Time to kill GMC… nothing but trucks. Then give Saturn and Saab the boot as well since their products are made overseas and are now extremely expensive to import. Buick… maybe, maybe not. I don’t understand why you’d want two “luxury” brands within the same company, but I can see where Caddy’s edgy styling might turn some people off. Admittedly old geezers with no sense of automotive style still want to buy plush American cars to ride around in.

GM only need 2 brands considering how few cars and trucks they are selling. I reckon they’ve been reading my posts on LLN . On another hand GM desperately needs to clean the house and not some Tom, DIck and Hurry in HR, but eliminating all brass and bringing some fresh blood not attached to legacy of disasters. I am sure you can create course for MBA on how to screw the company out of existence based on GM saga.

Well Toyota is valued at 180 billion. Toyota has achieved that with just 3 brands. Toyota, Lexus and Scion. I have to say in my neighborhood most of the Lexus drivers are “old geezers”. The average age must be 62. Come to think of it, a lot of the Toyota drivers are the “gray set” too.

Even though Saturn has the most brand equity it is the one that could be jettisoned the quickest. Does eliminating GMC really make any sense when all you are doing is re-badging an existing vehicle for the most part? Especially when your plan is to combine GMC with Pontiac and Buick.
The Saturn concept was unique and unfortunately by the time they got around to address the product issues there were too many holes in the ship so they have to throw something overboard and as a brand it probably has the most value.

GM’s problem lately is that they have been long on promise and short on delivery.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone that Camaro has been under development for so long that there is practically no market for it anymore… and Volt, the wonderful plug-in that is supposed to free the average commuter from dependance on gasoline, is looking toward a 2010 or 2011 debut at a cost $40,000+.

While it is true that Toyota has been marketting exclusively to the older crowd we have to realise that if you look at the demographics of the US today people who are 40+ years old make up the vast majority of the population… and will continue to do so for atleast the next 20 years. Toyota is succeeding for the same reasons that the medical field is succeeding… baby boomers getting older.

xyunya: unfortunately with the passing of Bozo the Clown last week, GM has lost their next logical candidate for succession.

johnnycanuck, I was more thinking of Mickey Jagger. He is getting too old to do tours, and studied in London School of Economics. He can do no worse then current circus at GM helm. At least old broads will be lining either to see him or buy cars he blessed with his penis.

xyunya: I like it. Perhaps they could replace the GM corporate logo with the Stone’s trademark tongue. If nothing else there would be a dramatic upsurge in sales amongst the lesbian demographic.

Sell Saab to BMW before they get a chance to look at Volvo.
Sell Buick to Chery since the only place they sell well is China.
Sell Hummer to Mahindra (sp?) so they can enter the U.S. market
Migrate Saturn’s line to Chevy and merge Chevy with Opel. Chevy sells in the US, Opel in Europe.
Kill off Pontiac and GMC since everything they sell is a rebadge of something else.

Wrong strategy. GM needs to add more grands. Bring back Oldsmobile and Geo.

Seems pretty easy to me, sell Buick and Hummer to the chinese as a package deal, they love those vehicles, and americans are so anti-american nowadays anyway.

Here’s what GM should do, kill Buick, GMC, Hummer, Saturn, and Saab.

Then they should get rid of the Trailblazer, Equinox, Uplander, and the Torrent

There I have saved GM

LOL Well GM is finally paying for their sins

What they need to do is think consolidate their product
Get rid of

Saturn- What do they have that GM can’t rebadge under another company ?

Buick- It’s for old people and since older people are now getting into other cars, what is the need for this company?

GMC- Trucks trucks and more rebadged trucks

Question mark on
Hummer-Same as above. The H3 a Trailblazer underneath lol and the H2 a Suburban. I would actually keep Hummer over GMC though bc the product has a unique look. Put a hybid system in the H2

Keep
Pontiac- Sporty and has an image. They can get young buyers in the showroom with the right product. A real GTO wouldn’t hurt and some rear drive midsize & small sports cars

Caddy- They have history and they know how to sell the hell out of a luxo truck. The CTS is also a good effort

Chevy- GMs everything brand and they can sell just about anything under this brand as long as they dont price it too high.

