I guess VW raped the GM ‘American Revolution’ up the ass again! Hopefully Lotus will stay just the way it is and not be cannibalized by Porsche.

Jon.

Lotus Elise/Exige + Vw’s 2.0L Turbo engine =

VW owns: Audi, Bentley, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, and Bugatti, & soon to be Lotus.

Ford owns: Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin

Can anyone here point out which Company owns the most successful brands & which one owns the most unsuccessful brands in the world?

When you say most successful, you mean most coveted. If by profits and sales, you are an idiot. Bentley is a terrible money maker, lamborghini has JUST begun to be profitable and Bugatti….well, you should know how they are.

halflifehavock,
In successful I mean not hearing about them in the news every quarter losing billions of dollars. Idiot.

mazda, volvo, and LR are relatively successful.

viva VAG

VWAG FOR LIFE

Andre Neves — Totally. The 2.0T in the Elise/Exige will be awesome.

Shazaaaaaaaaaaam! Pooow! Cruuuuunch! GM takes a lefthook—and it’s a TKO!

Well, they had to do something with all the Porsche cash laying around.

Worst Case Scenerio: a rebadged Skoda Exige with a diesel…

VW has had manjor economic problems, that’s why Porsche has been buying-up so much of it. Porsche needs VW as a supplier for a lot of its more common parts. With this in mind, they didn’t want their devalued trading partner (with huge European labor costs) to be taken-over by competition.

VW is not quite as screwed as GM/FORD. However, VW is not much better. Audi does well. However, the rest of the crew does not do so well.

VW loses money, in 02, they were thinking about pulling out of America, Audi loses money, Buggatti loooooses money on everyone it sells, and so on, ford loses money on there cars in the united states thats it, not trucks or SUV’s and not in the rest of the world,, that and ford makes heavy equimpment, ford is a cash cow this is just a marketing ploy, and a rebuilding of an empire, toyota dont get to comfortable, Megatron Might have gone but Galvatron will surly return.

audi makes money. lots of it. Hmm…what about a Porsche engineered car, with VWs 2.0T on exige chassis…mmmm track day car!!!

When you hear this kind of news you kinda hope for some mix breed driver’s car to come out of the union but you’ll probably won’t see one until years later. That is if ever.

Audi has made a profit almost every quarter for the last 6 years +. its VAG too by the way (Volkswagen Audi Gruppe)

VAG is profitable overall, VWoA is a mess but Audi is profitable even in North America where VAG is getting screwed by exchange rates. VW does have high labor costs but it has consistently invested in plants and models over the years unlike GM/Ford. VAG is also investing like crazy across its brands now and hasn’t had to mortgage everything it owns to do it. Hard to see how Porsche buying shares can be seen as a negative either.
I hope this deal works out for VAG, its awesome news for Lotus, VAG has as good a track record as anyone investing in niche brands. On the other hand GM has a track record of investing and bailing after a few years: FIAT, Isuzu, Subaru….

Volkswagon Has not made a profit for the last 6 years were do you get that, I worked for them when we almost got laid off your crazy, making statements like that theys still lose money on every car they sell. The only car company they own that has just started breaking even is Audi, Listen Car dealers dont need to make money on New cars they just need to almost break even, they make there money on service. Thats the key, there is only a five car companys that make a profit on cars they sell. And there not high valume thats why they can do it.

Can you tell the difference between VWoA and VAG?
The financial statements are available online.

And are you saying that Toyota isn’t profitable or it’s not a high volume automaker? VW, PSA(Peugeot/Citroen), Renault, Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai/Kia are all consistently profitable high volume brands. Even FIAT made a profit the past couple of years.

I just don;t know what this means and how it fits into the range. Very odd buyer, what are they up to? I will ponder this over the weekend.

Toyota, of course did not listen to my e-mails.

GMnumberonemoron is pretty pissed, LMAO. Davey Jones locker? What? You just finished watching ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’?

Jon.

the 1.6 twincharged unit in the elise would be quite cool as well

The way I see it meanpants they are buying access to low cost manufacturing and markets in South East Asia. VW is already strong in South America and China so this is a new territory.

