Perceptions Die... OK Say Again Y Foreign is Better

[lil_chef]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Looks like operating 8 brands in 1 market is a bad idea. Though I think it was 10 for a while:

Buick
Cadilac
Chevrolet
Daewoo
GMC
Hummer
Oldsmobile
Pontiac
Saab
Saturn

I'm not sure where Isuzu fit in, I think GM was a 50% shareholder at the time. So call it 10.5 brands in north america in the late 90's / early 2000's.

i am not 100% sure on what your trying to say in your post

[a_Username]

Originally Posted by syr74

Why? I'm a capitalist of the highest order and I too would have said no were I in their position, and I would have done so without hesitation.

If the speculation is true and they denied buying GM after their bankruptcy, then wouldn't it have been smart for them to buy it up to decrease competition? The drastic increase in sales they'd get would definitely be worth the buy IMO. But I'm not in their shoes so IDK lol.

[syr74]

Originally Posted by a_Username

If the speculation is true and they denied buying GM after their bankruptcy, then wouldn't it have been smart for them to buy it up to decrease competition? The drastic increase in sales they'd get would definitely be worth the buy IMO. But I'm not in their shoes so IDK lol.

You have to have the revenue to run such a monster, and therein lies the rub. The money to make the deal happen after the fact simply didn't exist. Ford possibly could have talked the US government into a major loan to make such a deal more viable, but Ford didn't seem overly keen on taking government loans of that magnitude for any reason.

GM has a lot of potential, but it would have been a poor fit for Ford.

[Revo1]

Gotta be honest, I always thought the Hummer division was kinda gimmicky to begin with...

[manimsoblack]

Originally Posted by lil_chef

i am not 100% sure on what your trying to say in your post

They went crazy with the brands and overtaxed themselves?

[Cmicasa the Great XvX]

Originally Posted by Dragoneye

Gotcha. And I would tend to agree...it seems they've learned from their mistakes, though...insofar as their choices of brands for axing. The current team seems poised to take the market by storm.

My point. I am sometimes skeptical of whether or not Fritz is capable of being less of a Business guy and more of a Car guy... but hopefully Lutz will continue to steer that boat.. and Stephens is able to pick up where he leaves off.

[Xanthos]

Originally Posted by manimsoblack

They went crazy with the brands and overtaxed themselves?

Not to mention that competing with yourself is a bad idea. If you have multiple cars that fill the same spot and have the same buyers, thats a problem.

Not that you lose sale, but you increase costs without actually gaining any sales. Just as bad for profits as losing sales.
- X

P.S. - GM, I would totally buy this if you made it a GMC.



No joke. DOOOO EEIIIITTT!

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by Cmicasa the Great XvX

My point. I am sometimes skeptical of whether or not Fritz is capable of being less of a Business guy and more of a Car guy... but hopefully Lutz will continue to steer that boat.. and Stephens is able to pick up where he leaves off.

+1. Bob and Rick seemed to work well together, balancing the business with passion...trouble is, Rick was too "nice", and they didn't attack their problems aggressively enough. I have high hopes for Fritz/Bob...and their replacements.

There's a new spirit within the company...like a load lifted, and storms past. And they have very clear targets to battle it out with, and very clear plans on how to do that. Needless to say, I'm excited!!

[Cmicasa the Great XvX]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

The original Saturn was a great idea and did a lot for GM in terms of perception and import wining, it built a great reputation for service and reliability and won quite a few sales back from imports, or prevented their loss to imports. It just never realized its potential and was too expensive to operate. So they folded it into the rest of GM. The time to sell it was 10 years ago when they had an independent design studio, manufacturing plant, and dealer network. It was a pre packaged car company.

But the 'new' Saturn essentially was Oldsmobile, for about 5 years. Now its dying just like Olds did. There isn't much market share left between the entry level brands (Chevrolet) and low end lux (Buick). As a result, the two in between (Pontiac and Saturn) have been squeezed out.

