Comments on: Report: General Motors and Ford considering merger

By: Aston_

Aston_ — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:16:04 +0000

Shezus that would kill the whole Holden vs Ford thing down here in Australia… Thats bad news!

By: RustedEmpire

RustedEmpire — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:39:29 +0000

I like how hal’s thinking…

honestly, GM/Ford is not a good idea. I really want Renault/Nissan to push a little further with gm and make it final…

By: 1c3d0g

1c3d0g — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:35:02 +0000

Oh yeah, and you’ll be the first one to be hauled away, Hal.

By: Hal

Hal — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 06:19:36 +0000

the more i think about it the more i like the idea of Fiat buying Ford. Ford N. America would fit right into Fiat’s Case / New Holland line of farm and construction machinery. They could market Lincoln Towncars as pig haulers

By: Hal

Hal — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 03:59:38 +0000

Maserati and Ferrari are still both part of the Fiat group.

Hard to imagine that Bill Ford would be willing to give up control of the family business, he in particular seems very attached to it.

By: whitegold

whitegold — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:34:13 +0000

“Which ‘Forge’ automobile do you want?”
“I’ll take the cream colored one that has no soul.”
“Yeah….which one?” “the one that’s more off-white.”

-Renton- not sure how serious your ? was- Maserati was owned by Ferrari and was brought back under Fiat last year, so it seems unlikely Maserati would go back and merge with Ferrari anytime soon…Maserati needs to just grow up already!
Say good bye to your freedom of choice if you haven’t already. Do you want to be able to choose, or have some CEOs indirectly making decisions for you in your everyday life? Sorry, they already own you. so by the time I would have grandkids, I’ll kill myself, and you all will be wearing the same unisex whitey-tighties, eating the same **** everyday, buying the same crap from the same store and popping the same prescription meds. have a nice life! Eat the blue pill, or was it red? Oh noooo!
I had this dream once, where Toyota and Ferrari didn’t merge, they just benchmarked. It was awesome for either side of the consumer spectrum. Then I woke up in an uglyass car labeled froge.

By: chevy490

chevy490 — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:23:00 +0000

gm wouldent have brought this up a merger would meen more pain for them and a easy way out for ford!! i belaeve this is just to getstocks higher honistly i do..
gm should buyout ford compleatly and then they would be a massive motor company.. wed beat the japs once again!!

By: Renton

Renton — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:27:28 +0000

LamborghiniZ- in the 60’s BMW was almost bought out by Mercedes, but Mr. Quandt help lead a stockholder something -or-other to prevent it. BMW would be long gone by now if that had not happened.

Did you ever think that Ferrari would merge with Maserati?

They are huge competitors, but one of them is about to lose.

By: InvisibleEcho

InvisibleEcho — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:58:01 +0000

Toy Yoda got to the snarky comment before I could make it. I don’t know if regulations in the US would allow this to occur much less logistics, but since I don’t have loyalty to either company I’m considering what it would be like to shove a z06 engine inside a mazdaspeed6…. or maybe even a AWD Ford Fusion… ahh I’m just talking out my ass. This would be the most complicated merger ever. It’s like merging Coke and Pepsi.

By: LamborghiniZ

LamborghiniZ — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:50:06 +0000

I don’t see this EVER actually happening. It’s too out there, these are two HUGE competitors, they would never merge. Impossible. Mercedes Benz and BMW wouldn’t ever merge and Ferrari and Lamborghini would never merge just like Ford and GM would never merge

By: 1c3d0g

1c3d0g — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:34:39 +0000

Good God, Jim in LA, Fiat?

Shudder indeed!

By: Bonquisha Sheneequah Sharkeesha Shi-thead Jackson

Bonquisha Sheneequah Sharkeesha Shi-thead Jackson — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:00:54 +0000

Yeah right, who writes this ****?

By: Ricardo Head

Ricardo Head — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:39:52 +0000

I think they should just let the UAW run the show and show us all how great the UAW can design and build cars.
.
Those union leaders always say they know whats best for business!

By: davidg1977

davidg1977 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:35:27 +0000

Please don’t think I pine for the UAW. I’m a hugely outspoken critic of those that think the company serves them and doesn’t want to work in a “at will” environment.