Saab- Unique niche product that is needed to bring GM some class. Have a 9-5/9-3/9-4x crossover, maybe a small A3 like car but not a rebadged Subaru, and a nice roadster

Chevy Pontiac Cadillac Saab, and possibly Hummer is all that GM needs

global_lightning, my thinking exactly.

johnnycanuck, not far off: while Subaru was in GM orbit it was brand pushed to lesbos and actually bought by lesbos (I had one as well )

Heres a little tidbit from the Freepress …………….So more “white collar” cuts are on the agenda—more engineers, IT, and clerical will lose their jobs while the morons in management continue to destroy everything around them.

I loved it when Rick Wagoner told Obama that HE had a plan to turn around GM. What has it been, 6 years? GM has shown little other than losses under Wagoner. Anyone else think that HE may be the problem? Well, Rick and 150 senior exec vice-presidents.

Saturn, Saab and Hummer would be the easiest to sell because they have a much smaller infrastructure than the others. Selling Buick and Pontiac would be way too costly as they have thousands of dealerships that GM would have to buy out. It cost GM hundreds of millions of dollars to buy out the Olds dealerships and Pontiac and Buick have more than Olds did.

^and as we know GM has billions to waste.

dumb move

hummer is dying bcuz gas prices aer reakl.
saturns are good vcars, not excellent, so hthey never filled the import-fighter role thety were supposed 2.

If GMC is killed, the Silverado will poass the F-150
Buick us Ok as an old-mans car, but 2 try 2 sell it & caddy as lucxury brands will confuse people.

Toyota, Lexus and Scion suck.
The rolling stones should come 2 SLC.,
Hummer has a unique look, so maybe ut should stauy imstead of GMC.

pontiac should not have suVs oir other non-exciting crap

GMC should die — it’s just an (expensive) brand marketing tactic with no product behind it.

Hummer and Saab no longer matter in the world. Pulling Saab out of the US market would have about as much shock-effect as when Renault or Fiat left the US 25 years ago.

Chevy and Caddy obviously stay. And GM needs to position one more marque between those two; a lot of Saturn buyers would never buy a Chevy. I’m not sure why you can’t just sell Opels as Opels alongside the Chevy line, though, the way Buick-Opel used to work when I was a kid.

There would be an argument for keeping Pontiac if they had enough unique product, but if the lineup is nothing but Vibes and Torrents and G6s that cannibalize Malibu sales, it doesn’t justify.

The whole Buick argument seems based on the Enclave, which at 16 mpg seems like a dead nameplate walking as of now, and the Lucerne, whose customers are going to die soon. Why not cut to the chase and kill the brand now?

GM cannot survive by doing expensive self-defeating things like marketing the G6, the Malibu, the Aura (and maybe throw the LaCrosse in there too) against each other. How many Camry-class cars does Toyota market? One.

No automaker needs 8 brands in the U.S. market. G.M. should sell Hummer & Saab kill Saturn & GMC & make Buick/Pontiac a transitional brand between Chevy-Caddy through one sales channel in the U.S. I never understood why G.M. thought they could move Saturn upmarket after killing Oldsmobile. Consumers didn’t buy them then & they aren’t going to do it now. If they decide to keep Saturn G.M. should turn the brand into a maker of funky, fun to drive ecconomical small cars with GMDAT.

When a business allows itself to get to this state there is little it can do to stop the tailspin—similar to centrifugal force, GM is now clearly out of the hands of any proper governance at the executive management levels. Hey, where’s Lutz spouting off how he’s a genius, and how he is saving GM? Bobby boy, you got paid the big bucks to do what now? Come on now, Bobby, let’s make damn sure those executive bonuses get handed out!

oddly enough I agree with 1115 on this…

LOL @ odlly enough. It makes perfect sense

Maybe they should sell the whole company to Ford while there is still time.

