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GM’s plan to avoid death…

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In a nutshell:

-Sell Hummer
-Sell Saab
-Get rid of Saturn
-Shrink Pontiac to a “Niche brand
-Focus on Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac.
-Talking to the Chinese about possible sell of part of Buick.
-Close almost 2000 dealerships
-Beg for a $18 billion loan.

I am glad to see they don’t want to kill Pontiac.
Not sure why the GMC trucks can’t become Chevy trucks…

What do you think???

Conversation 41 comments

  1. I thought they will get rid of Buick, at least in the states. For me, I will retain only 3 brands, Chevy, Caddy and GMC.

  2. they should get rid of Buick, there’s like only 3-4 cars here in the US, and i rarely see them on the roads unlike saturn.

  6. I think it’s a good thing that they sell Saab because GM has completely mismanaged it lately. Lots of concepts but no new models, the 9-5 getting very old, rebadged Blazers and Imprezas… Saab needs a fresh start

  8. GMC builds medium duty trucks as well and always wanted to get into heavy duty…You don’t want these monster commercial trucks on a chevy lot because big vehicles scare the little people.

  11. After all the money GM recently poured into Saturn they now want to get rid of it? Saturn has one of the most up to date car lines of GM (not to mention some of their better GM of Europe cars).

    I say get rid of Pontiac. They have only produced forgettable in the recent past such as the G6 and G5. The Solstice is already available at Saturn as the Sky. The G8 is the only worthwhile car they have (a modified Holden car of Australia).

  12. Most of their companies now have different personalities that appeal to different people. It’s a shame to me that they can’t find a way to keep most of them. Sometimes it’s just the styling that makes you choose one over the other. The Chevy face may not be for everyone so you can choose the same car with a different nose and butt, and there you have totally different personality!

  13. Why GM is keeping Pontiac and GMC is beyond comprehension. Neither brand offers anything unique. To kill Saturn is the height of stupidity. Make Saturn the US outlet for Opels. Plus Saturn is more marketable than Buick.

  14. I would keep Chevy, GMC, Caddy, and Saturn and get rid of Saab, Buick, Hummer, and Pontiac. Make Chevy all cars and GMC all pickups/SUVs, Saturn can be all Euro cars from Opel, and Caddy can be Caddy.

    Pontiac and Buick can die, as far as I’m concerned. They can go the way of Oldsmobile (by the way, my grandma still drives an Olds).

    The rest of the plan sounds good to me. They should also renegotiate with the UAW and lower the salaries as well as get rid of the plan they have where they pay for laid off employees for a certain amount of time (wasted money, you either let them go or you don’t). The should also reduce the amount they are giving the retirees of the UAW by 15% and let the union pick up that tab until they are back in the black.

  16. What a stupid list for a business plan restructuring. WAKE UP Bozos! GM needs to build a better product across the board. GM should become the benchmark and not trying to catch up out of breath 5 years later. Selling will not get GM anywhere. Overcapacity is 10% of the problem. 90% is that many American consumers switched to Japanese cars and are happy where they are. Selling brands may add some liquidity, but, it does not bode well for the future, if they continue business as usual.

  18. What they are probably going to do is roll out the new Opel’s as Buicks. Not a bad idea. Still sorry to see Saturn go.

  20. Stupid! Saturn has GM’s best products and best dealer network. They aren’t “successful” per Fritz Henderson because GM does idiot things like under-fund the advertising launch of the Aura and then IMPORTS the Astra when the exchange rate is dismal. Now we’ll never get to enjoy GM’s euro designed models. It’s a crying shame!

  21. As you know, I got to test drive a few Saturn cars in the past weeks.

    I thought the new Vue was pretty forgettable.
    But there is nothing wrong with it.

    I really liked the Astra. A very solid small car that drives great.

    And I think the Aura is one of the best midsized sedan out there.

    The problem is not many people know about these cars.
    It’s pretty amazing that the largest car maker in the world cannot find a way to let people know about their good products.
    Let’s hope that the Insignia and the next Astra still find their way into the US. Maybe as Pontiacs. The insignia could make a nice “Next G6”.
    Pontiac could stay alive at a small cost by just selling Opels and Holdens in the US.

  22. OK here is a new one I just made up. How about the U.S. government buy Sabb, Buick, Hummer. Then in return give to China to ruduce our debt of 2.4 trillion we owe them. That way GM will get thier government money, and we would then only owe China 2.39 trillion

  23. You said what I was thinking Vince. Yes, Saturn is starting to get great products but no one is biting. People have not been exited about Saturn in years.

