Motorauthority reports that the long-rumored Buick C-segment sedan will probably be built at Opel’s Rüsselsheim plant. The new, entry-level Buick will utilize production capacity freed by plans to produce the Delta II-based Saab 9-3 at Saab’s Trollhättan plant. Since the American Astra experiment has gone so badly, GM needs a higher-margin Delta II vehicle to justify expensive tooling efforts at Rüsselsheim. Hence the plan for a Buick compact for the U.S. market. It’s a deeply misguided project, yet another sign of GM’s chronic, ongoing, multi-national mismanagement of its models, brands and [dwindling] resources. What is it with these people?
With the future of Saturn and Saab up in the air, with the HUMMER brand on death row, GM is trying to chart a course to “viability” based on constantly-changing assumptions. One of those: Buick should be a “core brand.” God knows where GM got that idea. Buick is one of the two rotting limbs on the corpse currently known as the Buick, Pontiac and GMC (BPG) “channel.” Buick hasn’t had a hit product since… wait… I’m thinking.
The Lambda-based Buick Enclave was supposed to be one of GM’s Next Big Things. The CUV never found its stride. A year ago, TTAC’s Frank Williams wrote Buick sales suck. As you can imagine, they went downhill from there. At the time, Williams wondered if GM was trying to starve Buick to death. Perhaps they were. And changed their mind. Several times. Anyone familiar with GM’s on-again, off-again, we don’t know yet (a.k.a. “strategic review”) product plans knows that indecision and paralysis is GM’s leitmotif.
GM’s new plan: between now and 2012, Buick will offer Americans a thin diet of me-too rebrand jobs: the new LaCrosse, this Delta II whatever and a Lambda CUV (Enclave). Needless to say, these examples of cost-cutting platform-sharing badge engineering will continue to debase whatever appeal the Buick brand once held for its loyal customer base. Or anyone else.
And yet, Buick somehow remains one of GM’s four “core brands.”
There’s only one remotely plausible explanation: Buick’s success in China has convinced RenCen that the brand has a future. Of course, Buick doesn’t mean anything in particular in China. So why should it mean anything stateside? That would explain the plan to build a compact Buick for the U.S. market. The funny thing is it just might work. By now, nobody anywhere expects a Buick to be anything more than an up-optioned Chevy.
Even if we accept the fantastic possibility that when better Buicks are built someone will buy them, the real problem is building them in Germany.
First, there’s an issue of cost. Thanks to higher labor costs, building in the Eurozone is an expensive business. And then there’s the fact that GM doesn’t sell Buicks in Europe. The cost of shipping vehicles to the US (China?) will hurt both profitability and sales. And don’t forget about the currency issue. If the Pontiac G8 and Saturn Astra experiences taught GM anything, there’s no way this idea will work.
Then there’s the branding opportunity cost. Understandably enough, Opel’s bosses feel that branding GM’s best products as weaker marques hurts GM as a whole. “Only under the Opel brand can Opel products profit from their heritage, as it lends the ‘German Engineering’ appeal,” Opel boss Klaus Franz tells Handelsblatt.
Indeed, GM has sunk considerable amounts of cash into Opel in hopes of bringing the brand upmarket. It appears to be working. So why hide this success behind a brand that (outside of China) represents a tarted-up Chevy?
Why bother? In the U.S. and elsewhere, Opels could be sold as Opels, replacing GM’s confused mid-market branding “strategy.” With Chevy (Korean budget), Opel (German engineered, efficient, tech-y mid-level) and Cadillac (American luxury) GM can cut its portfolio to three complimentary global brands.
Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Buick have to go. The fact that each of these four brand fiefdoms are fighting for Opel underpinnings for their products says everything. At this point, what does GM have to gain by holding onto the past with these useless antibrands? Opel can (and does) do everything these four brands do, only with a glint of European luster.
Introducing the Opel brand in the US would have its risks. But at least it’s a fresh start. Selling its superior products under its real name helps GM considerably more than hiding them under the sheetmetal of a dead brand walking.
