Knapp Chevrolet At 815 Houston Ave.

[s3mh]

GM is notorious in the dealership world for their heavy handed control over the design of franchisee dealership buildings.  They actually mandated a specific floor tile for dealerships a few years back.  Honda has also been very aggressive in forcing franchisees to upgrade to very similar building designs.  It has been a long running battle between manufacturers and dealerships on control of brand image.  Dealerships want to create their own brand image to set themselves off from the other stores in town.  Manufacturers want to diminish the dealerships brand image because they think that it minimizes their brand, especially when a dealership group carries multiple manufacturer lines.  Also, for a small dealership like Knapp, using an off the shelf design saves a lot of money versus hiring an architect to design a dealership showroom from scratch.  I am sure the design they are using has already been built several times.

[mollusk]

It's called brand control. You may not like it, but the GM brand is extremely valuable and homogeneous storefronts protect that brand.

 

"Brand control" as imposed by the same bright light MBAs that came over from Proctor & Gamble, etc. to run a car company as if it were selling toothpaste and laundry soap - with the result that engineering and differentiation between the nameplates went into the dumper, followed by sales.

 

As I said, dipsticks.

[Triton]

That doesn't look like the rendering I've seen.

[Avossos]

That doesn't look like the rendering I've seen.

I hope that's true!!!

[jt16]

"Brand control" as imposed by the same bright light MBAs that came over from Proctor & Gamble, etc. to run a car company as if it were selling toothpaste and laundry soap - with the result that engineering and differentiation between the nameplates went into the dumper, followed by sales.

As I said, dipsticks.

Like I said, you may not like it, but that's what drives these types of decisions. I'm not even defending it, but trying to provide a little conversation on how large corporate decisions might be made.

[mollusk]

No argument here over the fact of the process - but when consensus mediocrity is the goal, a descending circle into the drain is frequently the result.  GM at its peak was driven (and run at the top) by engineers and stylists; more recently it's been the CYA and shuffle responsibility types that somehow determined that if they kept the same part number on the redesign of a very defective ignition switch perhaps they could hide the mistake a while longer - a decision that's ultimately costing the company even more.  It's going to be a very slow ship to turn, but Mary Barra at least came up from the engineering side.

[Subdude]

In all fairness though car companies are hardly the only ones to try to maintain a unified appearance.  Gas stations started standardizing layouts back in the 1930s.  While commercial architecture is rarely stunning, it's extremely interesting to me to see how it evolves.  

[mollusk]

Branding of structures makes more sense when one is dealing with a commodity product - gas, groceries, motels.  

 

At least for some of us, though, cars are not so easily turned into beige commodities.  Try too hard to do that and you get this: http://jalopnik.com/the-2014-oldsmobile-cutlass-is-better-than-ever-1550547372

[Subdude]

Branding of structures makes more sense when one is dealing with a commodity product - gas, groceries, motels.  

 

At least for some of us, though, cars are not so easily turned into beige commodities.  Try too hard to do that and you get this: http://jalopnik.com/the-2014-oldsmobile-cutlass-is-better-than-ever-1550547372

Funny article.  Always been into cars, so I sympathize, but there's always going to be a market segment for mundane cars and architecture.  

[PHDickerson]

That doesn't look like the rendering I've seen.

That's the rendering posted on Knapp's website.

[Triton]

That's the rendering posted on Knapp's website.

That's very strange. The blue print I saw for the building had the dealership look more like a modern version of their art deco store right behind it. Apparently now it has 15 salesman offices now instead of the 6 I report earlier. I think the change in design comes from GM now. GM is providing 50% of the funding while Knapp is paying the other half.

[PHDickerson]

If I could design it, I would build a big modern glass showroom with the original art deco building on the inside as they offices and have some classic Chevys posted around the art deco building to set the scene.

[HoustonMidtown]

Making progress...

 

[Triton]

The original design was very nice. Perhaps GM told them to alter the design to have the parking lot full in the front to make the business look more busy. Either way, here's what we unfortunately got:

 

2014-09-20 12.30.58 by marclongoria, on Flickr