Its over

[CincinnatiFiero]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090427/ap_ ... us_gm_plan

Pontiac is Dead, the L67 is dead, if I were a Piffer I'd probably be slitting my wrists right about now.

[Unsafe At Any Speed]

And still make Buick?

[CincinnatiFiero]

That's a good point, no talk about them and they produce 3 cars.

[TheFieroBoy]

Yet more proof that the GM management are fucking morons.

[The Dark Side of Will]

GM's been mismanaged for decades. It's looking like they're going to go the way of British Leyland and become a gov't supported corporate welfare case for a few years and then fade out of existence unceremoniously.

Decades of promotion from within has built a management culture that makes it impossible for them to comprehend what they're doing wrong in the various auto markets. A leadership change will not help because ALL the potential candidates are people produced by the management culture that wrecked GM in the first place.

I currently give Ford a much better chance than GM.

[CincinnatiFiero]

Well I think Ford saw the writing on the wall 2 years ago. Also they are MUCH more successful overseas than GM is, I would argue. Shit the Mondeo and Transit have been best sellers a few times over. (I know the 3 series has since overtaken) They dumped a couple assets that were valuable at the time which was smart. They aren't selling as many astons or RR's now. But Ford sold them when they were doing pretty well.

Will you also hit it on the head, people go the government CAN'T allow there to not be a domestic car manufacturer. Uhm look at the UK, they let it all go. LABOUR!!!!!!! Yeah... fuckers never went to work.

[derangedsheep]

I currently give Ford a much better chance than GM.

I agree. Ford has some nice looking stuff coming up (new Taurus SHO looks sweet as does the Fiesta).

I don't understand why GM would keep two luxury brands. They should have kept Chevy for entry-level, Pontiac for performance, Cadillac for luxury, GMC for trucks (although that might not even be worth it) and dump the rest.

[CincinnatiFiero]

I actually don't understand why its hard to keep pontiac around, "GM" makes 6 cars... thats it. It just costs the tooling to make a separate set of badges. (sarcasm)

Buick should have gone first, they psuedo compete with Cadillac. I mean thats why Olds died, it was another set of Buicks.

GMC ought to die, why do we need them?

[jelly2m81]

I don't see what all the hoopda is all about, personally I could never figure out why thay had multiple brands of the same car, almost all of them were the same car with different bumpers and trim anyway, they could still do that under the same brand and cut millions maybe billions in their overhead costs. Just axe all the other brands and stick Chevrolet on all of them.

[Fastback86]

Well I think Ford saw the writing on the wall 2 years ago. Also they are MUCH more successful overseas than GM is, I would argue. Shit the Mondeo and Transit have been best sellers a few times over. (I know the 3 series has since overtaken) They dumped a couple assets that were valuable at the time which was smart. They aren't selling as many astons or RR's now. But Ford sold them when they were doing pretty well.

Will you also hit it on the head, people go the government CAN'T allow there to not be a domestic car manufacturer. Uhm look at the UK, they let it all go. LABOUR!!!!!!! Yeah... fuckers never went to work.

I doubt Ford saw anything but red ink. The company was nearly as screwed as GM is now before they brought Alan Mulally over from Boeing to fix everything the Ford family had fucked up. Mulally hocked everything up to the Blue Oval for a big line of credit to restructure the company with. As it happened, Ford got very lucky, because right after they got their money, the economy imploded. Had they waited any longer, Ford might've been the first to go. Just before all that, they dumped under-performing Jag and Land Rover for some cold hard cash and later gave up a chunk of Mazda for more cash and are trying to ditch Volvo. It's too bad that Will is right about GM because they need an Alan Mulally of their own right now, not Rick Wagoner's mini-me.

[Fastback86]

I actually don't understand why its hard to keep pontiac around, "GM" makes 6 cars... thats it. It just costs the tooling to make a separate set of badges. (sarcasm)

Buick should have gone first, they psuedo compete with Cadillac. I mean thats why Olds died, it was another set of Buicks.

GMC ought to die, why do we need them?

Buick is huge in China, the brand is valuable to GM and will likely be what Pontiac couldn't, a poor-man's Cadillac.

GMC is GM's number 2 selling brand. Only Chevrolet sold more vehicles last year than GMC. GMC costs almost nothing to produce and brings home big bucks. Trucks and SUVs are high-margin and despite the fact that every GMC model is redundant, they sell like hotcakes. There's no business reason to kill a cash cow.

