GM to shrink to four core brands in North America
 

One of General Motors’ biggest criticisms is the number of different brands under its roof, which ends up seeing it sell similar models that often compete with one another in the same segments. In its efforts to secure its share of a federal bailout, GM said it intends to focus its U.S. product and marketing resources on four core brands, namely Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC.

That leaves Hummer, Saab, Saturn and Pontiac in an uneasy state. GM has already confirmed that it is looking for a buyer for its Hummer brand, and that Saturn was also under review. Pontiac, meanwhile, is expected to be reduced to just a few models, while Saab could also be sold-off or axed altogether.

At the Detroit Auto Show this week, GM’s North American President Troy Clarke told Automotive News that the company will be able to execute those plans, despite the global credit crisis putting a hold on merger and acquisition activity.

"We have to re-engineer the way we're doing business in many regards," Clarke said. "We're going to be a smaller company."

Also speaking at this week’s Detroit event, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said Pontiac will be reduced to just five models – the G8, G5, Vibe, Solstice and Solstice Coupe.

There has been no decision on the future of Saturn but GM is working closely with its dealers. As for Saab, recent reports suggested that GM was having trouble finding a suitor for the Swedish brand. However, GM has since dismissed the reports explaining that it is still early in the process and that any outcome will take some time.

Part of GM’s downsizing efforts will also see its 6,600 dealer network shrunk to around 4,700 dealers by 2012.

All Content Copyright 2006-2008 Motor Authority


http://www.motorauthority.com/gm-to-...h-america.html

This doesn't bode well for styling. Chevy's sedans have always been America's ugliest cars (Cobalt, Impala, Malibu, etc).........The Pontiac G6 and Grand Prix were infinitely better.

It's a smart move to simplify the lineup and reducing then fluff outta Pontiac is the way to go.

G8 - Obvious
G5 - Current car has to go. A Cobalt with a Pontiac grille is still a Cobalt. If and when the Cruze shows up, it needs to be more than a "Pontiac" appearance package.
Vibe - The new version is undeserving of a Pontiac badge.
Solstice - Obvious

Suprising they are dropping the G6, or at least not offer something in that class.

How does it plan on doing this without getting their assholes ripped apart by lawsuits from laws that protect dealerships from an event like this? They had a hard enough time dumping just Oldsmobile. Their efforts to sell off Hummer met with a thud. I can't imagine how they're going to drop a larger volume brand like Pontiac, let alone the addition of Saturn, Saab, and Hummer without a huge amount of litigation and legal expense. They might be able to find a buyer for Saab, and possibly even Saturn if they get lucky, but Hummer has been a massive albatross since the SUV market tanked, and Pontiac may be a tough sell in general.

It would be the right direction to go in, and contraction would help to streamline their product line immensely, but the laws in place protecting dealerships are going to be a huge hurdle.

I dont understand what's wrong with the Solstice, many magazines compared it favorably to the Miata, and with the supercharged version it's a lot faster.

The Pontiac Grand Prix, G6, and, if we want to go further back, the Olds Intrigue, were the only midsize American sedans that a young "playa" could drive without being embarassed about driving a generic family sedan. Those types of guys would never buy a Malibu or Impala, because they're too generic and look like rentals. Chevy has no style, never has.

The common complaint about the Solstice is that the interior is heeeeeerorable and some of the layout sucks.

I don't think anybody will miss Saab.

Or Saturn.

The 9-3 is actually one of the best looking sedans on the road, IMO

Yeah... that car went to shit as soon as Toyota stopped making it

I miss Oldsmobile. It was their oldest marque.

I think this strategy is misguided. I think that having the same car under five fucking brands with just different grill and taillights is retarded - I always did...but there's a way to pare this all down without axing brands.

Mechanically, GM products from the "non-chevy" camp were often lumped together as "BOP" (Buick, Olds, Pontiac).

I thought that at the time they opted to kill off Olds, and I even more firmly believe today that they should have simply eliminated model overlap between these brands, and then sold all 3 of these brands under the same "roof", and dealer network; "BOP" dealer.

This would have allowed them to keep their marques, and still reduce redundancy, consolidate some operations, and improve overall efficiency.

:idk:

UM??? I thought that saturn was one of their better selling brands?

It is a good move, but unless they start selling cars that people actually want, and can maintain a reputation of reliability like the jap cars have, this may just be another nail in the coffin.

It was the Buick, Olds, Cadillac group, not BOP. Pontiac and Chevy were always together too.

What I don't get is why keep GMC? The only reason I can think of is so all the Buick, Pontiac, GMC dealers can still survive.