  24. “Saturn sales are worse since they have been doing things right.”

    HeHe…Shhhh…Talk about destroying a damaged brand…Saturn sales are less than a third of what they were 5 years ago.

  26. “Pontiac could stay alive at a small cost by just selling Opels and Holdens in the US”

    I agree with this…and…People don’t want Saturns cause they can’t haggle for a lower price so the Saturns end up far too expensive than the other brands with big discounts.

  27. Pontiac’s a niche brand. what the hell do they have that i want to buy? maybe the solstice. but then might as well call it chevy solstice.

    the chinese people probably won’t buy buick once the chinese owns it. imo, the reason they buy it because it is american and fairly cheap competitively.

    okay, keep gmc but then gmc should be devoted to truck and suv. no more chevy suburban, no more colorado, express ect. it should lump into gmc brand.

    chevy should be just about bread-and-butter cars and the corvette (unless the niche is pontiac corvette :)).

    caddy is a keeper. luxury brand to compete with other luxury marques.

    saturn was a niche when it came out … plastic body, no-haggle price but now their cars are metal. no difference there. they could be absorbed by chevy.

  29. Keep Chev and Cadillac as they are, all trucks to wear GMC badging, Pontiac for captive imports (Opel, Holden, maybe some of the small South American models), but with a structured lineup, dump Saturn, Hummer, and Saab, sell Buick to Chinese (while the name still has some significance to them).

  30. so GM guy is going to drive the malibu hybrid, chrysler is driving the aspen hybrid and ford will do the escape hybrid.

    beside the malibu, don’t these morons know that hybrid gets its best mpg in city driving. doing 80 in an aspen hybrid is not going to get 30mpg.

    why don’t they drive their cheapest cars (aveo, escort and sebring)… these are cars that poor people like myself drive.

    they would have to rethink the entire line sitting inside the aveo down the turnpikes.

    oh, why not make them come on the 24th of december instead of this weekend. let them choke on congested pa and oh turnpikes! THIS IS HOW WE NORMAL PEOPLE DO EVERYDAY!

  31. The plan doesn’t address GM’s bigger problem, namely the fact that most of what they sell is junk.
    If it isn’t junk when you buy it, it becomes junk very quickly because AC Delco replacement parts are of lower quality than what they install on the assembly line. That means that your original brakes last three years, but you need a brake job every year after that, until the day you buy a Honda.

    A bailout may keep them going, but it won’t keep them from losing more market share.

    Plus, how come the eggheads at GM haven’t figured-out that the US economy has had a major slowdown every eight years or so since the 1950’s? You would think they could plan for these things instead of getting caught with massive overcapacity and hundreds of thousands of unsold cars. You just know that they will make the same mistake in 2016.

  34. GMC is probably their most profitable division–obviously there are many people who don’t want a truck with Chevrolet on it.
    They need to break the UAW now, or sell the company to the union and let them choke on the mess they’ve both made. I’ve been a GM stockholder for 40 years, but the taxpayer shouldn’t pay for them to keep wages and job security that few of us have.

  35. GM should get rid of all those nasty brutish big trucks because I am stupid and weak and get scared easily.

  36. “People don’t want Saturns cause they can’t haggle for a lower price”

    Saturns end up being for weak people who are afraid to haggle and so blow all their money…In an economic downturn these people have no money and so Saturn dies.

  38. Saturns “no haggle” pricing killed them…Funny how that works in an era of intense car price deflation.

  39. Let a bankruptcy court solve this problem. There is no way that any of the Big 3 can survive with the big buck contracts they have with the UAW. Filing chaper 11 will restructuer their companies and place probably someone much smarter then the current CEO, over seeing this disaster. The big 3 were arrogant during their hayday.
    GMC, Buick, and Hummer need to go away. Keep Pontiac and Saturn. Anything different shows they cannot make the right decisions.

  40. There is no way the big 3 can survive with their debt-load…chapter 11 is the only way and those parasite maggots in DC know it.

  41. I say combine Saab, Pontiac, Hummer/Cadilac together as a dynamic high end brand.
    Sell Saturn to Tata Motors or some Chinese Co. or just dump it like Olds.
    GMC name plate dissapears “nobody knows who they are anyway”.
    Chevy/Buick become once again the everyday household name brand cars.

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