to bring that back with Rolls-Royce. You have to remember, ever since the 50s, Rolls-Royce and Bentley were just high-end cars. They're a vehicle you would buy and keep forever because it would last forever. You would pay for that real wood, real leather. You would pay for a product that was put together by hand at one of the most prestige manufacturing facilities in the world. You paid for what you got and BMW realized that's what made the high-end brands.
 
       See, BMW was famous for building luxury cars Hell. They originally got started in airplanes and branched out into sport appeal, sedans and sports cars. BMW knew luxury and they now had to do it on a sporty scale. But when they got their hands on Rolls-Royce, they realized that Rolls-Royce can specialize every single detail of their vehicles to each clientele. These are people paying half a million dollars for a car? We can't just sell them a half a million-dollar car. That's the exact same as their neighbors. We need to make it different.
 
       BMW realized that Volkswagen never really did with Bentley. They kept Bentley as a high-end version of Volkswagen products, with only the Mulsanne riding on its own platform. They kept its opulent style, but not the personalization factor. You would pay a ton of money to get top-tier products but, unlike Rolls-Royce, you wouldn't pay to get it completely personalized. Well, Rolls-Royce started changing and you have to remember, in the 1980s, like the late 70s and 80s, we had a few high-end brands try and come about again 66, we saw a Duesenberg concept try and come through. Maserati had the Quattroporte Royale in 1979. Monteverde, 1974. And Chrysler tried to bring back the imperial name in the 80s, even though they were on their last legs. They tried to do it, but with Rolls-Royce sitting at the top tier of high-end brands no-transcript. Even vehicles like the Pangini Zonda and even the Murcielago would get personalized. Well, Maybach, they could do it when they brought their Landaulet. Well, let's give a convertible sedan. Maybe this will change it. It'll give us that opulent feeling from the past. It never did for being a Mercedes product. The high-end clientele didn't want something to look like their neighbor's Mercedes. Maybach failed because they failed to realize that their products needed to look high-end. They needed their own brand image. Having a high-end name like Maybach didn't mean anything in this world in the early 2000s, even though billionaires were starting to become a bigger play in the world. 

       As the telecom industry took off, with companies like Google, Facebook and even Amazon giving us more billionaires in the world, these high-end brands had more customers, but these customers demanded different products. Where companies like Daimler were starting to disappear, Rolls-Royce was showing us that you needed to personalize. Well, the high-end marketplace managed to stick around even without Rolls-Royce and Bentley in the market.

​       It became the high-performance, high-end brands when Bugatti came back with the Veyron. Bugatti a high-end brand from its past, building saloons and grand touring products for the high-end clientele near the beginning of the automobile industry. They were now giving us were the most opulent, high-end supercars in the world. They were showing us the top tier luxury and high-end brands. With the release of the Veyron, people were starting to look at what made the Veyron different than buying your standard Murcielago or even a 458 Ferrari. What made it worth so much more its name, its image and its personalization. Bugatti built in limited numbers and created tons of special editions to ensure that there's so many differentiations between all their vehicles. This is what set them out as a high-end brand in the supercar industry. Well, you can't just sit on this forever. More companies are going to want to get in and high-end brands started becoming big money makers for the automobile industry.
 
       By the teen years of the 2000s. We started to see a few more. It wasn't just all about Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Bugatti was back. Audi released special editions of their Audi products the Horch editions. The Maybach became a top-tier brand for Mercedes, bringing in more money but creating a standard Mercedes product with a little bit more personalization to it. Russia gave us Oris, as Putin wanted to roll around in a vehicle made from his own country and his own country's technology. 

​      In China, HongQi is kicking around country and his own country's technology. In China, HongQi is kicking around, and they decided to go after the marketplace. In Japan, the crown names the top tier of the Toyota world is now taking shape and the crown name is now moving into more of a top tier of the luxury world, with the Century products becoming their high-end clientele. Yang Wang is now going after that, showcasing to the world technology and pure luxury on a scale never seen before from a Chinese company. Maserati is trying to push themselves back to competing on the same grounds as Bugatti is high-end.
 
      Delage is back, but unfortunately does not have the vehicles. It needs to be a high-end brand. The high-end products are making a way back. General Motors is pushing Cadillac one step up, knowing that premium products really don't have a place in the automotive world anymore. You go from standardized products to luxury products. Premium products, like Buick and even Oldsmobile before, are non-existent. Why do you think Chrysler is having such a hard time in the marketplace? Unless you build yourself as a luxury make, you can't make it in a world today where people are buying less and less, where a standard make goes from standard all the way into a premium end and luxury makes start at the bottom end of the premium and move to the top tier of nearing the high-end brands. 

     High-end brands mean personalization. Today, like we said, lucid is one of the only ones in America that allows you to do this, because every part of a Lucid vehicle can't be personalized. For what you want, you pay for it. You paid less than getting a Rolls-Royce, but you pay for personalization. Stellantis has realized that Maserati needs to move back into competing with Rolls-Royce. Tata is now looking at building their own luxury make and wanting to move Jaguar up against the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. The high-end world means you can make more money off products very similar to your luxury makes. Like we said, the Mercedes-Maybach S580 is an S-Series with more personalization. The HongQi L5 is essentially what the government rolls around in, but personalized ability for the billionaires in the Chinese marketplace. Yang is trying to move into that territory.
 