Folks, GMC is GM’s second best-selling brand. It just is. Would it be good for GM to lose 400,000 units of volume because they cut GMC? We can’t assume that half of them would go to Chevrolet.

Hummer can certainly go with little problem. And Saturn needs to go on the block, too. Saturn has a five-model lineup that’s still selling barely above the 200,000 unit mark. The only model of theirs that sells particularly well is the Vue, which every other division is slated to get a platform mate of. The Aura’s good, but the Malibu is better. The Astra is good, but the exchange rates are unfavorable. The Outlook isn’t selling worth a damn compared to the more expensive Acadia and Enclave. And the Sky looks lovely, but it’s definitely a niche player and not a good reason in its own right to keep a division open. When GM reinvented the Saturn brand, they should have brought it in line with Chevrolet like Scion is to Toyota. But they threw it up to compete with Buick and Pontiac. Not smart. If they are going to keep Saturn, they need to can the Aura and Outlook and bring the Corsa, Meriva, and Zafira over and realign, give the Vue funkier styling, and align the brand against Scion. Of course, they’d have to build the rebadged Opels in America. And, this kind of realignment would take years. But it’s the only logical way forward for Saturn.

Selling Saab to Porsche would be an excellent idea, I think. That way, Porsche can extend the range downward into more fuel-efficient mass-market cars, and Saab can finally have a profitable corporate parent with all the tech savvy in the world to get its line back on track.

Then, GM should end Pontiac. Pontiac is, with the exception of Saturn, GM’s newest division. And the brand image that Pontiac has is not as favorable as Buick’s is and can be. Pontiac still screams Grand Am to most people and competes with Chevrolet on all fronts. Buick can compete with the likes of near-lux Acura and Volvo by adding smaller, efficient, luxurious, performance oriented cars, while continuing to offer larger ones as well. Buick’s new styling direction and quality marks are industry-leading. And by pushing Cadillac upmarket like they’re trying to, Buick will have more room to compete in between Chevrolet and Cadillac. No one would swallow a Pontiac that would move similarly upmarket. They would swallow sassier, classier Buicks.

And those are the three channels: Chevrolet, Buick-GMC, Cadillac

n4s: I agree with him as well.

We went to Saturn dealership in SW Ohio… on Memorial Day weekend(a Saturday)… 40+ miles away(we had other business in the area, so decided to look at the Astra 3 door).
Long story short: I walked into the showroom, saw a 60-something(looking) year old salesman, arms folded across his chest, staring out the front windows(doing nothing).
I said” Do you have time for us to take a 10-15 minute test drive of the Astra 3 door; just around the block,since we have to be somewhere in 25 minutes”.
He said”No”. That was it… no offer of a card, no offer of a test drive..nothing.
Yeah… that makes us (not) want to go 40+ miles, back there again.
And the exchange rates, as inline6 said (on is July 7, 1:58 pm post) are not good…really.

I agree. Nearly 20K for the 3 door( with automatic).
Lot of cars for less money, better MPG, bigger engines,etc..
If they could build this in USA, and save $2K(or so)… and sell it as a 3- door Cobalt?
Plus, there aren’t many Saturn dealerships around, versus, Toyota,for example(they are the import fighting brand, correct?).
2 Saturn dealerships, and 4 or 5 Toyota, in a 60 mile radius.
1 Saturn in 40+ miles, 3 Toyota(if you include Indiana).
Just some examples, that’s all.

Yeah I never thought I’d agree with 1115 especially on a topic regarding GM, but I agreed with him before, back when the first news came out about Nissan reviving the 240SX… So there’s a first for everything right???

inline6, while Pontiac does pretty much compete with Chevy on all fronts, Saturn does as well. And yeah I love the Sky but hey if they were to kill off Saturn just give it to Chevy. But that’s eliminating too much… You gotta have some choices and between Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac. You’re looking at a bit of a difference in price between vehicles in those brands. Pontiac needs to stay despite it’s competition to Chevy.

lol speaking of Pontiac and Saturn, I’m taking the girlfriend to those dealers today right after I get out of class in 2 minutes… Yeah she’s looking at the G6 and Aura… didn’t surprise me.