GMC is the "classy" chevy. For those that want luxury but not a Caddy, IMO.

Saturn is a different thing though. They have a cult following!
Worked at a Saturn dealership, and when the Aura came out, it was met with a lot of distain, a car made of METAL!!! Where is my cheapo plastic mileage getter? As time went on, people saw the light.
Personally, I like the Aura better than the Malibu or the G6 on which the chassis is shared.
The vue is junk, too small for the milage it (doesn't) get.
The Sky is a rebaged Solstice, but some say it's better. It's a fun car if you get the redline version (turbo) as long as you only have one friend, and nothing to haul.
The Outlook is ok. Horse apiece with the Acadia, but a couple grand cheaper.
The Astra... now that is just dumb. All european, so it confuses the fuck out of customers, and as much money as the Aura, while underpowered.
Anyone that came to look at an Astra either went home with a Aura or a Mazda3. (Sold new Mazda's too)

Dude, I'm a hotrodder. I've built over a dozen engines for myself and friends.

Here's a BOP axle:

http://www.ronsmachiningservice.net/...POSI-GM/Detail

Just Google, and you'll see that "BOP" has quite a history....

Doesn't change my point, regardless.

plusone

"we are professional grade" :rolleyes: dumb...

Tennessee will, we have a lot of jobs in Saturn factories in Spring Hill

GMC should go, it's pretty much the same line as Chevy anyway. Caddy has the dept in the fancy category.

I'm speaking from how GM divided them up. When I went to college for engineering (General Motors Institute), I remember writing to the Buick Cadillac Oldsmobile group when I co-op'd...I think that fizzled in the early 90's, though.

Agree. I worked for Saturn Corp. from 1994 to 2001 and it was hands down the best company I have ever worked. Everybody was always willing to help anyone and the level of pride was beyond anything you could imagine for a large company. I worked in both Michigan at the Engineering facility and at the plant in Spring Hill, TN. We were very innovative and the greenest car company at the time.

When the plant shut down, people cleaned it...everyone, not just a few. In the 1990s Saturn was a different kind of company with a different kind of car. It got fucked over when GM began takover in 1998 cause GM was going to drop Saturn in 2000, but decided to axe Olds 5 years later instead. Lijack voved Saturn to be the 100 year car company...I thought it could happen if GM gave Saturn product.

I still miss Opel....:sorry:

I've always thought that GM should loose some of it's redundant brands and not make the same cars rebadged. I hope that if they do keep GMC that they will then stop selling trucks under the Chevy badge.:idk: I personally would hate to see Pontiac go just because I've always been a lover of their car's styling. The G8 is :drool: IMOH.

Opel is still alive. It, along with Vauxhall, continues as a European GM brand (Opel is primarily German, if memory serves). They just stopped importing them here.

In fact, it was the now-defunct Olds brand that served as the "Importer" of the Opel product.

I love the old Opel GT "Mini-'Vette". What a gorgeous little car...

http://cache.jalopnik.com/cars/images/opel_gt_4.jpg

GMC is a much nicer trim line than Chevy. Chevy is GM's entry level trim line with Buick and GMC being their mid level trim line and Cadillac being their top of the line trim line.

GMC should be the brand for commerical vehicles only. From stripper pickups to heavy duty stuff.
Pontiac should be the niche brand and it's vehicles reflect something besides a ridiculous BS rille treatment. No mini-vans...no CUV's\SUV's. I'd like to see some Mazda guys advise these folks how to build great handling car on a budget when you are stuck with so-so parts bin stuff.

Chevy - bread and butter stuff.

Buick - At this point they are going to be competing with Hyundai for poor peoples luxury cars. They are not prepared to chase Lexus in that they lack platform and drivetrain that can escape bean counters.

Caddy...Dump the Vette wanna be. The CTS coupe has "potential" as a Halo car.

Saturn - I'm voting keep the brand. Make the cars interesting. This is were you can get silly with styling...but they MUST MUST MUST work on quality interiors and nail down fit and finish. They do not need to have evey type of vehicle under the sun...they do not need a Saturn Minivan. They do not need a saturn full size SUV.

yes, but they don't need several options anymore. Stick with Chevy for regular cars and have caddy for the fancy ones. They are trying to cut the fat and GMC is fat, it's not necessary. Saturn should go back to their roots, what made them stick around, cheap economical beat the shit out of them cars. They should be the entry brand. Buick, just dump it. Caddy, Chevy, and Saturn. They can take some of the necessary cars from other brands and move them to one of those three lines.

