Automakers Move Ahead Despite September Sales Worries

With less than 10 days to go in September, the storm clouds are already piling up over the month's sales figures. Some experts are predicting the annual selling rate could drop to about 8.8 million units, which would be worse than the worst month of the industry meltdown — supposedly now over.

Does this mean it's going to rain on the industry's "Everything is Okay Now" parade? Well, the overall auto news remains decidedly mixed, and I'm going to have to stick to a forecast of "partly cloudy" for at least a while longer.

For example, the Detroit Free Press is bragging that the main floor of Cobo Hall, where the Detroit auto show is held, is already "full" for the 2010 event. But there is no news about whether any of the OEMs that left the show in recent years — from Porsche to Nissan — are actually returning. So, we could just be talking about a gerrymandering of last year's Cobo floor plan.

Then there are reports that Volkswagen is looking to get its hands on a smaller Asian automaker to help boost its quest for worldwide automotive dominance. One story indicates that VW could be taking a stake in Suzuki before the end of 2009, which would give the German company instant access to a key small-car segment. It's true that VW has the Polo for overseas markets, and that it's likely to land over here in the near future, but Suzuki already has a relatively successful entry here in the SX4 line.

The SX4 has gotten some pretty good press — and rightly so — as an option to cars like the Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix, Honda Civic and Ford Focus. With the SX4 Crossover, Suzuki has even stolen a march on Subaru by offering a subcompact with full-time all-wheel drive; the Suzuki is smaller than the smallest Subaru (the Impreza), gets better mileage and stickers for a couple of grand less.

Suzuki is also readying its Kizashi midsize sedan for a 2010 U.S. debut. Despite some stumbling blocks that arose after General Motors sold off most of its stake in Suzuki a few years ago, the Kizashi looks to be a strong effort from the Japanese company as it aims to get more competitive in the American market.

At the same time, there's a rumor that VW is taking a look at Korean automaker Ssangyong, which doesn't currently have a U.S. presence but have been mentioned as a possible supplier of vehicles to the new, Penske-owned Saturn brand. Now, this story has some Asian politics behind it, since VW's automotive partner in China, SAIC, currently owns a controlling interest in Ssangyong. But a VW stake in the Korean company — or Suzuki — could definitely boost the cause of smaller cars here in the U.S., and that's a positive.

I'm even going to put a semi-positive spin on the recent Cadillac decision to go ahead with a V-Series version of its CTS Sport Wagon. The return of the station wagon to the mainstream U.S. marketplace is approaching fait accompli status. It's just a matter of people wanting to retain some amount of SUV functionality and cargo-carrying capability while also shifting their design preferences away from SUVs and crossovers.

Some OEMs have tried to split the difference with offerings like the Toyota Venza and the upcoming Honda Crosstour, but I'm saying here that the pendulum will swing all the way back to pure station wagons in the coming months.

As things stand now, BMW has offered wagon versions of the 3 Series and 5 Series for a while, VW currently has the Jetta SportWagen TDI, and Saab continues to trot out the 9-3 and 9-5 in SportCombi trims. But the only major player offering a true station wagon will be Cadillac, and the fact that General Motors is taking the segment seriously — as evidenced by the V-Series Sport Wagon — is also a positive move. Even though, in general, I'd prefer the automakers to offer high-efficiency packages in addition to/instead of high-performance packages.

And while this kind of news may not distract people from the September sales figures for too long, it does give some evidence that the future of the industry is moving in the right direction.