Like stated previously, GM just has too many overlapping products. I’ve always wondered this about them, it’s as though they compete against themselves. They definitely need to continue the downsizing. I still feel they’ve made great strides in vehicle design, best in america, even topping most imports. Just too many choices of the same thing, especially in an ultracompetitive market such as this one. Personally, I wish america wasn’t such a free market when it comes to every automotive company throwing some piece of **** our way. Now we’ll get a slew of some other **** brands cruising in here banking off of high gas prices, but that’s another topic.

I think 1115 is finally taking meds to cure whatever disorder he has…

^I dont come on here to argue but when I state the facts everyone wants to argue with me. A persoanl attack is pretty original
Anyway, I dont see GM keeping GMC and Hummer. Hummer has a unique look and GMC doesnt. I think they have a better shot at sticking with Hummer.
I disagree about the waste comment. At a time when SUVs were popular It was a great idea to bring back the Hummer and make a modern version. They can put the same hybrid system in the H2 and 3 that is used in the Tahoe and it will sell again. The should also make that H3x concept and offer a hybrid system in that as well

Wow 1115 that has to be the most truthfull and well thought out post you have left to date, very unlike you not to go off the deep end. There may be hope for you yet

I think you are the one who needs hope along with other things
Stick to the topic What divisions do you think GM will axe ?

I think saturn first, its the newest of all and won’t bother the diehards out there, second I never did understand GMC, the same truck with a different grill. All they need to do is ad a few things to the chevy option list that the Denali has. Buick doesn’t need to go as long as Caddys are in the higher price range. Pontiac needs to stick with the performance angle and maybe get rid of the G5 in the line up, it looks like a tiny cheap knock off of the G6. Oh, and of course the obvious, Hummer needs to die off, or stick to military use only. GM would still be producing the same cars without all the added tooling cost from making all the different body panel and interior parts.

1115,
It doesn’t make sense for GM to drop GMC at all. GMC is responsible for 400,000+ annual unit sales. Hummer won’t make 40,000 a year. GMC isn’t synonmous in today’s media with bloated and fuel-swilling. Hummer is. GMC has 6 products that are all still selling well enough to make it easily GM’s second best-selling division. Hummer has two products, one which is on the last-gen GM truck architecture and is selling only marginally better than the H1 did in its heyday, and the other is based off the mediocre compact pickup platform, and its sales have nosedived, too.

GMC is doubtless a hugely profitable division of GM. Hummer is becoming less profitable with each passing day, has less of a workable product future, and is a massive liability to GM’s corporate image and their goal to meet the increased CAFE standards.

Everyone’s been commenting that your posts of late are making sense. Your GMC v. Hummer bit of analysis proves that those commenters must now be on what you’re on.

I think your right they sell alot of GMCs, but my point is if it went away Chev would reap the benifets. GM wouldn’t loose the customers

Funny Inline but like I said GMC is no more than high level Chevy trucks. GMC can be sold under the Chevy name
Although Hummer is synonymous with being bloated I think some smaller product with ethanol and a hybrid system can change that. The insecure guys can still have their Tonka truck without having without the guilt. Expand the lineup and offer about 5 vehicles Some smaller and maybe even a turbo 4 int he H3x i know the CAFE rules dont include hybrids so that is the only option
Buick should be sold to a Chinese company or just be soid in China. I still cant understand why the Chinese like Buicks.

Imagine the Volt hybrid system in a Hummer.

Or a good diesel.

1115,

Oldsmobile customers didn’t move en masse to any GM car division. Part of the reason GMC sells is because of its dealer network. You think Chevrolet wants MORE dealers? Because they’d have to sign GMC’s network on if there would be much hope of 1) evading lawsuits from closing the massive dealer body, and 2)recovering the lion’s share of the market GMC would leave if GMC were to vacate it.

Hummer will NEVER get taken seriously as an economically responsible brand without becoming something entirely different. How well is the five-cylinder H3 doing now to improve Hummer’s image? Hummer will never achieve the sales levels GMC does. And it will never have the built-in profitability that GMC has because the level of differences between its vehicles and the rest of the GM line would be greater than GMC’s.

