Remember when the Chevrolet Malibu was the Next Big Thing? Or what about the Cobalt, GM’s small car superstar? You know: “we can’t build these cars fast enough!” Well, guess what? They can. USA Today reports that union officials at Orion Township (MI, Malibu/G6) and Lordstown (OH, Cobalt/G5) reports The General has banned overtime at both factories. Maybe more. What’s unscheduled overtime, you ask? “Unscheduled overtime generally is used when a worker calls in sick. An employee who is on duty at the time usually works half the shift for the sick employee, and another worker is called in early to work the other half. The union officials were unsure how the company would fill assembly line positions for those who are ill.” Meanwhile, shhhh! “Officially we haven’t told employees anything,” GM spinmeister Tony Sapienza told the former McPaper. “As we weather very difficult economic conditions, we’re looking at a variety of ways to be as efficient as possible while balancing the needs of the market for our products.” Translation: Somebody stop me! We’re buring through a billion bucks a month. “Several analysts predict that GM will burn up so much cash that it will reach its minimum operating cash level of $14 billion sometime next year.” Just in case you haven’t been paying attention.
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They could always fill those positions with the job bank? Isn’t that why the job bank exists?
Same thing I thought reading the article. That would make too much sense.
So let’s see…paying the one employee to go home sick, paying two more overtime, paying a third to sit in the jobs bank. And why is GM going broke?
John
When they put a few thousand on the hood and offer ridiculous financing I may go check one of these babies out. Malibu, that is.
I thought the same thing about the job bank, but it might not be designed to work that way, remember this is GM. It would make sense to have anyone in the job bank trained in a bunch of relavant positions. Have them come in every day and do paperwork or sweep the floor and when someone is sick jump online and fill that spot. Some how I think the UAW would object to my ideas and is probably why the job bank is just a “excess employee babysitting service.”
Maybe they can start producing a Chrysler badged variant in a few weeks and ramp up to overtime…
Call it the Chrysler Crown.
OK I’m joking. Because, with sales dropping like a stone, even adding Chrysler Crown production (a rebadged Chevy Malibu with a Chrysler style grill – they could source it from China, it’d be ready and in production in 6 weeks…) would not require any overtime at all.
There could be a new Dodge Dart, based on the G6.
As for the Cobalt/G5, why not do a new Dodge Neon variant? Use the 4 door G5 body now sold exclusively in Canada, and stick a Dodge style grill in it…
This whole merger thing is bizarro. I wake up in the morning and wonder what planet I landed on.
“Several analysts predict that GM will burn up so much cash that it will reach its minimum operating cash level of $14 billion sometime next year.”
I just noticed it said 14, I thought their operating expenses were around $10 billion, did it go up since last year when you guys posted that. I thought they were working on shrinking that number not growing it.
I bet they start cutting the development budget to almost nothing on all models except the Volt. Didn’t Studebaker do that with the Avanti in their last years?
This article omits some important facts….
The Orion Township (MI, Malibu/G6) has just recently come online manufacturing Malibu’s, and does not produce the majority of Malibus for General Motors.
The Fairfax, KS GM plant produces the majority of Chevrolet Malibu’s as well as the Saturn Aura.
Redbarchetta, yes, Studebaker was severely limited on what they did towards the end, in the early 1960’s.
The Avanti was only a customer magnet, hence it was intended for low production (fiberglass body on an existing Lark convertible X-braced frame).
The real news (which never came to fruition) was the set of Lark prototypes designed by contracted Industrial Designer, Brooks Stevens*.
In 1962, the new prez of Studebaker gave Stevens a mere pittance, $50,000, to have his 3 prototypes built. The cars were HIGHLY advanced, and were unit construction (which would have been a Studebaker first) – actually more like “uni-frame” (I’ve crawled under the prototypes myself at the Stude museum in South Bend).
Stevens went to Italy and could not afford to have a major carozzeria build the cars so he found Sibano-Bassano and in his memoirs, he said “their shop included a rounded off stump in their back yard, and there were chickens running around… I took them out, fixed them up with some Camparis and got three jewel like prototypes out of them.”
The first was the proposed 1964 Lark Skyview prototype, a station wagon with rolltop desk opening rear roof. The second (with revised instrument panel and front clip with 2 cibie lights) was a proposed 1965 Lark Cruiser sedan, and the third was a proposed 1966 Hawk replacement that Stevens called the Sceptre, and which had two Sylvania fluorescent bulbs for low beams, all aross the entire front of the car.
I’ll try to get some photos loaded here.
http://www.remarkablecars.com/main/studebaker/1962-studebaker-skyview.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xcalakattack/633939596/in/set-72157600504449019/
http://www.remarkablecars.com/main/studebaker/1962-studebaker-sceptre.html
* he also did many other things, including the original Jeep Wagoneer which was built from 1963 to 1989, and the related Gladiator/J-series trucks.
The Studebaker prototypes done in 1962 by Brooks Stevens, by the way, would have saved Studebaker a lot of money. The left front and right rear door pressings were identical, likewise the right front and left rear doors were identical (obviously excepting the inside upholstery, positioning of armrests, and glass/window surrounds, which were added on). This would have saved a lot of money in dies. Also note the cars have simplified body pressings – alligator hoods and trunks (both extending to the wheel openings except on the 1964 prototype hood). The cars had safety features galore, and in fact, Studebaker were the first automaker to introduce disc brakes on the 1963 Avanti and Hawk.
The rear suicide doors would have given the Studebaker a real touch of class, as this is the era when the Lincoln Continental had rear suicide doors. Unlike the Lincoln, but like the Lancia 4 door cars from the 1950’s, there was no B-pillar at all in Steven’s Studebakers. Soundproofing the thing would have been a nightmare… in other words, when you opened both doors on one side of the car, you would see an unbroken opening from the hinges on the front doors all the way to the hinges on the back doors. Like some modern day pickups and that weird looking Honda box-thing.
Those Studebaker roofs surely look fragile!
joeaverage:
Yes, these Studes seem to be where the “greenhouse” term came from!
menno: I find the Sceptre quite cool, thanks for the links to the photos. (I can imagine turning on the “headlights” and having them flicker to life!)
One day when I drive back from Wisconsin for business, I might stop by the Studebaker Museum in South Bend.
Hi “Menno”
I hate to be a pedant…. but I have to add a slight correction to your statement that Studebaker were the first automaker to introduce disk brakes in 1963 with the Avanti and Hawk. That may be true that they were the first of the US automakers, but the British company Standard-Triumph were (I believe) the first automaker to offer disc brakes on a mass-produced car. They had disc brakes on the Triumph TR3 from 1957 onwards.