The last line to be voted off of Survivor: General Motors is…
Pontiac.
The Final Four survivors: Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick.
GMC is the second biggest line behind Chevy, so it lived, and Buick had the Chinese thing going, and apparently some cars that are actually reliable, so it made the cut despite having less sales than Pontiac. I had hoped for a revival of a performance oriented “wide-track” Pontiac, but with the gas crunch and wanting the foot in the China market, Buick lived.
And the car I’d credit with killing Pontiac: the butt-ugliest car in creation, the Aztek!
The Aztek was just one of many Fashion Emergencies prompted by Pontiac. Remember how they’d put nasty plastic body-cladding on everything for a while? EWWWWW
I thought it was the Alero that was the one that IIRC took third in a Car & Driver competition among mid-size passenger cars, beating out competitors such as the Camry and narrowly losing to the Accord and Galant. And I remember the main reason the Galant won was: “This is the only car that says, ‘Let’s go hunt down an Alero.’”
Maybe you’re right; the Aurora was a bit ahead of its time even as a Olds, and it wasn’t quite in the same catagory as a Camry or Galant. It was a bit bigger, had a V8, a bit higher-end trim at the time, etc.
Yeah. One of the reasons the Alero beat the Camry was that it had a V-6, and they had to go with a 4-cylinder Camry to keep its price within range of the competition.
I’m kind of surprised that Saturn didn’t make the cut. I don’t know from first hand but I see a lot of them around and it would seem that their whole model (simpler, no frills, no pressure sales) is a better long term bet. /shrug
I see that, but I can see where they’d spin it off/shut it down in favor of just using the (mostly Euro-styled) models for Chevy-branded vehicles. The dealerships are going to be a contract lawyer’s meal ticket though.
I drive a Saturn. I am so not surprised. (And if I could go back in time ten years to give my younger self some advice, I’d tell him to not be an idiot and get another Toyota.)
Don’t know much about Chrysler, but from what I’ve read about the GM deal, the government posturing about standing up for the little guy is complete bullshit. Under the deal, the government forgives some debt and gets a big chunk of equity, the workers give up some benefits and get a smaller chunk of equity, and the bondholders give up by far the largest amount of money and get 10% of the company’s equity. In other words, they get totally screwed.
The supposition is that the main reason the government is trying to prevent bankruptsy is not because it’s good for the company or the workers or even taxpayers, it’s because it prevents the companies who sold credit default swaps on GM debt from having to pay. Chief among them being Goldman Sachs, AIG and all the other names we keep hearing when it comes to government bailouts. This time it’s the bondholders getting the shaft moreso than taxpayers, but it’s still a handout to the big banks.
Assuming the Chrysler deal was similar, I don’t blame the bondholders for refusing to bend over and take it. Especially the ones who bought CDSs as insurance against default, which will be paid out in the event of bankruptsy.
A large issue with GM and Ford seems to be, that their overseas brands and plants would do fine, if allowed to operate as independent daughters. But they’re probably even more cash stuck, as they’re required to siphon most of their profits to the main holding.
GM and Ford would most likely be quite profitable, if they shut down much of their US assets and fired half of their top management.