If the only factor you choose to consider is product similarity, GMC is the more logical choice. But if you look at EVERY OTHER FACTOR, losing GMC would be a terrible decision for GM to make.

There are deffinetly alot of variables. Dealer proximity being one. Buick did pick up a good portion of olds sales when it closed up, it was the most similar brand at the time. Thats why olds was no longer needed. Oldsmobile had identity/image problems, however Buick did not. I don’t want to see GMC go but if GM was going to get rid of more than one division, besides Hummer and Saturn, what else makes sense?

Good grief I’m so sick of GM’s ineptitude…

Pontiac is the division that should go. Let’s be frank here… the G6 = crap. The Solstice offers nothing better than the Sky and most prefer the Sky’s styling and have since it came about. The G5 is absolute trash compared to the Astra. Oh sure it has more power… but here’s a clue.

BUILD THE ASTRA HERE.

God… is it that freaking hard? With the weak US Dollar did anyone expect the superior Astra to stand a chance? It only has one engine and it’s power output is right there with a base freakin’ Civic. At $20k, who is going to want to buy this over a Civic coupe or sedan which sells for some $5k less? It looks great, it is a great little car, it’s built better than the God-forsaken Cobalt and G5, it’s better looking than both… but Christ, throw the damn thing a bone.

What GM should do:

Kill off Pontiac. I know… I know… G8 lovers are ready to scream in pain. Here, here now… Move the G8 over to Chevrolet, use it to replace the Impala and offer the G8 ST which appears to be green-lighted as… duh… the El Camino. GM has no immediate replacement for the Impala after floundering on whether or not to build it on Zeta (smacks Bob Lutz in the head) and with the current plain Jane Impala being so much of a match for the current Malibu, which is superior though slightly smaller, GM could use something to differentiate the Impala from the Malibu and make both viable. Rework the G8 prior to launch, not to take away the V8 for those with the income… but to add V6 power, even look into turbocharging a V6 for it as another performance option. Look at making it E85 capable. It’s not the platform that is the problem, Zeta is truly what people want… it’s what is powering Zeta that is imminently the problem. Get hybrid drivelines ready for this and you’d have people lined up for a turbo-charged small V6 mated to an electric motor that gives ample and power when they want to burn some rubber and chug some gas, and miserly when they want to go cross-country. Especially if GM put the effort into cutting some of the weight of Zeta without gutting it out of the sound deadening capabilities or by using lighter and crappier plastics inside. Not that GM isn’t doing that already… ::rolls eyes::

Also consider additional motor options for *ALL* platforms in the U.S…. including either U.S. legal diesel’s, all gas models are built to be Flex-fuel capable (i.e. E85), or a hybrid driveline or some combination. If Holden had no plans for hybrid drivelines for Zeta, GM missed the boat big time. It’s time to change that and do it quick. Salvage Zeta, don’t deprecate it to build more dull as crap FWD stuff. Even Mercedes and BMW are looking at combining alternative powertrains with their RWD platforms going forward… there’s no reason for GM to kill Zeta when it should merely be retrofitted and adapted to the want/need.

Outside of that… Pontiac has *NOTHING* that can’t fit into Saturn or dare I say it, since Saturn is nothing more than a rebadged Opel, save the rebadging costs and make Pontiac and Saturn merge into Opel. Full-stop. This would save global R&D (would still have to do individual safety changes but this is already largely being done anyhow) and allow GM to produce cars for multiple markets on one largely complete set of metal and composites. It would make GM designers in Europe develop cars to operate globally. Since GM’s European team seems one of the few to have their heads on fairly straight, they still remain the one that we can more and more profit off of their work.

