Oh, and I don’t even think you can call this GM country. If it were, they wouldn’t be going down the crapper right now.

(1) Saturn/Buick/GMC with a Geo model (not brand… think Smart…. or Th1nk. A purely bare bones economy car. Chevrolet can have the high tech greeen cars that come at a premium.)

(2) Chevrolet/Pontiac/Cadillac. Just don’t have anything redundant on one lot.

Marketing
Saturn – Like you said, a brand that acts like a worldwide showcase. The best from Europe and Asia.
Buick – Mid-level luxury. Affordable, comfortable, up scale, very design oriented. Smooth and refined engineering, not about power. A budget Lexus, I guess you could say.
GMC – Duh. Just as they are, just get rid of GMT-900 SUV’s altogether and switch to Lambda. They should also be up scale trucks, to differentiate themselves from Chev’s trucks.

Chevrolet – The Green car company. Fuel efficiency and affordability. Keep the Camaro, but definitely give it an LNF. The Corvette shouldn’t be touched. They’re seen as their own brand over most of the world anyway, so it shouldn’t hurt Chevrolet’s Green image. Seeing the Corvette brand, like Viper will end up, would probably be an even better idea. All about the technology.
Pontiac – Affordable performance. Only a performance brand. Even the Vibe has to go. This way it can exist beside Chevy on the same lot. Like Buick, it should be high on style with the highest performance possible in the price range.
Cadillac – Keep on keepin’ on, Caddy. Switch the Escalade to Lambda, as planned, and like someone said above, merge the DTS/STS as on model on a stretched Sigma (does anyone even know what a De’Ville and a Se’Ville is anymore?). GM’s top of the range cars to compete with Mercedes and BMW.

Hummer is too far gone to be saved, and Saab never fit to begin with.

Please don’t.

GMC: Acadia (lambda platform), mid/small SUV(new Theta platform), GMT360 (envoy) cancelled, GMT900 platform – full-size trucks and SUVs

Cadillac: CTS (SigmaII platform), STS & DTS replaced by one car on the Zeta or stretched SigmaII platform, XLR (second Y-platform), SRX (new Theta premium platform), Escalade (new Lambda platform).

Chevrolet: Traverse (lambda platform), Equinox (new Theta platform), GMT360 (trailblazer) cancelled, GMT900 platform – full-size trucks and SUVs, HHR (new DeltaII platform), Cruze (new DeltaII platform), Malibu (EpsilonII platform), Impala (Zeta or Sigma II platform); if kept Fwd the canceled 2010 Buick lacrosse EpsilonII platform; if Zeta, new El Camino is added, Corvette (second Y-platform), Volt (DeltaII/Eflex platform).

All With the latest High Feature power trains.

DB9

Mitchell, Harly and Duntov would be proud

DB9

(1) Saturn, GMC (2) Chevrolet, Cadillac

Buick, Pontiac, Hummer and Saab (maybe a reprieve for Saab?) will cease to exist. ALL UNION CONTRACTS ABROGATED. Result; GM’s $2000 per vehicle cost disadvantage removed and will now pay same scale as domestically produced imports saving another $2Billion per year. Company now sized for operations at approximately 20% North American market share. Saturn will market the best of GM worldwide, e.g., Holden and Opel products.

Furthermore, Lutz stays and Wagoner gone. Camaro gone – after the first year — sales will slide – watch and see! The Volt; who cares, to expensive, and not much of a market for a plug in hybrid from any manufacturer – niche vehicle – that’s all they ever will be.

Drastic times call for drastic action! Time to do what should’ve been done long ago. It may turn out that bankruptcy is the way to save GM – yes it will hurt! If not you are looking at a Stage IV Cancer patient r.i.p.