Hummer, I agree on the 'Hummer Edition' GMC's. Make it their off road performance trucks, while Denali would remain as a luxury trim.

I can see what U are saying but still have to disagree on overall necessity of Saturn in the first place. In 1990, even.. GM, Ford, and Chrysler controlled the market so much so (see Chart below) that they simply had to put force and cash into reworking existing brands rather than try and tout new ones. Saturn, for instance, wasn't purchased by consumers because the thought they were buying an American nameplate.. but quite possibly just the opposite. Many people to this day that I speak to still thought Saturn was a Japanese maker.

If GM had of taken that money it invested in Saturn.. a "from the ground up" operation.. and invested it in Chevy, Olds, or Pontiac.. or all three.. they could have snagged back buyers who were looking at Foreign nameplates. In 1985... 1985.. GM spent $3.5 BILLION on just the Spring Hill Plant alone. Also keep in mind $3.5 Billion 25 years ago would be $7.3 Billion today. If GM took $7 billion today and spent it on Chevy, Buick, Cadillac, and inadvertently thru Chevy for GMC... a Malibu would be the equivlent to an Acura TL... a Buick Lacrosse would be on the same level as Lexus's LS460.. a CTS would be equivalent to a Benz CLS.

[Cmicasa the Great XvX]

Originally Posted by 1320junkie

Didnt GM buy the Hummer brand from AM General?

Just the name... The made mad profit off it after the fact. The Hummer vehicles being essentially ruggedized versions of existing GM platforms and all. For example.. The H2 is probably one of teh most profitable vehicles on the road at $60K. WHY??? Because the platform it sits on is a GMT800... not even the current GMT900 that sits under my 07 Tahoe.. but the one that sat under my 2000 Yukon

[Cmicasa the Great XvX]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Looks like operating 8 brands in 1 market is a bad idea. Though I think it was 10 for a while:

Buick
Cadilac
Chevrolet
Daewoo
GMC
Hummer
Oldsmobile
Pontiac
Saab
Saturn

I'm not sure where Isuzu fit in, I think GM was a 50% shareholder at the time. So call it 10.5 brands in north america in the late 90's / early 2000's.

U could throw in Suzuki and part of Subaru as well. GM owned about 20% in Subie and even more in Suzuki.

And I agree with what U are saying. The real issue is not so much that GM has as many brands... but that we have so many name/companies taking a slice of the U.S. market in general.

have to say.. GM as a WHOLE.. with all brands.. including Hummer is just FINE. We are not talking about the financials here.. as in my honest opinion it is not the 8 Brands that have cause the issues within GM's situation... but the Overhead of both Labor, plant waste, and Financial downturns from GMAC.

One can argue for DAYS about the need for Killing a brand.. here... and merging a brand... there... but truth is If GM should get rid of it's 8 brands... then America as a whole needs to get rid of at least 20-30 more of the brands that currently occupies the selling atmosphere. Many have no clue that in the U.S. we currently have 50 Brands on sale... 50!!!

Acura, Hyundai, Morgan, Aston Martin, Infiniti, Nissan, Audi, Isuzu, Bentley, Jaguar, Panoz, BMW, Jeep, Pontiac, Buick, Kia, Porsche, Cadillac, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, Chevrolet, Land Rover, Saab, Lexus, Saleen, Chrysler, Lincoln, Saturn, Dodge, Lotus, Scion, Maserati, smart, Ferrari, Maybach, Subaru, Ford, Mazda, Suzuki, Tesla, GMC, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Mercury, Honda, MINI, Volkswagen, HUMMER, Mitsubishi, and Volvo

See??? I told U...

LMFAO at the idea that any 1 company could have a 20% market share with 42 other brands competing with it.. let alone next month's 22%. I often LAUGH at the lunacy when certain forum members talk about GM's Market share in the 60's.. hell even in the 90's. They fail EVERYTIME to mention that in the 60s... it was pretty GM, Ford, Chrysler, and a coupla Foreign makes from Toyota, Benz, and VW.