In turn, GM could turn around and sell US and Canadian built Opel’s to International specs worldwide taking advantage of the weak U.S. and Canadian dollar. Part of GM’s failure is their total lack of vision, their overextensive bean-counting and cost-cutting on product to the point it is no longer competitive even if it happens to be well-designed, and their failure to launch product out of the box that stands a snowball’s chance of success. I liken it to the U.S. launch of the original Ford Focus. The car was a runaway hit in Europe, was well built, had good power, great handling, and great styling. With the decontenting that Ford did, the U.S. Focus had a crappy interior with cheap plastics, it had problems with the motors in use over here, and it grew a stigma that has been hard-pressed for it to work around. It also was ass-ugly as a sedan. That’s especially true when all Ford did to it was milk the platform to hell. How and why the current ugly redesign is selling here can only be remotely explained by the technology inclusion of “Sync” and the vast marketing they’ve done about it’s voice-activated capabilities. If GM could afford to shave a bulldog and teach it to walk backwards with an iPod strapped to it’s back, they could outsell the Focus in spades assuming they could get the dogs to mate enough to meet demand.

Ditch the G5 and put an axe in the Cobalt. Either get the Volt out there now or look at offering the Volt alongside a new Cobalt/Astra (and maybe even make both gas/electric hybrid capable if not plug-in based) tandem, either as a premium model alongside Cobalt/Astra for both manufacturers… or… as a differing model, similar to Prius. Make the Astra more premium in content, materials, refinement. Make the Chevy more of a bargain model with a little bit of Americana in it… sort of a mini Malibu as a coupe/sedan. Using the next generation Astra platform… we could get the 3-door, 5-door, and maybe even a coupe (built off of the Twin-top convertible), convertible, and/or sedan. We could also get a new SS Cobalt and a Astra VXR off of any of the above. Turn the Astra VXR into a bit of a GTI/C30 competitor and GM could have a win on it’s hands.

Buick… is doing fine, it’s reaching it’s market. There’s no sense in killing it. I would still look at adding hybrid, flex-fuel, diesel, and other cost-effective engine options across the board but Buick is heading in the right direction. Granted, Caddy and it compete now in some small ways… and the minute Buick stalls, I’d look at considering options there. Yet, with Buick’s huuuuuuge sales in China, killing them in the U.S. seems incredibly foolish when you’ve got product in China to leverage. I would look at trying to appeal to both markets as much as possible with the same product.

By merging Pontiac and Opel, you solve Pontiac’s looming product needs quickly. You ditch the outdated relic that is the Grand Prix. Kill off the cannibalism that is the G5/Cobalt tandem which are basically identical cars with different parts and packages. You eliminate the ridiculous competition between the Sky and Solstice. You also get a source for additional product… such as the Meriva, the Agila, Corsa, Tigra, Zafira, Astra Twin-Top, et al. You can also keep the Antara (Vue) to go as a premium version of the next Equinox, you get rid of the Torrent which is merely a clone of the Equinox, and you can decide whether Opel itself warrants a version of Lambda. With Chevy’s and Buick’s and GMC’s models… I say no. In fact, why GMC even has to have one remains anyone’s guess.

GMC… I think some consolidation between this and Chevy’s truck division needs to come to order. If GMC is not outselling Chevy, then keep Chevy. If GMC’s sales are equal or comparable to Chevy, keep it and move the pick-ups out of Chevy’s range so it can stay more focused on cars. In as far as how this will effect the dealer networks… just make GMC or Chevy (whichever stays) available at both dealers as one or the other The 2 vehicles are essentially the same product, built at the same factories. While there’s been “some” effort to differentiate, they’re easily the 2 closest lines of vehicles in GM’s lineup. Even Hummer, overall, is more differentiated.

In as far as Hummer… GM could keep the brand as it does have tremendous equity. Sales are slumping, but that is in large part due to Hummer’s range favoring fuel guzzling behemoths. Yet look at Jeep and where they’ve been going and there’s a reality here. Had GM had built Hummer up with it’s own Wrangler-esque vehicle and even gone as far as to try to make the range more eco-friendly, sort of an iconic off-road brand that has as much off road capability (maybe even toy with Jeep over their decision to make more and more “poseur” utes by making Hummer more hardcore) as it does efforts to make it environmentally conscious with trying to improve it’s fuel guzzling ways… Hummer would be of more value overall than GMC IMHO. Yet, because GM is and always has been short-sighted… they can’t think outside of the box nor develop product swiftly enough.