This strategy is similar to the approach that Ford is taking by bringing the Euro-spec Fiesta, Focus, C-Max and Kuga stateside. Ford’s job just happens to be easier, thanks to being called “Ford” in Europe. Like Ford’s plan, an Opel revamp of GM’s mid-market vehicles would have to involve local production to avoid Astra/G8 redux. And it wouldn’t be easy with the General’s current cash position. But at least it would be a “viable” strategy.
While I certainly would prefer that the Opels come over here as is, the reality is that GM needs another brand in the US like it needs a whole in its head. GM can’t afford to kill its existing brands and it certainly can’t afford to open a new brand.
The best choice GM has is to bring the Opels over as is, with badges from an existing GM brand (e.g., Saturn).
Now, can you tell us why such a gloomy article is presented after a picture of a vehicle as gorgeous as that? That thing blows the G37 or 3-series coupe from the water!
The basic idea of Opel as a brand in the U.S. is nice, and interesting, but raising brand awareness for yet another brand (even if it replaces 4 others) seems next to impossible, especially if it’s not a specific as Hummer was.
If they made that coupe, they’d have something worth living for. Oh, and if they bring the Park Avenue that’s sold in China too. They only need 2 cars and 2 CUV’s to have a nice lineup, but then again, they are almost sure to overlap with other divisions. If GM were smart (and that’s not likely) they’d go back to the way they did business in the 60’s with their “ladder” concept. Make Chevy’s basic and reliable and true trucks, Buicks as a step up in materials, power, styling and equipment, Saturn as the very sporty/euro import and import fighters, and Cadillac as the highest luxury/performace/style quotient as the pinnacle of the brands, with features you cannot get in the other brands, and a price to match. Heck, that’s what HonNissToy did with some success…they copied GM!!
How much would it cost to (re-)introduce Opel to North America? IMHO, hundreds of millions, and I’m not really interested in bailing out any more of GM than absolutely necessary. So, Buick + Opel is sadly the past of least resistance.
I’ve said before, I do think Buick has a place. Softer luxury to Cadillac’s edginess. A Lexus with American presence.
However, I also had an image that Pontiac could be a genuine performance brand. Everything rear drive and sporty. Just a few models to cover the bases and that’s it. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is time, money, or possibly even CAFE space to do this for Pontiac. The reality is it probably will just have to go. Maybe it could come back in the future. Its volumes probably wouldn’t ever be high enough to justify an entire separate brand, and especially not if the dealers are junk or shared with Chevy or Cadillac.
So maybe Buick is in the same boat. Just not enough cash, time, etc to make it truly work. Its too bad. I see more potential in Buick than Saturn or Pontiac. I could understand a Chevy-Cadillac only GM, but I could also easily see a Chevy-Buick-Cadillac (and maybe GMC for trucks only) GM as well.
EDIT: The other reason I can see Buick taking over for Saturn is that it is likely a heck of a lot easier (due to far fewer franchises I’m sure) to shut down Saturn than it would be to shut down Buick. Not to mention, the Buick name likely carries a lot more history and sentimental value than Saturn does.
The Opels-as-Saturns is a viable strategy, but the product either hasn’t been around long enough (Astra), hasn’t been well-promoted (Vue), or is mediocre (Aura). Given a little more time, money and focus, I think it would succeed. Of course, GM has little time, no money, and the focus of a meth-addicted magpie.
I don’t think bringing Opel upmarket in Europe is a good thing unless they stop screwing around with Cadillac and/or kill Saab. Even then, I’m not sure it’s a good idea: they’d be squeezed out of the larger, mass-market roots in favour of Chevy. A better idea would be:
* Get rid of Chevy entirely. The temptation from GM to grow the line-up to the point where it would compete with Opel is too strong, and it cuts off buyers coming into the brand. Spend the money on loss-leader Corsas and Merivas instead
* Get rid of Cadillac in Europe. No one cares
* Get rid of Saab in North America. No one cares.
I really don’t understand the obsessive love for Buick around these parts. It should’ve died with Oldsmobile.
In the North American market, Buick is a dead or meaningless brand to 99% of people under the age of 40.
Current trends in the Chinese economy are raising questions about Buick’s long-term viability in that market.
