Circuit City and DeLorean coming back
Return game tricky business, but no shortage of risk-takers
Phil Rosenthal - Chicago Tribune 1/31/2016
Circuit City has been out of business around seven years. DeLorean
automobiles stopped rolling off the assembly line in the early 1980s.
Guess someone has disturbed the space-time continuum, because they’re
back in business.
Turns out those who remember the past may be as likely to repeat it
as those who forget.
So long as brands, products and franchises own a piece of
hard-earned real estate in our collective subconscious, there’s always
the temptation to leverage the memory.
It’s possible to churn up excitement over the return of something
whose exit elicited mostly ambivalence. Though it’s ultimately necessary
to deliver in the marketplace, deja vu tends to beat “And who are you?”
But you’re excused if you feel as though you passed through into a
time warp upon finding a Bush and a Clinton running for president, a new
“Star Wars” film with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill in
theaters along with Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, and “The
X-Files” back on Fox. Had people missed Circuit City, an online-only
revival attempt a few years after the chain went belly up might not have
been short-lived.
This latest iteration of what was the No. 1 big-box tech chain in an
era before Apple Stores will involve smaller boxes of several different
types.
Trade publication Twice, which broke the news that a couple of New
York retail industry veterans are leading the chain’s rebirth, reported
that the first new Circuit City, likely in Dallas, should be open in
June. There also will be Circuit- City.com , licensed kiosks, mobile
stores, branded merchandise and more.
What these various entities will share with the past, all they will
share in some cases, is the name and familiar red-and-white logo.
The stores — far more compact than the chain’s old outlets and
stocked with smartphones, tablets, gaming gear, notebooks, drones and
3-D printers — sound less like a Circuit City than an AT&T or Verizon
store. But bigger wasn’t better before, and there’s no point in dying
the same way twice.
If people remember falling out of love with Circuit City, they’re
probably still as impressed as ever with the stainless steel body and
gull-wing doors of the old DeLorean DMC-12. Because that’s as close as
most people ever got.
They looked better than they drove.
The Tribune’s Jim Mateja, in a 1981 test drive of DeLorean serial
No. 1, was similarly dazzled by its appearance even as he acknowledged:
“It’s not that the DeLorean is the finest machine ever made
— it’s not. It has some flaws.”
Critics would ding the car for, among other things, having only
average acceleration, technical glitches, the tendency of the doors to
stick, and the absence of features like air bags that had been touted in
the run-up to the debut.
It is oft-repeated that Johnny Carson, an investor in the car
company whose talk show reruns are now back on TV nightly 11 years after
his death, had his DeLorean break down in public.
What’s easier to verify is that Robert Shapiro, his lawyer, entered
a no-contest plea in 1982 on Carson’s behalf after he was pulled over
for drunken driving in his DeLorean.
It was cost overruns and
— as John DeLorean had the cars built in Ireland to cash in on
government incentives there — high import tariffs that undercut a
business plan, further aggravated by a lackluster U.S. auto market at
the time.
The cars were unable to command their $25,000 list price (equivalent
to almost $68,000 today), $8,000 more than a Corvette at the time, so
many of the almost 9,000 that were produced sold at a discount.
Amid cash flow issues, DeLorean was caught on video trying to raise
money in a drug trafficking sting. He was acquitted, arguing he had been
entrapped, but the company could not be saved.
For the last 20 years or so, Stephen Wynne, a mechanic and
entrepreneur outside Houston who acquired the original company’s parts
and logo, has been supplying DeLorean owners with what they need to
maintain their vehicles.
Crediting a recently approved federal low-volume manufacturing
measure as making it possible, Wynne told a Houston TV station he
intends to produce four or so new replica DeLoreans a month
— around 300 total — beginning next year.
It can’t hurt that recent public interest in the “Back to the
Future” movie trilogy, stoked by its vision of what 2015 would look
like, showcased the DeLorean, albeit not always as a reliable vehicle.
Even before filmmakers opted to make the distinctive car their time
machine, it was already kitsch, the car’s demise preceding the first
film’s release by three years.
“The way I see it,” inventor Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) explained
to young Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), “if you’re gonna build a time
machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”
A few years ago, Daren Metropoulos, among the people who took over
Hostess and set about bringing the Twinkie back to market after time
away from store shelves, talked about how some products strike a special
chord with consumers. He’d seen it earlier in helping return Pabst Blue
Ribbon beer to prominence.
“Some brands are lucky enough to get that sizzle factor that other
brands can’t achieve no matter how big of a budget they have, no matter
how big of a mainstream audience they have,” Metropoulos told me.
So you might find yourself online eyeing a pricey box of Quaker
Oats’ Quisp cereal or visiting a boutique candy store that still sells
Razzles because these things take you back. The appeal of a Twinkie,
such as it may be, is surely enhanced by knowing your mom can’t stop you.
It’s possible a new De-Lorean looks good if your inner child is
still collecting toys.
As for Circuit City, anyone remember its return policy?
philrosent...@tribpub.com Twitter @phil_rosenthal
--
*================================================ Duane Whittingham -
N9SSN (ARES/RACES, EmComm, Skywarn & Red Cross)
http://www.radiodude.info ================================================*
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