One of the other car manufacturers to have disappeared during the 21st Century – Saab – was also more than accustomed to decontenting. In fact, decontenting was one of the reasons Saab ceased to thrive or survive! As the Swedish marque’s Product Planning manager for some years, I lived through much of the torment and frustrations caused by Saab’s new masters – General Motors (GM) – which never fully understood the subtilise of the Saab brand or its highly well educated, independent and individual customers. As a vehicle maker more accustomed to developing new models to a price constraint, rather than quality, GM was much too focused on the final profit margin to ever allow the innovative, engineering-led Saab the freedom and flexibly to do things its own way, rather the follow the stifling GM ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’ business approach.
One example of this cost-conscious approach that springs to mind, with new cars built down to a price, potentially at the alter of quality, was the boot floor covering of the versatile Saab 9000 CS hatch. Some bright spark within GM (briefly) introduced a initiative for the Trollhattan factory-based production line staff to save costs; a scheme it had enjoyed a degree of success with in its other global brand factories at Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Opel, Vauxhall, Holden, and so on.
This scheme rewarded any employee that suggested a potential cost saving with a heathy bonus. In Saab’s case, a Trollhattan production line worker suggested cutting off a section of the plush boot carpet, previously found under the split folding rear seat base, unseen when the seat was up in its usual position, as found at the rear of a 9000 CS. The cost saving for each small slither of carpet was deemed enough by GM to award the Saab factory employee a cash prize large enough to fund a brand new house extension he had previously been saving for.
This might have been fine, where it not for the fact that historically Saab enjoyed the highest customer retention loyalty of any car brand globally, meaning that former 9000 owners soon noticed the lack of carpet under the foldable rear seat squab. They soon protested at this cheapskate solution, forcing Saab through goodwill and reputation-saving to restore the full-length carpet within weeks of making this ‘false economy’ change. GM swiftly withdrew its employee cost saving idea initiative, by which time the employee had already gone ahead and had his new extension built, meaning that GM couldn’t reclaim its award and this short-sighted piece of decontenting actually lost the corporation money.