Hal, I can assure you that they are not going to gain much from SE Asia as they’ve been there for decades. It’s just that they’re so unreliable and expensive to maintain in those parts of the world with the very same product lines that lost to Toyota all over the world. Even if they can fix those issues, they still have to deal with the very low resale value which is a huge doubt in the customer’s mind.

Please don’t screw up Lotu! It is a miracle that we got the Elise/Exige before Lotus became just another obsolete English car company. The car is perfect with the exception of maybe an extra 50 – 75 Horsepower. Which is an easy aftermarket fix. Sure a 2.0T w/paddle shifting sounds way cool but any “corporate changes” makes me nervous.

Cool maybe they can figure out how to make $28,000 a car profit.

PADDLE SHIFTS IN A LOTUS?

Shame on you.

Meh Lotus’s are kinda girlie anyways and Proton is a failure. The Solstice and the SKy are really where its at here in the states. The American Revolution will make short work of VW.

^^You are such an idiot

I agree that he’s a dumbass, and I’m a HUGE GM fan..

Hal, I think you know what you’re talking about.

deantj and Andre Neves, why don’t you give your phone numbers to each other?

So… If you do, pleeeeeeease LET US KNOW!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA

VAG does not stand for Volkswagen Audi Gruppe as someone said…

It stands for Volkswagen Aktien-Gessellschaft

sorry:

Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft

Lotus and Proton? Probably the two automakers with *the worst* build quality outside China. What a great investment.

great news. nothing for GM to ruin.

VW is like superman, saves the day, yay!

Didn’t VW just scrub that little Porsche Speedster-like roadster concept for production because they didn’t have a suitable mid-engine platform for it?? Hmmm… sounds like a perfect fit.

I wonder if they’ll twincharge the current 1.8

GX3 !!! VW, bring the GX3 back to life, as a Lotus. Pump some life into your black blood.

Release it under Lotus, charge 27k for it instead of 17k, and then you won’t get the bad publicity either. DO IT!!!!!!!!

Finally now that VW owns these two they might improve the build quality of the horrible Protons that are currently inflicted on various countries around the world. The (approx) 5% of each Proton that Lotus designs is very well executed but the other 95%…………..well…….lets just say it leaves alot to be desired. Thank god GM didn’t get a hold of it or else it would have destroyed the two brands forever!!

audi RS + lotus inspired suspension. Sweet…….not that the RS4 doesn’t handle well cuz it truely does, but now it will handle better.

A question for the moron who calls himself GMnumberone4ever:

GM is #1 at what?

Fortune 500 Worldwide(2006)
Toyota= $12.1 billion profit
Honda= $5.2 billion profit
Nissan= $4.5 billion profit
DaimlerChrysler= $3.5 billion profit
Ford= $2.0 billion profit
Volkswagen= $1.4 billion profit
General Motors= $10.5 billion LOSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

So does GMnumberone stand for #1 in company losses?

Sorry, but you’re a complete moron and should not be allowed to comment on this website.

deantj, Im not going to stoop to your level and argue with you.
Grow up. This sight would be alot better off without people like you.

thank god you said it greatfox cause i was about to
dont make up **** for acronyms if you dont know what it means in the first place
oh and yeah deantj is useless

vwjamesmc,

Strange to rate car companies by how good they are at extracting money from the customer. Looking at your figures from the customer’s point of view, GM should be very popular, because they are being very generous.

Why not focus on the product instead? One of my cars is an old K5 Blazer, which I bought because I find it amusingly crass and the specific power output makes me laugh (5.7L engine, less than 200bhp!) When I look at the current offerings from GM, I feel the same way.

If we rate products by the criteria of design, handling and quality of materials and construction, then GM and Ford USA will still be somewhere towards the bottom of the list. BMW, Toyota & Honda can build quality, well-screwed together cars in the US. Jaguar, VW and others design great-looking cars there. Why is it that the native brands can’t get these basics right? Is it because they lazily assume that redneck throbbers like “GMnumberone” will buy whatever tat they churn out, as long as it has a headline-grabbing power output?

