Functional Requirements - Competing on the Columns?

Today we got down to discussing more functional requirements for vehicles and it reminded me of one of the core differentiating factors of Local Motors.

When you read Motor Trend or Car and Driver it is like a magnet for metal eyeballs to look at the statistics page which compares performance specs between 2 vehicles. Who wouldn't want to know how a '67 Cobra and a '67 Vette stack up? Right? ....well sort of right.... or actually, maybe not.













What I mean here is that vette-bugs and snake-lovers are born to ride the Ford or the Chevy emblem, and even if a select few burn a bridge with their friends to cross the aisle, they probably don't do it because one had .01g better performance on the lateral skid pad.













Get ready for some heresy! Cars are about experience so much more than comparing perf specs, but if we are only fed the specs, it is difficult to look by them. At Local Motors, we begin by encouraging people to feast on the attributes that they themselves care about the most. Certainly, when all else is equal, people likely buy a car based on the 1/4 mile, but with Local Motors so little is equal that we have an opportunity to drop the stats discussion altogether and to move on to those things that truly differentiate the entire business and product line.

Next time you crack open Car and Driver, think what you are consuming.

Local Motors Car #1:
0-60: Faster than you wanted
Skid pad : Huggy
Jump height: Wow, I have never jumped anything, and I couldn't see the ground!
Width: Ohmigosh, never gonna roll
Styling: Unmatched, just a small number made and you will only see it here. GO LOCAL!

When there is no other car in its class, this argument is especially compelling.