The remaining 1% are now on their way to this thread to tell me how wrong I am, and that Buick is still a viable brand in NA.
They need to bring the Opel Brand to the US and get rid of the zombie brands – including the GM name. Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Opel is all they need. Let Opel do what they want in terms of product and marketing.
One of GMs problems is that it’s destroyed most of it’s brands. The bailout is causing even more image erosion. They have an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and they should do it. Change the name of GM to it’s best brand, Cadillac Motors, and have Chevrolet as it’s value brand. Then, make sure they have great products to back the name changes.
Brands can be repaired, but they just don’t have time to do it.
If you ask me, Oldsmobile shouldn’t have been shuttered. If GM was smart, they would have killed Saturn, Buick, and Pontiac back in 2004, as all of those brands were underperforming and meaningless back then. Half the reason why Oldsmobile was failing was because it had those three brands stepping on its toes. Oldsmobile had a better image, history, and products than those three brands. I imagine that under Lutz, Oldsmobile could have easily been reformatted to be a strong brand, since it would have a lot of new breathing room and product. And they could be up to date too, as GM wouldn’t have to worry about feeding those three brands.
This is just another example of GM’s incompetence. They HAD a chance to kill all of their meaningless brands back when they were raking in the SUV profits, and didn’t. And now they are complaining about how they can’t get rid of them. If GM was really concerned with long term viability, they would have really thought about which brands were more important for image and product, and would have killed the worthless ones back when they still had the chance.
This is a perfectly reasoned argument in a Marketing 101 textbook kind of way. However, the reality on the ground doesn’t mesh. Only in GM’s little world and in your argument are Buick, Saturn, and Pontiac “mid-market” offerings. In reality, they are priced (MSRP and actual transaction) just like their Chevy counterparts. And do you really expect a mass-market German brand tied to GM with little name-recognition in the US to do better than Volkswagen, which itself just barely outsells Saturn alone? Get real man.
But in the US and elsewhere, Opels sold as Opels should replace GM’s confused mid-market branding “strategy.” After all, with Chevy (Korean budget), Opel (German engineered, efficient, tech-y mid-level) and Cadillac (American luxury) GM can cut down to three complimentary global brands. Of course this means that Pontiac, Saab, Buick and Saturn have to go.
I really don’t understand the obsessive love for Buick around these parts. It should’ve died with Oldsmobile.
People have an attachment to Buicks of yore, as they did with Oldsmobile and still do with Pontiac. The problem is that the Buicks of today are pointless at best and detrimental to Chevy or Cadillac or worst. You could probably revive it and give it a almost-unqiue identity, but you’d still be faced with three or four brands fighting for a slice of GM’s 20% of the market. Buick, like Pontiac, only makes sense when you’re talking about a GM with double it’s current slice of the pie.
I can see room for two GM brands, three if you include Saturn. You’re right that there will always be people clamouring for Grand Nationals, Electras and Rivieras, but none of those vehicles are so special that they couldn’t be sold as Chevrolets or Cadillacs.
Saturn, more than Buick, deserves a lease on life because there’s a (small, somewhat fickle, but well-off and demographically viable) market for “different” as Kia, Mazda and Scion are proving. There’s no future building cars that could just as well be sold by another division, to a shrinking demographic.
Oldsmobile had a better image, history, and products than those three brands
I don’t think it did, at least not to the general public. The Alero and Aurora weren’t too bad, but they weren’t that good, either, especially in terms of reliability, though I’ll agree that the Aurora was at least good-looking. They certainly weren’t sufficiently better than the Malibu/Grand Am or Park Avenue/Bonneville to warrant a separate existence.
Prior to that, the Cutlasses and LSSs were truly bad cars. The Bravada and Silhouette were travesties. Do I need to dredge up models from the eighties?
I think GM’s real fault was not shitcanning Pontiac, Buick and GMC at the same time, when they still had the free cash to eat the franchise suits.
As far as Opel coming to the States, I really think the ideal place for that synergy is with Saturn. The Astra is a financial disaster for GM, as is the Aura. But I think a big part of that is they build them in Europe, which insures they lose dough on every one they sell. Other problem is brand fratricide. Why would I buy an Aura when I can get a slightly better-looking Malibu, which is an identical car? There is no good answer, so Aura dies on the vine.