DB9

p.s. posted twice

But I think your a little bit naive about a point that you may have made that although doesn’t seem to relate much to this, is part of the big picture. When you mentioned that families went from two kids to six on television…

Part of the reason for the huge cars from American car manufacturers were to JUST transport families. Europe didn’t have huge families of five or six as the norm, and Euro cars evolved around personal transportation (an obvious result visible today). American’s did. We ended up with huge 18 foot land yachts, that could tow all the family goodies and navigate some rough terrain. That’s the reason why American cars only recently changed from bench seating in the front to buckets. It’s been in European cars for a long time now. That’s why Americans loved their station wagons throughout the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and then moved onto sport utility vehicles and minivans in the 80’s. Frankly you’d be surprised by how similar the requirements and guidelines for Fords new SUV, the Explorer, when they were designing it was similar to their earlier station wagons which were the earliest form of people transport.

Even now, most American families are larger. For that matter, Americans are larger, and if you’ve ever traveled far and wide you’d know that’s almost an understatement!

And yes, I understand well the power of advertising. But advertising wasn’t predominant until the 60’s, and even then it was limited to brochures, billboards and minor commercial advertising (nothing like we have today). My point is, it was avoidable, unlike today at the flick of a switch commercials on tv are unavoidable, and web pages are cluttered with them. As American families evolved smaller and smaller, just like American jobs are becoming more specialized, less laborious and less centered on agriculture (as well as machines able to do the work of that family of six that may have done it before), there’s no need for these large cars or SUV’s. Automobiles came into play between this transition, and Detroit should have recognized it in the 80’s and 90’s, but individuals continued to purchase large vehicles. With the recent economic growth (till now, of course), individuals are still purchasing large vehicles- similar to why there are more BMW 3 series sold in Germany than Ford Mondeos. It’s what they can afford… or perceive they can afford.

And thanks for brightening up my day with the Canyonero! I’ll have to look it up on youtube…

You’re ignoring the fundamental mantra of advertising: “Create a need, then fill it.” If you can’t see the outrageous amount of propaganda from the US industry trying to convince US customers that they needed big, powerful gas-guzzling cars, you’re being willfully blind here. Did the Chevy truck commercial from 5 years ago say “great value for your money, 22 MPG, really safe”? No, it said “LIKE A ROCK” with guitars in the background while the truck ramped off some rocks in the middle of a protected national forest. When I was shopping around for a car in 2001, before I bought my Subaru, every domestic dealership I went to tried to sell me a pickup truck or an SUV; they were treating their smaller cars (like the Neon) as loss leaders they sell to little old ladies, and only carried a few on the lot at a time. Remember the Simpsons ad parody for the “Canyonero?” (I’m sure it is on YouTube somewhere) — that was a parody of US car advertising in the 1990s. You can’t parody something without a grain of truth. We were sold a bill of goods, at a time when gas was $.89 a gallon and the US economy was almost deficit-free, and the Big Three just put away the crystal ball and acted like this would continue indefinitely. Let’s see if the Volt can repair some of that damage.

That’s why I said everyone, not just the Japanese made horrible cars in the 80’s.

“And you are wrong about the marketing vs. demand issue when it comes to compact cars”

I don’t believe I was. It’s simply what people want, that’s all there is too it. There isn’t anything wrong with being big, more chrome or being more flashy, it’s just a matter of taste. If that’s what people think is classy, then let them buy it. But maybe to your surprise there were quite a few small cars marketed in the 50’s, a slew of European small cars (roadsters most well known), and quite a few domestic automakers (Nash).

You may want to dig into it a bit further why large cars were marketed. Do you know why large cars were marketed in the states originally?