The bottomline is… none of the above matters if they don’t get on a timeline where they can compete with the imports. That’s not just compelling product, but compelling product that is refreshed on the same timelines as their import competition which often go through 3-4 year refreshes/redesigns vs. 7-9 years of milking the same platform ’til it’s jumped the shark. That’s not just getting the small efficient Euro-esque cars here that are small and fun to drive vs. small crappy appliances, but much moreso making sure that all of the lineups fit and that you’re not just building cars to appeal to one dealer network or the other’s needs.

In as far as the new, next-gen Aveo… Good God GM, the thing looks hardly any different than the one that’s leaving the market! LoL Please, if you’re going to use Daewoo for anything… start using them to build Opel/Vauxhall cars for global markets. Try to inject some fun into them so rather than be a trashy road-going appliance with good mileage but a crappy interior driving experience, make it more like a Fit dynamically (FUN!) or even a Mini without all of the drill the moneybook expense. People want economical cars and will buy almost any hunk of trash you roll out, but… want to outsell the rest? Want to build a segment leader that slays ‘em all vs. a segment snoozer that sells “well enough”? Build a better mousetrap.

It’s not the UAW that’s killing GM, it’s the entire executive staff and the fact it’s a company driven by wealthy white collar workers cutting corner after corner after corner until there’s hardly anything left to build and even less of an end product to buy. They finally break the mold, get Saturn fixed up… and now want to cut the wheels out from under it when you’ve got other product that is ancient and in dire need (i.e. most of Pontiac outside of the G8, the Cobalt/G5, the G6, the LaCrosse, Torrent/Equinox, etc.) and you’re expecting to keep living off of this? LoL Good comedy… good comedy.

Die Buick ! Spare Saturn ! GM’s best cars look like Saturns !

Wow IVIIVI4ck3y27, what a mouthfull. You draw a lot of good points. The G6 is a good car though. Sales have increased each year since started in 05, and the coupe looks great and rides great especially the GTP/GXP, i’m not sure if i like the GXP street package, looks a little to ricey, but the coupe has good lines. The cream colored leather with dark brown accented interior looks sweet. also test drove the new torrent gxp, was nice, havent tried the g8, but looks fun. Point is pontiac should stay. The g5 should go, and i dont know lacrosse reference in parenthesis had to do with it?

Monte,
Buick didn’t pick up sales from Oldsmobile’s demise. Buick sales were 445,000 in MY2002, when the Olds’s demise was announced and Olds built 176,000 cars. The next year, Buick sales fell to 372,000 while Olds sales fell to 125,000. Both divisions lost sales. In 2004, Buick fell again to 329,000 while Olds delivered 70,000. In 2005, Buick fell to 304,000 and Olds was gone. Today, Buick is on track to sell only 166,000 MY2008 vehicles.

In MY2002, GM sold a total of 1,133,000 Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Pontiacs. For 2003: 970,761. For 2004: 901,619. For 2005: 751,903. For 2006: 646,705. For 2007: 544,126.

GM lost sales when they canceled Oldsmobile. And Pontiac and Buick didn’t pick that volume up. In fact, they lost sales, too. When GM starts closing brands, consumer confidence in the company wanes. People didn’t buy Pontiacs or Buicks because they were afraid those cars would get orphaned, too. This is why GMC should not close. Chevrolet will not make up the 400,000-500,000 units lost by the closure. Floating off Hummer is the better idea.

I’m thinking buick would have been down even more if olds stayed from the eighty eight and ninety eight, buick didn’t offer anything like the alero. Don’t get me wrong I agree with 90% of what you’ve been saying, but by the logic of just looking at numbers it would apear they received no sales from olds folding, and lost some of their own. I’m glad you dug up these numbers. This also proves what i’ve said in the past (nothing to do with your post) that sales numbers don’t mean its a better car. Buick sells less cars now, but is significantly better car than it was 5 years ago.