A few example of models that cross the GM brands:

GMC Acadia, Chevy Traverse, Saturn Outlook, and the Buick Enclave - Same vehicle, jut re-badged and and different trim packages.

Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura - Same fucking car

Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra - again same fucking thing.

Chevy Avalanche - Cadillac Escalade EXT - Same

Chevy Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Cadillac Escalade - Same thing

Chevy Suburban, GMC Yukon XLT - Same thing

There are a lot more that cross the boundaries. So yeah you can clearly see where the fat needs to be cut. And like you said GMC could go away completely and no one would miss it.

They'll never drop Buick, it's always had very strong customer loyalty among the 60+ set

They are trying to appeal to the younger crowd now.

Yeah like the Grand National.....

Rebadging works wonders...everyone does it and benefits from it. Did you know that Honda has 5 total platforms worldwide whereas Ford has 11.

Most Lexus's are built off Camry platforms, but because America is generally dumb, they stretch the wheelbase 1 inch, change some panels and people think the car is all different.

"Most Lexus's are built off Camry platforms"

IS - um...no Camry
ES - Um there be Camry underneath
GS - um....no Camry
LS - um....no Camry
SC - um....no Camry
RX - Um there be Camry underneath
GX - um....no Camry
LX - um....no Camry

That's 2 outta 8 you ignorant buffoon. Please refer to your Texas Instruments calculator before posting things.

I hate it when people say dumb shit like this. Its not your fault your not dumb you just live on one of the coast where people don't drive trucks and SUVs.

You do know that one of the best selling autos in the US is the F150 and Chevy and GMC trucks do very well also. Keep in mind they do that with out the aid of huge amounts of rentals.

Just because they don't sell in big citys and on the coast does not mean people don't want them or buy them.

Come to Michigan its almost rare to see a car on the road, trucks and SUVs are the norm. Try MN lots of trucks. You don't live in Germany, if you did then your statement might be correct.

My take on the subject.

Chevy should make SUVs and may be the Corvette.
Pontiac should make cars or if Chevy still makes cars Pontiac can be young crowd marketed cars maybe cazy small SUVs.
Buick should do high end rebadge of the above.
Caddy should make stuff that might need a driver/could be made into a limo.
GMC should make the trucks and Vans
Saab should be sold.
Saturn should go away or become the Hybreds or el-cheap-os.

Oh and for the record I work in the factorys not for the factorys. I work for a supplier of machines used in the factorys. I see the difference between Honda, Toyota and GM in the new factorys its not that different but in the old factorys its scary bad.

Oh by the way what I wrote above can't happen because of CAFE standards they have to build a wide range of cars to meet the new rules. I don't know how GMC is meeting them cause they don't make small cars?

Do you just make this up?....My bud works for Toyota in Torrance..or do you in New York know more?

Toyota can say that once the chassis is stretched it is no longer a Camry..but that really isn't the case.

They fall under the manufacturer, not the badging or the distributor.

Your "bud" is just as much of a buffon as you if he thinks that the Camry platform forms the basis for "most" of Lexus's lineup.

...and you have got to be kidding me if having a buddy mechanic at a dealership give weight to your post.

Yeah which was probably only 2% of Buick's sales.....

The real sellers are Park Avenues and LeSabres and bread & butter sedans like that.........Purchased primarily by age 65+

The only Buick that doesn't target oldsters is that SUV "crossover" whatever it's called

And as far as the Camry goes? Show me any manufacturer who has ever taken a FWD sedan and shared its platform with a RWD sedan (Lexus LS, GS and IS).........Doesn't happen.

There's something Buick should bring back... unfortunately they probably couldn't do it justice anymore.

Agreed! I'll never forgive myself. My step-mom worked for GM and could have gotten me a GN at a cheap price but I hated her so much that I bought a RX-7 instead....

He is a Powertrain Mechanical Engineer for Toyota Motor America...not a mechanic.

Sharing a platform among vehicle lines isn't anything new nor does it matter in terms of how the vehicle drives. There are a ton of other different stuff that makes a vehicle ride/handle the way it does.

The drivetrain doesn't matter if your changing the chassis anyway. I'm not saying the chassis is a Silverado vs. Sierra, but they start with a devleoped chassis and make changes.

Do you think a GTI and a Rabbit chassis is the same? They actually have very different chassis.

Huh? GTI is just a hopped-up Rabbit, always has been. Just because they might use different struts & springs doesn't mean it's a different chassis.