Look at the fringed wage scales of US-based Honda & Toyota plants versus that of Ford / GM. I’d be willing to say that that delta, likely 50-75% premium fully fringed, would get these guys in the black or damn close to it.

I can’t see a new GM/Ford plant anytime soon in the USA other than in a southern state which has shown proclivity for tax incentives and an allergy for unions.

By: DaveO

DaveO — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:25:09 +0000

Ford is smaller and will be able to make changes easier helping them get back on track. GM is a much bigger machine with a lot bigger obstacles to battle. Combining would be like two people grabbing each other before they jump out of the window. Neither is help to the other.

As for the UAW…who gives a rats ass? It is the antiquated system of unions that drag down companies in financial trouble. They aren’t ruling the company…and without consessions on their part then every last one of them will be out of work when the companies shut their doors and there will be no legal or contractual recourse.

By: Jim in LA

Jim in LA — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:06:12 +0000

it’s the end of the UAW as we know it, if it happens.

but even in this corporate giveaway environment we’ve been living in for the past 20 years, i don’t see this one happening. i see a Fiat-Ford merger before GM-Ford.

shudder.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:01:34 +0000

david1977, This merger would mean that at least some of Ford’s UAW workers would keep their jobs. If it is proposed and disallowed, the result would almost certainly mean that most of Ford’s UAW workers would lose their jobs. Also consider the fact that GM and the UAW actually have a pretty good relationship. It is not in the UAW’s interest to try to stop this.

To the contrary, it is very much in the UAW’s interest to ensure profitable American-owned auto manufacturers. The alternative is offshore ownership which is not particularly sympathetic to the veteran autoworker to which the UAW owes its existence.

By: Toy Yoda

Toy Yoda — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 14:21:31 +0000

So what would they call the new company if it did happen?

General Ford
General Ford Motors.
Forge Motors.

I like the last.

By: davidg1977

davidg1977 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 14:09:13 +0000

The FTC has been favorable of mergers when competition hasnt been sacrificed (see BLS/ATT merging b/c they don’t have customer overlap).

I also think you’d see huge lobby dollars spent by the UAW to keep this from happening.

Akin to the airlines, I don’t think that something like this could occur with two non-bankrupt companies. If a Chapter 11 happens for either, then that could change the outcome (See USAir/AmericaWest versus USAir/American Airlines).

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:51:26 +0000

Whatever would the Nascar fans do? ha!

Henry Ford just rolled over in his grave. Yet again.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:47:09 +0000

davidg1977, The FTC has been most sympathetic to corporate mergers of late. This merger would be allowed because it would be intended to save not just an American company, but an American industry.

By: 1c3d0g

1c3d0g — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:30:58 +0000

Well, they have cooperated before by jointly developing that 6-speed automatic transmission. It’s not totally impossible to see something like this happen.

By: wenge

wenge — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:27:37 +0000

Ford vs Chevy? Ha! I love to see how this would effect brand loyalty!

By: goldfish

goldfish — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:38:13 +0000

It’s a “general mistake”…

By: davidg1977

davidg1977 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:37:28 +0000

What would be the impact from a monopoly perspective and from a labor perspective? Would the FTC allow such an occurrance? If you want to talk about a way to break the union, put these two together and then completely spin off their manufacturing capacity whereby one company, “GM/FORD” is a designer/marketer and another company “LABOR” is a series of plants that would have to competitively bid on the production of each product line by cycle (3-5 yrs between redesigns/refreshes) and then they’d go to bid again? Competition would be fierce but with flexible manufacturing, it likely could be done…

I do, however, see this as yet another chess move to further intimidate the UAW into major concessions for the next round of negotiations much beyond any of the “buyout allowances” from this interim financial trouble renegotiations.

2007 could be a bloodletting if this and talks of continued Mexican/International mfg expansion go forward.

By: slider5634

slider5634 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:34:54 +0000

I think I’m having a bad dream. No, it’s a nightmare. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Somebody wake me up!!!

By: pezones

pezones — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:04:42 +0000

this would be awesome

By: Hidden_Hunter

Hidden_Hunter — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:38:50 +0000

Never gonna happen

By: JohnnyBlazE

JohnnyBlazE — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:31:31 +0000

Very interesting….