image vehicle

He says that it's a small percentage of people who want innovative devices - "like 1 percent who want these image vehicles."

Erected "first and foremost as a corporate image vehicle for Sony," Mr. Rappoport recalled, it was initially almost all Sony, all the time, promoting products including Trinitron color television sets, Columbia and Tri-Star films and recording artists like Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand.

To be a distinctive competitor in the big league with the Big Three, it was decided that it should be flashy and intermediate-sized, and in an era when other automakers were stressing the power of muscle cars for their intermediate-sized image vehicles, the new model - the Marlin - was to feature comfort and spaciousness.