But Saturn has one really, really good thing going for it and that is it’s dealer network. You don’t hear the standard-GM-dealer horror stories coming out of Saturn dealer experiences. Also, there aren’t 3.8 x 10^9 dealers to try and feed. Perversely, that might make Saturn look like a better deal to kill off to the bean counters, ’cause there are fewer dealers that will sue once the Mothership screws them over. But if Saturn had the unique product (Opels) that you couldn’t buy at another GM dealership running its perennial firesale, that brand would have a starting chance. With the limited dealer number its also sized more appropriate to GM’s future volumes, cold as that is to mention.
I’m like a lot of people who think Buick is a viable brand. But its been so mauled by the corporate tools it might be better to put a bullet in there and be done. Buick has been pidgeonholed into a one-demographic market. Unfortunately, that demographic can be covered by a single model of car (the Avalon for Toyota) for outfits that even want to compete in the space. Revitalizing Buick would be a very expensive operation, and there is no way to do it unless you make Buicks…i.e. cars you can’t get at another GM dealership for less money.
While Opel may have a good brand in Europe, it is barely known in the US. So why should GM try to revive that brand in the US now, where they already have problems? So then why produce the Buick at Opel? Well, the Buick brand IS known – and producing it at Opel might allow GM to agree on payment terms like 6 months after delivery – which should increase GM`s cash position a lot! They get deliverd the Buick and can sell it, and pay for it 6 months later – great deal. It might sink Opel, but for the survival of GM in the US, it might help.
I’m an old Opel fan but this “if only GM brought them here” stuff is pretty thin.
Catera-not a bad car, nothing special either. Sales dud.
Astra-repeat above but add sub par mpg in a segment where it counts.
Opel is not going to save GimMeNA. They aren’t that great.
Ford O’ Yurp seems to have a bit more to offer.
Bunter
I agree with those who say Opels should be sold as Saturns here, because that spares GM the effort of establishing another brand. Because Saturn lack an upscale image, perhaps the dealerships should be Saturn/Saab, with Saabs occupying the upper tier with the new 9-5, the 9-3 convertible, etc. Saab is tiny, and definitely has been starved for product, but it does have an upscale image. The Saturn/Saab shops would simply be GM’s U.S. dealer network for its European products.
With the future of Saturn, Buick, Pontiac and Saab up in the air, GM is trying to chart a course based on constantly-changing assumptions.
And with nary a clue about what to do about these changes.
John
I can’t see Opel working here. Can anyone tell me what European cars have been successfully sold here by using rebates? That’s GM’s one and only marketing trick. Who is going to buy an Opel instead of, say, a BMW, and put up with the high price of German repair parts on a car that won’t hold it’s value? Think GM would change their approach? Consider what they’re doing to the Cadillac CTS right now. Last year, GM held down the incentives. But right now, rebate plus loyalty bonus plus current lessee bonus, and that’s $7500 off. That whistling sound is the CTS residual values falling off a cliff. That’s a real shame, since CTS is a fantastic car.
If Opel models are to sell in the US, they need to be built in the US. Now, Opel seems more or less overall the most successful GM division. But the Opel brand in the US? Or as Saturn, a dead-brand-walking? Why? Opel’s cars should be built in the US and branded as Chevys. That’s what goes on in various parts of the world anyway. GM needs 2 brands: luxury and non-luxury. In the US, Chevy and Cadillac. In Europe, Opel (Vauxhall in the UK) and Saab. In Australia, Holden and…? Standardize the models. Sure the lineups will not have 100% overlap but they will share a lot.
What’s the point of having both an Aveo and a Corsa? Both a Cobalt and an Astra?
There is no point to trying to revive the Opel brand in the US. It would take too long and too much money.
There is nothing wrong with smaller Buicks. Buick has been selling smaller cars for years. Remember the old X-body and N-body Skylarks? Buick by Opel? As long as the car carries all the brand cues, has a distinct exterior and interior from the other Delta IIs, upmarket engines and features and a higher price, it can make it. Other luxury and near luxury brands sell compact cars at premium prices, no reason Buick can’t if its done right.