Your knowledge of Japanese cars is impressive, but your one-sided approach undercuts your argument. What were the Big 3 building, while Japan was making those horrible Tercel models? We had awesome innovation in the US in the form of the Pacer, Gremlin, El Camino, 4-cylinder Mustangs, the Grand Am, anything Oldsmobile, so many other garbage American cars from that time — not to mention that in the ’80s US carmakers began to shift to Japanese and overseas steel, undercutting our own steel industry. And you are wrong about the marketing vs. demand issue when it comes to compact cars; if you look at American car advertising all the way back to the ’50s, US carmakers have always emphasized bigger, more powerful, seats more, has more room, etc — always. If you set foot in a dealership for the Big 3 anytime in the past 30 years and mentioned Honda or Toyota, the first words out of the salesman’s mouth would be “Oh, you don’t want one of those little tin can ****boxes” — only now are they using MPG and cost of ownership in their ads, the previous marketing was purely about image. Like it or not, US R&D and innovation has been totally stagnant and reliant on repackaging the pickup truck for the last 20 years, and now they get to crash after being asleep at the wheel. Are you aware that almost 80% of what a US worker does in a US auto plant has been automated in Japan and Europe? Their workers often have full Engineering degrees, and their role is to do quality control and tune up the robots, not to turn a wrench or glue in a windshield for $47.00 an hour. US automakers literally sat in the back seat for the last 30 years, and now you want them to take the wheel?

The issue with the unions is very real and very serious, and yes, the automakers did make ridiculous, sweetheart deals with the unions at a time when the domestic auto industry was flush with cash and didn’t see $4.00 (or even $2.00) gas on the horizon. They can not be allowed to shirk their commitments on pensions that they have already granted, but UAW has to re-negotiate everything else (and kick out their own Mafia-bred leadership) in order to make any lasting change in the US industry.

Oh, and who was building reliable, high-quality cars in the US in the last 10 years? That would be Honda, Toyota and Subaru, all of whom had US plants turning out Accords, Camrys and Legacys.

That just doesn’t make sense. Ask most Americans, and they’ll say they’d rather have an SUV over what they have in Europe. I would say “what we have here”, but once again, it’s not as big of a market as in Europe.

Because the Superbowl, Indy 500, etc. attract more viewers. Honda also invests in sports events.

And nobody has had a true insight competitor since. Not the Japanese, not the Europeans, not us. And now Detroit has more hybrids marketed in America than the Japanese. The only remotely successful ones being the Escape and possibly GM’s mid-sized sedans.

Also, with your logic… the Escape hybrid should be selling in huge numbers. But their not.

sprockkets- It’s not just a select “few” Japanese cars. I don’t know many that haven’t had horrible rust problems from the 80’s. It was just a failure to recognize what had happened to a lot of Gm, Ford and Chrysler products in the late 70’s, when most of Detroits sub-compacts were rusting out. Difference was, the Detroit 3 fixed it in two or so years, while imports from Japan took about 10 years to truly fix the problem.

And why do you think they sliced $5 off here and there on their vehicles?

Two words: High Costs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64599-2005Apr18.html

Take some damn blame, people. We created this blunder. The state, and fate, of the market is entirely in our hands.

I can understand you wanting to see the management out on their collective fat arses, but why are you so keen to see millions of retirees without any kind of financial support. Today’s pension loser will be tomorrows street corner begger, what else is a 60-year-old supposed to do for money? Only a complete c*nt would want to see the number of desperate old folks on the street growing.

Atleast GM is trying to clean up their own mess, you can give ‘em that.

GM have had cars like the Geo Metro and Aveo, Ford has produced and imported many small cars, and now has two hybrids, GM has the most hybrids of any automaker. Some people in Europe and Asia just don’t want/need an SUV. Not to say all Americans use their SUV’s for towing, it’s just a matter of choice buddy.

Marketing only works if someones willing to buy into it.

Honestly, GM has some of the most exciting vehicles in their classes coming within the next year or two, if they’re not here already. The company’s products have every ability to be successful. If only the WSJ, and other publications that are riding the ‘death of the D3′ wave that’s been going on for the last three years, would report with the same venom the negatives and failures of other car makers with home offices abroad. That and the death of the UAW/CAW would make for a very different story in the market.

How many writers of the WSJ short stocks as they type the death of GM? Who will be left with enough money to invest in the reborn GM? It’s so obvious it hurts.