[CincinnatiFiero]

Well I think Ford saw the writing on the wall 2 years ago. Also they are MUCH more successful overseas than GM is, I would argue. Shit the Mondeo and Transit have been best sellers a few times over. (I know the 3 series has since overtaken) They dumped a couple assets that were valuable at the time which was smart. They aren't selling as many astons or RR's now. But Ford sold them when they were doing pretty well.

Will you also hit it on the head, people go the government CAN'T allow there to not be a domestic car manufacturer. Uhm look at the UK, they let it all go. LABOUR!!!!!!! Yeah... fuckers never went to work.

I doubt Ford saw anything but red ink. The company was nearly as screwed as GM is now before they brought Alan Mulally over from Boeing to fix everything the Ford family had fucked up. Mulally hocked everything up to the Blue Oval for a big line of credit to restructure the company with. As it happened, Ford got very lucky, because right after they got their money, the economy imploded. Had they waited any longer, Ford might've been the first to go. Just before all that, they dumped under-performing Jag and Land Rover for some cold hard cash and later gave up a chunk of Mazda for more cash and are trying to ditch Volvo. It's too bad that Will is right about GM because they need an Alan Mulally of their own right now, not Rick Wagoner's mini-me.

Well the thing with Ford is, will they or will they not be better off. I don't really believe they could have predicted this meltdown, or like others, they'd never have admitted it to themselves. I'd attribute it to luck, like you.

In theory GM will have a clean slate and more stimulus money. Ford will the climbing out of a hole still. So GM may end up being better off, I don't know.

Not that it matters, the next NEW car I will buy with probably be a Diesel BMW in about 5 years. America produces nothing I'd ever want, cept the G8 was cool.

[CincinnatiFiero]

I actually don't understand why its hard to keep pontiac around, "GM" makes 6 cars... thats it. It just costs the tooling to make a separate set of badges. (sarcasm)

Buick should have gone first, they psuedo compete with Cadillac. I mean thats why Olds died, it was another set of Buicks.

GMC ought to die, why do we need them?

Buick is huge in China, the brand is valuable to GM and will likely be what Pontiac couldn't, a poor-man's Cadillac.

GMC is GM's number 2 selling brand. Only Chevrolet sold more vehicles last year than GMC. GMC costs almost nothing to produce and brings home big bucks. Trucks and SUVs are high-margin and despite the fact that every GMC model is redundant, they sell like hotcakes. There's no business reason to kill a cash cow.

I forgot about China, they car they sell there is not available here though.

Excelle, which looks like a Lacetti

Regal, which looks like the new Vauxhaul

Park Avenue, which is the Zeta G8


I mostly posted this for myself, wow Buick china is way better.

[The Dark Side of Will]

GM keeps their cool toys elsewhere in the world, just like the Asian and European MFG's. Their own home market doesn't get their best product. Way to go.

[Xanth]

GM keeps their cool toys elsewhere in the world, just like the Asian and European MFG's. Their own home market doesn't get their best product. Way to go.

Would GM's cool toys be legal here in the states?

I imagine you could produce and sell pretty much anything in china.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Buick is huge in China

I'm huge in Japan.

[The Dark Side of Will]

GM keeps their cool toys elsewhere in the world, just like the Asian and European MFG's. Their own home market doesn't get their best product. Way to go.

Would GM's cool toys be legal here in the states?

Don't see why they wouldn't. They sell the same powertrains here.

We've been seeing some of the cool stuff from Holden: GTO, G8, etc. They also have "utes" which are basically modern El Caminos... with V8's and 6 speeds sticks.

The Vauxhaul/Opel Speedster was HOTT... Lotus Elise chassis with bigger brakes and a turbo Ecotec. They axed that idea and built the new generation one on the Solstice/Sky chassis... talk about a downgrade.

[whipped]

talk about a downgrade.

More like... "Lets see how retarded we can make a car."

Who needs to time travel to see Idiocracy (the movie) in action? Just walk into GM.

[Fastback86]

Buick is huge in China

I'm huge in Japan.

Swish...

[Fastback86]

The reason the Regal looks like a Vauxhall is because it is. Its the same Epsilon II platform car with different body work. I, for one, am hoping the new Buick (in the US) gets a Regal/Vauxhall Insignia/Opel Insignia, mostly because I want them to bring the high-performance AWD Insignia OPC over.