If anything, Buick needs to go more upmarket, closer to Cadillac than Chevy. What’s the point of having a FWD LaCrosse in the $25-35k price range, right on top of the Impala? No reason not to be in the $30-38k range, still below the CTS and FWD, so there would be no direct competition.
A Delta II Buick coupe in a $25-35k range would be fine, and not a direct comeptitor to any other GM product.
Buick could be the FWD luxury to Cadillac’s RWD luxury.
Anyone who thinks dead brands/nameplates can’t be revived have forgotten the 180 Nissan/Infiniti has taken in the last 8 years. Compare 2nd gen and 3rd gen Altima. The transition from Infiniti I35 to the G35. It can be done.
psarhjinian :
January 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Get rid of Chevy entirely.
Ah, what? Chevrolet is the quintessential American brand. Ask any person outside of the States what is the first thing that comes to their mind when you say “American car”. The answer in most cases is “Chevrolet”. If GM was to go down one single brand in NA, it would be Chevrolet.
There’s definitely an argument for rebranding Opels for the US Market. Just not as Buicks, or built in Ruesselsheim. I could see a Saturn lineup work with Corsa, Astra, Insignia, Meriva, Zafira, and Antara. But built in the US, Canada or Mexico. I also wouldn’t exactly recommend replacing China’s Buicks with Opels.
But one of GM’s most pressing problems is branding. Sloane’s “portfolio” of brands made a lot of money, but that trend began reversing a long time ago. If Toyota had brought the Scions to the US as Toyotas they would probably still be selling. They were branded to death, and all Toyota proved is that Toyotas have to be boring.
Saab can’t be “spun off” fast enough, but there are no guarantees that it can survive on its own. Pontiac has basically been acknowledged to be a niche “halo brand” for the GMC (Chevy) and Buick (Oldsmobile) dealerships. Better to keep Opel products on their own at Saturn dealers, reviving the brand’s inedependent roots. PBG is dead, its dealers would be better off selling Chinese cars and Indian trucks.
Of course, none of this is possible (realistically) without a Chapter 11 filing. In which case, Opel would be a fresh start and an opportunity for unprecedented global brand alignment.
GM simply has to pare itself down to two brands. Chevrolet and Cadillac. This is the modern model – see Toyota, Honda, Nissan. If Opel has some great european product, bring it here and sell it through a sub-store within Cadillac dealers. But do not expect it to sell in sufficient numbers here to become its own Brand. And do not try to americanize it to pump up its numbers. Didn’t work with Saab, will not work with Opel. Keep the US line to a minimum (maybe 2 or 3 models) and it will complement the Cadillac offerings. Buick (at least in the US), Saturn and Pontiac need to go.
Whoa Edward, your information about Buick’s future is not accurate.
With the future of Saturn, Buick, Pontiac and Saab up in the air, GM is trying to chart a course based on constantly-changing assumptions.
No, that’s not correct. Buick’s future is not up in the air. We know for a fact that it will be one of GM’s four remaining brands, should GM actually survive long enough to carry it out. Even if, for some reason, they decide not to kill Saturn, Saab, or Pontiac, Buick will not be going anywhere.
CannotCycle: The Aura is not built in Germany and it is based on the Pontiac G6 extended Epsilon platform, the Malibu is based on the Aura and all 3 are built in the same NA plant.
But you are correct: the Astra is a total bomb.
Why not sell Buick-Pontiac-GMC & Saturn to the Chinese? After all, Globalism is and has been the intent all along.
In the short term, the sale of Buick-Pontiac-GMC & Saturn would give GM a much needed cash infusion. In the long term, well never mind!
Let’s face it, it does not matter what GM decides to do. Unless the management and board are overhauled, GM is destined for death!
psarhjinian:
Great points, I find a lot to agree with in your reasoning, especially the parts about redundant brands. On the other hand I could not stand the blobby Alero and Aurora, even though they were very distinctly styled cars.
Now, I’d like to do a bit of word association.