Niall

p.s. Andre Neves: while I agree with your sentiment, surely when asking people to act like adults one should not make high school spelling errors. Borrow a dictionary and check “sight” and “alot”.

p.p.s. before the southern half of the union erupts; yes the Corvette has passable styling, but it is too big for a sports car and the interior is too cheap and gaudy for a GT. If you don’t believe me then next time you are in Monte Carlo, notice how few buyers choose to put their money into one.

Maybe now they can stick an RS4 v-8 into the future Lotus Esprit instead of the rumored BMW powerplant. A 200hp direct injection turbo with DSG for the Elise would be a nice combo. Lotus will play a big part of tuning Audi cars int the future in order to catch up with the driving dynamics of BMW. Proton right now needs a clean sheet of paper because the current lineup in even more inferior to the Koreans.

niallpolley,

“how good they are at extracting money from a customer”?????

Your statement makes no sense. We all have choices on which vehicle to buy. 99.9% of us will choose the best value for the money. The others (ex.GMnumberone4ever) will choose the vehicles that have the worst value for the money. Also, you think GM is being generous? VW is #2 out of 35 major car brands for 60 months re-sale value. Do you think GM is near the top or botton for re-sale? GM selling vehicles that are typically worth close to nothing in 60 months is being generous?

Carnut4ever — “Maybe now they can stick an RS4 v-8 into the future Lotus Esprit instead of the rumored BMW powerplant. ”

Obviously they will not use a BMW now, but I think BMW still bests VAG in the engine dept. Both are great, but I still give the nod to The Motor Werkes.

This Lotus thing will really help VAG; and Lotus will be given new life with the deep pockets of VAG.

vwjamesmc,

My point is that a car enthusiast should not rate car companies by their profits, but by the vehicles they manufacture. When you wanted to point out to GMnumberone4ever that GM were not number one you quoted the financial results of a series of manufacturers. There have been plenty of great car manufacturers who have not turned a profit, and vice-versa.

We do not all have choices about which vehicle we buy, many people drive vehicles bought by their employer. Also 99.9% of us do not buy the best value vehicle for the money, many buyers make their decision based upon perceived values that they have been fed from marketing. A large percentage of purchases do not even involve a test drive!

In summary,why talk something as irrelevant as profits with GMnumberone4ever when the product he champion is so obviously inferior?

Niall

Come on over to Michigan Niall and you’ll change your attitude towards GM. We rule the landcape here, not an import POS in sight. Those former owners either sucked it up and took a bath on resale to get themselves into a GM product, or torched, vandalized, and faked a theft just to rid themselves of their unreliable POS. My neighbor had his baseball bat out taking wacks at his Lexus because he hated it so much. NOw he has a new POntiac and is completely happy, no problems whatsoever.

You are delusional Niall. Grow up.

a dormmate of mine was from grand rapids, MI and drove a ‘97 Toyota Camry that had 250,000 miles on it. Then his sister crashed it. How can you say there is not an import in sight? Are you blind?

GMnumberone4ever says his neighbor demolished his unrealiable foreign vehicle (Lexus) for a Pontiac Sunfire which has made him the happiest person on earth.

That is the funniest comment I have ever read on this site!! Thanks for the humor GMnumberone in money lost forever (GM lost over $10,500,000,000 worldwide in 2006 because they have to give them away to persuade consumers to purcahse their vehicles vs the competition)!!!!

PS-Niall, employer purchased vehicles are a very small percentage of company sales.

GMnumberone4ever

LastI heard of Michigan was when I was finalising the handover of 10 Ferraris to a local client; he had customers lined up for them who were paying way over list. Those “import POS” were certainly in demand.

It doesn’t surprise me that there are a lot of GMs in Michigan, there are a lot of Lada’s in Kiev, but that doesn’t change my opinion of them.

I don’t think I’ll base my opinion of cars on the actions of criminal nutjobs who vandalise their own cars and submit fraudulent insurance claims. If you would like to start up a poll on this site about whether its you or I are delusional, I’ll gladly go head to head.

Best regards,

Niall

1 Vote for GMno.1 as delusional

Andre, you need to stop calling people idiots just for asking a few questions. Damn, didn’t daddy teach you any manners?

I no longer want an elise