So now, without referring ONCE to GM's point blank denial of the Wall Street Journal article claiming the automaker was considering chopping brands and firing bureaucrats, The Detroit News reports that GM IS "undertaking an in-depth review of its product portfolio that could include eliminating or selling a brand." "A" brand or "some" brands? Who knows? But according to "a source familiar with the plans"– which could be you by now– this whole kerfuffle will end-up being nothing more than a damp squib. The "strategic review' will "most likely will result in the Detroit automaker purging overlapping models and shifting its emphasis to more fuel-efficient cars." Whew! And there we were thinking something radical might go down. Meanwhile, GM spinmeister Tom Wilkinson assured the DetN that there's gold in them thar' hills, when should GM need it. "Additional measures could include further reducing structural costs, selling noncore assets, and retiming or eliminating other capital spending. In addition, we will consider opportunistically executing financing transactions in the global capital markets, although we have nothing to announce." While we await that announcement, add "opportunistically executing" to "operationally bankrupt" and "aggressively conservative" to your lexicon of two-word bankruptcy-related expressions.
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When ship goes down and starts to list to one side the bells on board begin to ring.
Listen carefully and you can hear them now.
Sell Hummer. Then sell Saab for $200M (a loss of profits and capital, but also a loss of headaches). Is it true Trollhattan won’t be building the next Astra but the 9-3 instead? Is this laying the groundwork for a sale? Finally, add Saturn to PBG dealers but selling only budget cars like they used to (GMDAT could provide the vehicles). No dealer lawsuits. All of this could be done before the end of 2009 while injecting more fuel-efficient cars into the lineups.
The swan may be singing, but the hood ornament in the photo looks to me more like Packard’s cormorant.
“I keep trying to straighten out these deckchairs, but they keep sliding around.”
“DetN Refutes Denial of GM Brand Termination” before the Chapter 11 Bankrupcy.
GM is undergoing a difficult process, almost a euro-ficication of its model lineup due to high gas prices. Whereas automobiles in Europe have adapted to its particular geography, taxation system, ease of public transport for inter-city travel, national adoption of diesel fuels, etc. — almost none of those factors exist in North America. We are spread out, have relatively low fuel taxes, zero electrified inter-city travel options, and high diesel prices (and concomitant environmental regulations).
Japan has the upper hand, since it has been manufacturing cars for the European and Asian markets (where fuel prices are high and populations compact) for decades. Sorry, but the Prius, Fit, and Yaris were not primarily intended for the U.S. market, until gas prices precipitously rose. However, the Japanese do not have any edge in vehicles larger than compacts and subcompacts. The Fusion and Malibu and Vue are just as fuel-efficient and have comparable quality to the Accord and Camry and RAV4. Americans still dominate in trucks and SUVs.
So what happens here? Given America’s vast distances and need to haul stuff, not all people want a subcompact car. But some do. GM needs to win some of that subcompact market, while at the same time keeping up in the mid-sized segment, and also not forgetting to keep the smaller number of trucks sold to high quality standards.
I was on the fence, but you just need to let Pontiac and GMC go. Saturn needs to go quirky, euro, and otherwise youth-oriented. Buick needs to stick around for overseas sales.
“Japan has the upper hand, since it has been manufacturing cars for the European and Asian markets”
So back in the day why didn’t GM just federalize their European and Asian market cars for America like the Japanese?
“So back in the day why didn’t GM just federalize their European and Asian market cars for America like the Japanese?”
Many reasons.
Government regulations dictate everything about cars, from have “Unleaded fuel only” within 3 inches of the gas gauge to bumper standards, emissions, lights, reflectors, glass, etc.
A more direct answer is they screwed up by not making cars that would meet these standards world wide. They tried and succeeded in some cases but when they need it most, cars like the euro focus and the aura are not being built here where they can do the most good. I saw lots of Neons in Taiwan, it was a small car good on gas with American side drive. The Japanese cars faced higher tariffs and were not competitive enough.
GM is waiting for lower fuel prices coupled with a federal bailout to save them. They don’t deserve it any more that Chrysler does (or did).
@Detroit 1701
I don’t follow you.
There are close to 200 million cars in the U.S.
GM makes around 8 million/year (depending on how you count), almost half of those are not sold in the U.S (depending on how you count).
You’re telling me that it was impossible for GM to develop other car markets in the U.S? Then what the heck have the transplants been doing – selling smaller vehicles to fictional consumers?