      The high-end marketplace of today is becoming what it was over a hundred years ago Personalization, because anybody can go to the dealership and buy a Shelby Mustang. Now you can buy aftermarket and sport appeal products from your standard dealership. So even building your own aftermarket product doesn't mean anything in today's global economy. My tiny little pocket rocket in the garage doesn't mean anything today Doesn't mean that I spent hours building it or that all the work on it is done by me. All the repairs, all this upgrading, all this extra performance. People don't care about that anymore. But when you spend tons of money to get a high-end product, they care about that. If there was a Rolls-Royce sitting in my driveway, people would look at me completely different than having a 1989 Toyota Supra completely customized. Why, I'm just a kid that wants to have fun. But with the Rolls Royce I mean business.
 
      In today's world, the high-end market is moving out. Toyota is moving their century name up. Nissan, right before their fall, was considering bringing back the Prince name to give high-end variations to their Infiniti products. Bugatti has played around with the idea of bringing back a Grand Touring product or even a sedan or SUV. The crown nameplate is moving from one tier higher than what Lexus gives us now. De Tomaso is now considering a sedan and SUV as well, showcasing to us a high-end supercar product that competes on the same level as Bugatti. De Tomaso is giving us that high end products. Maserati wants to move up. Lucid is up there.
 
      Delage needs to bring back some vehicles and if Maserati moves up, should Stellantis bring back the old Imperial name and give Chrysler their top-tier brand? Should Cadillac and its Celeste shy away from going after high-end clientele and create the LaSalle brand or hell? Should we bring back Daimler for Jaguar Instead and create the LaSalle brand or hell? Should we bring back Daimler for Jaguar Instead of Jaguar moving up the scale. Shouldn't Daimler just come back and become its high-end brand? Same with Aston Martin? Do away with the DBX and the Rapide from Aston Martin and give it to the Lagonda nameplate. There are so many other high-end brands that we could bring out in a world filled with billionaires. There are tons of people out there who are looking for these vehicles and tons of people who want to purchase them.

    We live in a world today where high-end is becoming king, where the 50s and 60s only showed us that luxury makes are all you needed to be better than your neighbor. Today, high-end makes are what means you've made it. You're not a well-known person in the world unless you're cruising around in a high-end brand. If you own a Bugatti, you're better than the guy with a Ferrari. If you own a Rolls, you're better than the guy who owns a Cadillac. If you own a Yangwang in China, you're better than the guy that owns a Roewe. If you own a Sentry in Japan, you're better than the guy that's rolling around in a BMW, because that vehicle is made for the emperor and the government on key same thing Vehicles built for the top tier world leaders and people who run global industries.
 
      High-end brands are what we want, and the rise of the high-end brand is among us again. We may have lost it in the past only because we chose a different avenue, but the high-end brands are slowly making a comeback. Luxury cars are everywhere and now are seen as more of the premium products that they once were before. High-end products are the ones who cater to every personalization factor. We don't care about new technology in our vehicles. Anybody can have new technology in any vehicle. You can get new technology in a freaking Kia Forte, but my Rolls Royce is the only thing that I can get with that star ceiling. High-end brands they're here and they're coming for your wallet. ​

     So, what do you think about the high-end brands? Which companies do you feel should take another stab at the high-end brand marketplace? Tell us in the comments below, write us a comment, send it in, click the like button and follow us. Tell the AutoLooks podcast what you think about high-end brands. Who do you really think is going to be hitting the high-end clientele of the world today? Do you think that some of these companies can really take on the high-end marketplace and make it into a market that's controlled by companies like Bugatti and Rolls-Royce? Or do you think companies like Yang Wang and Honky, and even Oris, will falter and eventually become the luxury makes that we all know, like Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus and even Mercedes. Tell us in the comments below and after that click the like button to hear more stories from the AutoLooks podcast.
 
     And then, after that, stop by the website, stop by AutoLooks.net. Read some of the reviews. Check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Find all. Check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Find all of these car companies that we've talked about on the podcast today, all on the AutoLooks.net website. And, while there, read some of our reviews about some of these amazing cars that we've talked about. Sure, we don't write reviews about everything, but the ones we do write, trust me, they're amazing reviews to listen to, to understand, about automotive design. All from the AutoLooks.net website.
 
     The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by PodBean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. The AutoLooks Podcast is hosted by the one and only doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, the owner, the operator and the full functioning personnel of the Ecomm Entertainment Group, Mr. Everett Jay, along with DJ Cars-ON, bringing us the background music from the AutoLooks.net podcast. The AutoLooks podcast is distributed by PodBean.com and hosted by myself, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay. So, for myself, Everett Jay, the AutoLooks podcast and e-com entertainment group, strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride that the high-end brands are going to take us on. 

Everett J.
​#autolooks