Saturn: planet, space, stars, exploration, future
Buick: moldy, hospice, flatline, terminal
Also, one of my grandmothers owned a Buick Skylark. That may have helped turn me off to the brand.
My aunt was recently shopping for cars. I found an Astra 5-door auto, reasonable options, and with all of the incentives and discounts it would have been $13500 brand new out the door.
Wisely, she bought a Mazda5.
GM is trying to move Opel upmarket in Europe because they have little choice. The traditional D-segment models are getting hammered by down-market executive cars — given a choice between a relatively stripped, four-cylinder 3-Series and a Vectra, private buyers have been choosing the BMW (or Benz, or Audi). The high-end German brands have been going after the C-segment for a while, too, although they haven’t had quite the same penetration because the C-segment market is more price sensitive.
So, Opel needs to find ways to amortize its costs, because right now, they are kind of reliant on value pricing — that you can get more car for the Euro. Selling more Opels in the U.S. (under whatever badge) would probably help in that regard, although there’s the separate question of whether they could be sold for a competitive price here without losing money.
I think Buick’s brand value in the U.S. is pretty much shot. Too many years of badge engineering and cheapening the product, and of the different divisions eating each other’s lunch.
argentia writes “I think Buick’s brand value in the U.S. is pretty much shot. Too many years of badge engineering and cheapening the product, and of the different divisions eating each other’s lunch.”
That applies to Opel in spades. I do not remember with fondness my 1971 Opel 1900, which I referred to for years as a German Vega, and GM further trashed the name a few years after that with the Opel Isuzu, sold at Buick dealers. If gm is going to continue to sell Saturns it couldn’t hurt to brand them as Saturns.
psarhjinian: Agree with many of your points.
Question to the B and B:
Can anyone name any consumer brand(s) that was/were as damaged as Buick and Pontiac currently are, and managed to resurrect themselves into what GM believes them to be?
I can’t.
Das ist EuroBuick!!
Enclave sales were up 57% in 2008, how do you figure that is “downhill”?
LaCrosse is all new sheet metal, all new interior, and based on the brand new Epsilon II platform. How do you figure that is a me-too rebrand job?
Regarding the Delta II car, The Motor Authority story states that “Due for the 2012 model year in China, GM is considering bringing the car to North America as well, reports Automotive News. The car will be based on the FWD Delta platform and could potentially be produced in both countries.” How does that turn into producing the car in Ruesselsheim for the U.S.?
With this much fiction in the first four paragraphs, please explain why I should read further.
Et tu Ed-de’? GM does not need to try to introduce another brand now!!
The one advantage GM and Ford could have that they perpetually fail to leverage is economy of scale. Sure, they’ve tried the world car before and failed horribly, but that was because they took a car designed for Europe and built in Europe and tried to sell it for a profit in the US. If they designed a car with consideration for all markets from the outset and then added subtle tweaks for each’s idiosyncrasies they could generate a profit on B and C class cars. If Toyota can do it with the Corolla, the blandest car ever, and GM can do it with the Malibu surely GM can make it work.
Forget Opel, Buick, Pontiac, Saturn, GMAC, SAAB, and Hummer in the US. Sell Chevy and Cadillac. Make world cars and sell them as Chevrolets in North America, Opels in Europe, and Buicks in China and make a profit while leveraging what little brand equity is left.
I can see all the arguments for rebadging the Opels under the Saturn brand. Saturn is dead man walking and this would at least keep the dealers going and maybe the brand until GM can give it a decent product.
However there is one powerful argument against this, does GM need yet more models in it’s line up?
As GM have made a real mess of keeping brand identity (Pontiac Vibe = Excitement, err no), they trim their brands to their best sellers, have a brand identity for the number of brands that can support the surviving models.
The first word of this article initially appeared as “Mortuauthority” rathar than “Motorauthority.”
Was it my subconscious working overtime, I wonder?
@mikey610:
“Can anyone name any consumer brand(s) that was/were as damaged as Buick and Pontiac currently are, and managed to resurrect themselves into what GM believes them to be?
I can’t.”
Sure. Hyundai.