GM has fallen victim to an incredible unwillingness to go lean – had to build them big. Strangely, the same company had no trouble building them relative to the niches abroad – it’s just that when it got stateside it refused to surrender the “we build ’em biggest & baddest” badge. Too effing bad – I wish they had, ten years ago when the need became apparent.
BTW – the brand that needs to go first is … GM. There isn’t a car in the world that I would buy that is badged GM, and there never was one.
But the accountant mindset of present management never managed to understand that equation, and placed enormous focus on GM, at the expense of the actual brands they should have been concerned with.
Those brands do not, under any imaginable circumstance, need GM.
How about them apples?
@50merc
Try “Chief Pontiac” from the early 50’s …….
I am a horrible human being who is enjoying watching the destruction of GM. The gnashing of teeth and crying of woman and children in (unionized) Michigan is music to my ears. It’s about f’in time something came from decades of poor quality build and arrogant corporate shenanigans Let Detroit burn, let Auburn Hills burn ; maybe let Dearborn survive as a testament to Henry Ford.
Said it before and I’ll say it again. Fear and greed are the most powerful motivators in society. History has turned on these two facets of human nature. Detroit has done greed to long. Fear should create an even more impressive technological renaissance in the creative destruction of Detroit.
“we will consider opportunistically executing financing transactions in the global capital markets, although we have nothing to announce”
… you just can’t make this stuff up.
Yesterday, AOL had one of their “instant” polls that asked which brand should GM ditch first. Hummer was # 1 with a 74%
Saab was 2nd with like 10%
and GMC was 3rd with kike 5%.
Let me try again back in the day Japan made small cars for Japan Europe and small car markets and GM made small cars for Asia and Europe and small car markets. Japan went ahead and made the engineering changes necessary to meet US Federal regulations so why didn’t GM do the same thing?
If Japan can take a small car engineered for Japan and Europe and modify it to meet US specs then why the hell didn’t GM do that too.
You can’t claim Japan has an advantage because they make small cars for small car markets because GM did too.
That indian chief changed into a swan right before my eyes. I need another drink.
@Mud Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
“we will consider opportunistically executing financing transactions in the global capital markets, although we have nothing to announce.”
… you just can’t make this stuff up.
My boggling mind just boggles on. Don’t they have warning bells clanking away when sentences get this silly?
I ran the whole statement through the Flesch readability test. You need to go to school for about 18 years to start making sense of it:
Number of characters (without spaces) : 251.00
Number of words : 38.00
Average number of words per sentence: 19.00
Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 18.13
Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 21.53
Flesh Kincaid Grade level : 18.53
Flesch Reading Ease : -3.91
“Opportunistically executing” – isn’t that what Mugabe gets up to?
In fact, might this be GM’s latest idea to drive sales – summary executions for any sales manager who fails to hit their quota for the month? Should be a boost for morale…
Well, it’s an easier option than building competitive products.
Chief Pontiac! I love that hood ornament. The day the PC police eliminated it, that was one (of many) day Pontiac lost a little bit of brand identity.
Stein X Leikanger Says:
Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 21.53
Flesh Kincaid Grade level : 18.53
So I may have to be halfway through the 21st grade to understand that rubbish?
Will somebody plese remove these babbling idiots from their positions of power?!?! We need an intervention. Or something!
Whoa, now the hood ornament is a swan!
As in a song?
Can I add “Living dead” to the list of bankruptcy related euphemisms? As in Hummer.
“. . . purging overlapping models . . .”
I guess that means they’re cutting GMC and most of all the remaining brands between Chevy and Cadillac.
Hood ornament #1: 1949/51 Chief Pontiac “deluxe” hood ornament. The translucent head lit up when the headlamps were turned on. On the standard ornament, the head was chromed diecast (potmetal) as was the rest of the ornament.
Hood ornament #2:: NON original Packard type “swan” hood ornament usually seen on big rigs. Sold by JC Whitney since (at least) the 1940’s.
This is not a genuine Packard hood ornament from any year. When one has owned over 60 Packards from a 1st Series 8 from 1921 thru a 1956 Caribbean, been involved in Packard clubs since 1966, one knows the difference!
The correct nomenclature for a Packard hood ornament of this type is a pelican (not a swan, not a cormorant). The pelican was part of the Packard family coat of arms: “a pelican in its piety.”
btw: The multi chrome strips used on Pontiac hoods was the brainchild of Semon E (Bunkie) Knudson, and first used in 1935. His son removed them at the end of the 1958 model run.