Chassis = basically just the stamped underbody, including the firewall & shock towers

Or they'd water it down by rebadging an Opel or a Holden car. And yes, I'm sure the recent GTO is a nice car, but it's still just a rebadged Holden that should never have gotten the GTO name.

I was kind of excited about the GTO... the preliminary info was promising.
But seeing so many up for sale by owners since tells me something. :idk:

That and the red gauges are garish. :panic:

The first year GTO looked like a 2 door Grand Prix.
Once they got hood scoops and a spoiler it was better. And the things SCOOT, but nothing will compare in looks to the 02 T/A WS6 that they dropped. :no:

101Lifts - Do you know what a platform is?

are you seriously stupid enough where you think if a car shares the same power steering pump and window washer pump that it's on the same platform?


fucking hell you've lost your goddamn mind.
what did those little japanese people do you at isuzu?

To be honest,I'm only skimming this thread but am I to understand that some of you think that shared parts and platforms is a BAD thing? If I ran GM EVERY FUCKING GM CAR would use the same alternator,battery,window motor,starter,sunroof,etc. It is completely retarded for a Chevy car to use a different battery if it has power windows or not.

The TA's had a little too much bodywork for my tastes.
F-bodys have always been more muscle car than sports car and to give them all that bodywork seemed like trying to squeeze them into a mold they weren't meant to fill.

Don't count me in that lot...I'm just calling 1010Lifts an idiot for saying that most Lexus are based off the Camry.

We're not talking about simple shared PARTS like alternators, etc........We're talking about shared PLATFORMS which = the stamped floorpan, firewall, shock towers, etc. Once you make a decision to use the same platform for multiple models, it means that certain factors that affect driving dynamics will be fixed:

1) Where the engine is mounted
2) Where the suspension is mounted
3) Where the steering rack is mounted
4) What TYPE of suspension it has (strut versus double wishbone for instance)

This is why Mazda used a totally unique platform for the RX7, because they knew that using a platform shared with one of their sedans would not produce the sportscar driving dynamics they were looking for.

The new miata shares the RX-8 platform.

I was talking about the RX7...........That car was bulit on the "F" platform (FA, FB, and FC were the 3 generations of RX7's) and it was not shared with other Mazda products.

I know... just wanted to throw that out there.

Not according to someone who works at Audi. They are very different structures. This is a reverse example of how the same vehicle can have a very different chassis.

You have never worked for an OEM so you just assume stuff...."there is no way a Camry platform is a Lexus IS platform".

Listen, automakers rarely draw up a brand new platform. They use an existing one and modify it, which Toyota and Honda are known for doing. This isn't a bad thing at all because after its altered there are so many changes that they can say the platform is new, but its not really new.

You are referring to cookie cutter stuff like GM does, which most OEMs do not do. Most take an existing platform and modify it enough to get a different animal...but so does GM, but to a much lesser extent.

You suck at anything automotive outside fuel injection and assume since you work in the industry your nonsensical babble has any weight despite a long history of being wrong.

Define "Automotive platform"
You will be graded on spelling and grammar.

101lifts :"The Corvette is based of the Malibu" and the "Viper is based of the Dakota."


FYI: You suck donkey balls.








Though it would suck if you pulled hail mary on this topic...because then i'd look like an ass, I'm betting on me being right that you are jackhole.

Chevy Silverado = GMC Sierra
Chevy Colorado = GMC Canyon

It's not rocket science, right here is redundancy. Hack the GMC models, maybe offer trim packages as options that are comparable to what comes stock on GMCs. I'm a Ford guy, and GM has always had a habit of being ugly.

You are like a little kid sometimes...really

Now Pauldun would say "they share the same platform"...and 101 would say its the same car minus badging.

Does PD know the new CTS is on a shared platform with the STS?

Fountain of youth....
I drink it like water.

Yes...both the CTS and STS share the Sigma platform...duetchbag.

The Camry platform provides the basis of the Toyota Avalon, Siena, Highlander and Solara. It also provides the basis for the Lexus ES and RX350.

repeat..it forms the basis of 2 Lexus models (outta of the total 8 in the Lexus Lineup

The GS, IS and LS are based off the Crown (S-series) platform
The GX is based off the Helix platform.



dumbass label reinstated on 101Lifts

I've been fuckin around with you on this thread about platforms cause it pisses u off. lol Who would think a RWD platform is shared with a FWD? LOL and I just said the Lexus line is all Camry cause I can't stand Toyota..but thanks for researching....saved me the time.

But...you just resort to name calling and the like..so on Ignore u go.

lifts

I think our mutual distaste for Toyota negates any name calling in this thread.