Bottom line is that if GM didn't need cash to bolster it's bank book... Hummer would probably not be 4 sale... It is actually very successful as a brand... very profitable and required very little money to implement. Even R&D is minimal since it is completely based on existing platforms and engines. A Merger of the brand with GMC would be the proper course.

[MrIcky]

The Hummer started as a high end niche brand. One of the things GM has tried to do in the past is mainstream all of their high end brands because GM historically sees everything in terms of volume. Hummer may have had a chance if they stayed niche and expensive.

Saturn lost their vision within 3 years unfortunately so there was no reason for them to be an extra brand. If they wanted to import Opels, then just import Opels.

So anyhow, I guess I disagree with the op. My post is borderline OT, but I wanted to get in my .02 about Hummer because they made a crazy cool product at one time.

(and a side note-if you bold everything, then bold loses it's impact)

[Cmicasa the Great XvX]

Originally Posted by syr74

Actually, absolute business terms are exclusively how I am looking at this and, in reality, there was absolutely no way. Why? First, GM was already using 'creative' book keeping by then hiding the fact that they were losing far more money than was Ford. Nothing illegal here mind you, but it does tend to put off investors for obvious reasons and is more often than not little more than a temporary patch that bites you on the backside in the end when you finally have to claim those losses.

The problem this presents as regards GM buying Ford is that nobody who knew anything about business was fooled by it, which is typical. And even if they could have hidden those realities from everybody the necessary financing for any such deal would have absolutely required that GM lay bare their actual monetary situation which would have caused obvious problems. To be blunt, from a strictly business perspective, Ford was arguably in a much better position to buy GM in 2004 than GM would have been to attempt buying Ford. GM was losing more money and hadn't yet claimed any of it, which is actually bad if you want to take out a loan, GM also lacked the easy liquid assets Ford has taken advantage of by selling off brands like Jaguar, Land Rover, and in the near future Volvo which is part of the reason Ford went for a loan and GM didn't. People often want to believe Ford just had the foresight to get a loan when the reality is that GM probably didn't have the collateral for a worthwhile loan, a reality which translates into any discussion of trying to buy anything.

Arguing in either direction is pointless since both companies would have gone bankrupt in near record time had they tried to swallow the other, but the notion that GM somehow got in trouble 'suddenly' and was in a much superior financial position prior to 2005 just doesn't hold water.

Then we'll have to agree to disagree my friend.

The way I see it is the way many others in the business world see it as well. The MARKET fell out just in the middle of GM's "non-Chapter 11" restructuring. Both companies were burning thru cash at about the same rate... Ford didn't have any INSIGHT.. they had an actual need at the time for CASH. That's when Jag, Aston, and LR got the heave ho and loans were exercised in a economic climate that was willing to lend, leaving Ford with an additional coupla Billion in their bank Account to help tide them over. Both companies in a better economic situation would have been obviously better off. GM simply was, prior to Fall 2008... in the best situation overall to make it in a normal economy. The recent Chapt 11 was somehing that I had prayed for since 2005 tho. To kill legacy cost that had been around since the 70s and 80s. The lost of the four brands was a necessity that should have been. Two of those brands should have never been created in teh first place (see other thread). OH..and let's not forget the Fiat situation. :(

[manimsoblack]

Originally Posted by Xanthos

Not to mention that competing with yourself is a bad idea. If you have multiple cars that fill the same spot and have the same buyers, thats a problem.

Not that you lose sale, but you increase costs without actually gaining any sales. Just as bad for profits as losing sales.
- X

P.S. - GM, I would totally buy this if you made it a GMC.



No joke. DOOOO EEIIIITTT!

Seriously where I work about every third vehicle is a Jeep, Hummer or lifted truck, these things would sell like hot cakes.