Sequoia Automotive

Sequoia Automotive Incorporated is an American luxury automobile manufacturer. It produces an array of luxury, hyper, and art cars. It is headquartered in Clearlake, California. Notable for its decreasing-production-and-increasing-price business tactics, it began producing cars in 1972. Founded in 1966 under relative secrecy, founder Ron Wilkinson, an American who previously worked at both Lotus and Lancia, assembled a team of what he considered to be the best in their respective fields in automotive engineering. By doing quick rounds of raising capital, he achieved a capital of approximately 4.8 million dollars. After working on their first car for four years, Sequoia revealed their first car, a super luxury grand tourer, the Sequoia Era in 1974.

History

Sequoia Automotive Incorporated was founded in 1966 by Ron Wilkinson, an American car designer and engineer who had previously worked for both Pininfarina, Lotus, and Lancia before returning to the United States in 1965. Looking to start his own car company, he used several of his connections with Wall Street to raise capital. Known for being charismatic and a “smooth talker”, he had by 1966 raised two rounds of capital, amounting to, in today’s worth, roughly 5 million dollars. Unsatisfied, he nonetheless founded Sequoia Automotive in 1966 out of Clearlake, California. By visiting art schools in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as utilizing several connections at Lancia and Pininfarina, he was able to put together a team of 30 to develop the company’s first car. As the team began designing and engineering work on the car, he continued raising investment rounds, often from celebrities and the newly rich. By 1968 he had amassed a total investment sum of close to in today’s worth 52 million dollars. In 1970 the platform for the car was close to finished, a grand tourer, and was revealed to the investors, using a temporary body shell. Showcasing the sharp handling and fine suspension tune was moderately successful in keeping confidence in his car company. In 1972, the body had been finalized, and the interior work had begun. Ron continued to both attend interviews and press releases in order to continue increasing interest in the car. In April of 1973, the car, titled the Era was revealed to the investors, as well a select few people. With highly favorable reactions, the Era began production in secret. This was in order to be able to deliver roughly 16 units to the first customers on the day of the reveal, as each car was hand built. It wasn’t announced to the public until May the following year, and the first 16 customers received their cars. Reviews praised both the handling, as well as the 4.8 liter V8 engine’s high power output due to utilizing a twin overhead camshaft design, rather than the traditionally North American pushrod design. Its curvaceous design, along with its implementation and refinement of many modern technologies, such as the variable hydraulic power steering, power restrictor for comfort driving (driving modes), and variable valve timing. This positive publicity continued with a photo taken of Andy Warhol stepping out of an Era in New York, featured on the cover of Time Magazine. It garnered significant attention, and generated further public interest in the car. The slow production time only furthered the demand, and with Ron having denied orders beyond the 84 orders, aftermarket prices skyrocketed.

By 1978 all orders had been delivered, and Sequoia did subsequently not announce another car until 1982. As soon as development of the Era had finished and production had begun, Ron and his team began working on the successor to the Era. In 1976 the small racing car company Redwood Motors was bought up and integrated into Sequoia to assist with performance tuning. The successor would be the same body type, a Grand Tourer, and would be heavily based on the Era. Originally, Ron was conflicted about producing another GT car, but proceeded, as no other car type fit his requirements for versatility, speed, and comfort. Fearing that the successor, now named Hyannis, would devalue the Era, extra care was taken throughout the development process to ensure that it differed enough from its predecessor. The design was more angular, and put a heavier emphasis on the performance capabilities of the car, the interior sharply contrasting it with a focus on the driver’s comfort. As with its predecessor, the frame, and chassis components were developed first, with many new technologies implemented into the successors of various parts from the Era. Performance handling was further improved with help from the Redwood Division. Effort was focused on it being able to compete with its European rivals, as many of the wealthy customers Sequoia targeted, had access to European supercars. In 1980 the design had been finalized, with help from Helen Frankenthaler, and by 1981 the development and pre-production tests were complete. Production began, again, in secret, a year prior to its reveal, and was announced in June 1982. 11 customers received their cars on the same day. Concerned that production was happening all too slowly, some investors urged Ron to expand the relatively small factory, which he did, increasing the factory’s output from three cars to five cars per month. However, it still took roughly four years for all of the 44 cars to be produced. In order to mediate the smaller amount of cars with profits, the Hyannis was charged at 200,000 dollars, equivalent to $600,000 in 2021. Investors remained concerned that the business wasn’t profitable enough, so the decision was made to allow Redwood to continue independent development and racing.

Business Tactics

Since it’s foundation in 1966, Ron Wilkinson had expressed an intent to slowly decrease the amount of individual cars produced in order to drive up artificial scarcity and to appeal to customers as more exclusive. The Era, despite being the first model produced, remains the most produced model of the company, as a result. In leu of this, Ron would do “tomahawk selling”, aggressive marketing toward a specific circle of influential individuals. In order to establish brand recognition, Ron would personally advertise the Era to what he referred to as the “elites and yuppies before yuppies”, a small group of new money businessmen and women, as well as executives, famous artists, and wealthy bohemian individuals. By doing this, he was able to spread so much interest around the Era that the planned 84 units sold out within four months, despite a unit cost of nearly 75,000 dollars ($400,000 in 2021).

In belief that he had saturated the market enough, Sequoia did not announce any new cars until 1982, eight years after the launch of the Era. The Hyannis launched with considerably more press coverage. Despite this, he continued to personally advertise and increase interest in Sequoias cars. In 2004 he later admitted that this was an effort to control which individuals were to be available to know and garner interest about the brand, citing attempting to push for a more exclusive brand association. This tactic proved successful, leading to word of mouth brand awareness. Despite later individual requests offering up to five times the sales price, Ron personally declined all requests to increase production beyond the 84 planned Hyannis cars.

Redwood Works

Redwood Works is the internal, high performance wing of Sequoia. After Redwood Motors was acquired in 1976, it was integrated into the company to focus on, and assist with the performance of the cars. Since the introduction of the Truro in 2002, customers have the option to purchase a Redwood Works variant of the current car. Works variants frequently feature stiffer suspension, track optimized brakes, as well as engine tuning. Notably, this does not include any cosmetic changes to the car, besides a silver wasp logo fitted to a place inside the car at the customers discretion, an homage to the 1962 Redwood Wasp race car.