A complete unfunny joke of a car when they came to the US with the horrible Excel. They’re a good example of what happens when you improve each subsequent iteration of design and engineering.
Also, Apple had been left for dead on the side of the road around the time Scully released the Newton.
Allante, Catera, GTO, G8, Astra.
Will they NEVER learn?
Reading all the comments on this page, I couldn’t help thinking that although a lot of them go into wildly different directions, most do seem viable. Kill Buick, reinvent Buick, bring over Opel, rebadge them as Saturns, Buick as NA Lexus, Buick as a sort of Chevy-for-the-senile…
Bottom line: No one (including GM headquarters) really has a clue what to do with these brands. That should tell anyone with a brain that the brand value of Buick, Saturn, Pontiac and the like is ZERO. This sort of discussion simply would not happen with Lexus, Volkswagen, or BMW (or, if that’s too premium for you, Toyota, for that matter) because everyone has a very clear idea what these brands stand for. As for GM’s offerings, ask a hundred people and you’ll get 102 ideas (case in point: this post).
mikey 610: Can anyone name any consumer brand(s) that was/were as damaged as Buick and Pontiac currently are, and managed to resurrect themselves into what GM believes them to be?
Couldn’t agree more – and I think, ditto for Saab, Hummer, GMC and Saturn.
Hey!!!
Looks like the side view of a 2008 Lancer.
Honda net profit is down 90%. Lay off is on the way for the American people.
The Automotive Industry is suffering except for Ford who does not need the BAIL OUT money per FORD Company.
You Go Ford!!!
Ah, what? Chevrolet is the quintessential American brand. Ask any person outside of the States what is the first thing that comes to their mind when you say “American car”.
I should clarify: “Get rid of Chevy in Europe“.
Can anyone name any consumer brand(s) that was/were as damaged as Buick and Pontiac currently are, and managed to resurrect themselves into what GM believes them to be?
Sure, and in the same industry, too: Hyundai.
I’ve said this more than a few times: Hyundai and GM both have a perception problem. Hyundai saw the problem as their’s to fix, and did so (improving quality, extending warranties). GM saw the problem as the customer’s fault for not appreciating their brilliance, and did nothing to win back customers except whine like a petulant child.
Hyundai’s current problems are similar to GMs, just not as serious: they’re having trouble sorting out what makes Hyundai and Kia distinct (both brands do not need vans, or mid-size and compact sedans, etc, etc). They need to come up with a distinct plan (the Soul and Borrego do not belong in the same showroom, just as the Accent and Genesis do not).
ETA: jkross2 beat me to it. To comment:
“A complete unfunny joke of a car when they came to the US with the horrible Excel. “
At least you were spared the Pony, which was basically an Excel without the redeeming features.
psarhjinian :
January 30th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I should clarify: “Get rid of Chevy in Europe“.
Ah…it’s a good question. What happens to GM-DAT, the maker of “global” Chevys? Are they profitable?
Ah…it’s a good question. What happens to GM-DAT, the maker of “global” Chevys? Are they profitable?
Right now? Probably not. In general? Maybe. They’re probably lower-cost than GMNA or GM-E assemblers, but that doesn’t mean they’re making any more margin.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to squeeze Opel with Chevy on one end and Saab or Cadillac on the other. GM-E has done well with two brands, why screw it up, especially when we’re proving across the globe that there’s too many brands in general, and that multiple overlapping brands are always a mistake.
If GM is to revive Buick, it needs to remember what a Buick is. That concept car isn’t a Buick, at least not after a gigantic slab of granite dropped on the roof. You’d think GM would check out an Avalon.
There are a lot of people holding onto their LeSabres and Park Avenues because they can’t buy a traditional Buick. Yeah, their hair is thin, but their wallets are thick.
There are a lot of people holding onto their LeSabres and Park Avenues because they can’t buy a traditional Buick. Yeah, their hair is thin, but their wallets are thick.
I think the problem with that market is that those people are sticking with their Regals and Le Sabres and such, and that yes, their wallets are tick, but they’re also not likely to buy too many more cars, whereas younger buyers have at least two or three more purchases in them if not more.