HarleyEarl

Saturday, November 26, 2005 Print this Comment on this E-mail this Spring Hill plant's survival depends on GM bringing changes Facility is shutting down Saturn Ion production, but expects to reconfigure for new product line By Beth Rucker / Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The General Motors Corp. Spring Hill manufacturing plant will survive if the company makes good on its promise to employees to bring in a new product line -- one that likely won't be a Saturn, analysts said. GM announced earlier this week that it will cut 30,000 jobs and close nine assembly, stamping and powertrain plants and three parts facilities. The line in Spring Hill producing the Saturn Ion compact car will shut down in 2006, a move that could eliminate 1,500 jobs. But GM officials have promised union leaders and plant workers that Spring Hill will be part of the company's future plans as it reworks and retools in an effort to cut losses. GM lost almost $4 billion in the first nine months of this year. "We knew we were going to be making the switch from plastics to steel," said Mike O'Rourke, president of United Auto Workers Local 1853 in Spring Hill. "The future is bright at this plant." Throughout its 15-year existence, the lines at the plant have been configured to produce the plastic-paneled Saturns, such as the current Ion and sport-utility Vue models. Reconfiguring to steel would make the lines capable of producing a non-Saturn GM product. That's all part of GM's plan to get plants operating at 100 percent capacity -- a plan that's been in the works for a number of years, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. Cole said he believes GM will do what it has promised Spring Hill. "What GM is doing right now is dramatically increasing the interchangeability of their products," he said in a telephone interview earlier this week. "When you've made a huge investment in the plants, you want them to operate at 100 percent capacity." The changes will mean weakened ties to the Saturn brand name that Spring Hill has come to identify with. The Ion model, as well as future Saturn models, will most likely be produced at other GM plants around the country, Cole said. Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber said he has been in contact with GM executives almost daily this month, and he and Gov. Phil Bredesen have visited executives in Detroit to lobby for GM to lobby for Spring Hill. "I feel very good that Spring Hill is going to be a part of GM's future," Kisber said. "We're trying to discover what it takes to bring a non-Saturn product to Spring Hill. We've made it very clear that we stand ready to work with them." Kisber said the plant remains a leader for GM because of its powertrain assembly and its modern paint shop. Saturn was launched as an experiment in 1990 to compete with low-cost imports like Toyota, Honda and Nissan. The company had its own managers who reported to the Saturn executive board rather than to GM, and the United Auto Workers signed a separate contract with GM to create a cooperative environment between labor and management. That separate identity is no longer needed, Cole said, because GM has absorbed the successful practices, Cole said. "It served its mission in that respect; it became a sort of prototype," he said. "The idea of keeping Saturn a totally separate entity doesn't make sense anymore."

Thanks Mike...I'm trying so hard to be positive....but, it just didn't connect with me......it did not look like money well spent. It could have been done so much better. It didn't do the car justice. Buick and this car in particular deserve way better.

Sixty8.....I completely forgot this was a RWD!.....now I like it even more.

This is why I love it here....I always learn something interesting from interesting people. Thanks balthazar....as always informative, clear and concise.

damn, you're good!!....it is a Buick.

I never knew the hobby was so extensive....it's really got me interested...it looks like so much fun...creating little automotive worlds. It can't get much better than that.

An early pickup from what GM division?.....you may be surprised.

Exactly....Olds invented the first automobile assembly line, long before Ford....and yet many think Ford invented it.

You got it. It was a bit of a marketing thing to compete with Ford, but then Ford lowered it's price to counteract.

Ok, this is interesting....I'm learning some new things...I always thought 'GMC' came from the General Motors Truck Company.....had never heard of the Garbowski angle.

When Chevrolet became part of the GM in 1918, they named their new car the Chevrolet Series 490. What was the significance of the '490'?

wow....yes technically you are correct...well done!......and what was the name that GM used that became 'GMC'?

What was the original name of the GM division that eventually became GMC?

1. Where did GM build the first assembly plant outside of the US and Canada? 2. What was the first vehicle produced outside of the US and Canada?

I like the name 'Apache' alot to sixty8......in fact, I tend to like most native names for vehicles. Pontiac, Cheyenne, Cherokee etc etc...they have interest, unlike so many lame names on cars and trucks today.

It's a very safe design....if Hyundai were to design a 'supercar', it would look like this.

...and the way he constructs sentences...I had to keep re-reading...

US car companies trucking out of trouble 26.11.05 By Alastair Sloane Once upon a time, an American car was just that. American cars stood out. They were mostly as big as Texas and covered in chrome. They had big motors in the front, big boots in the back - and big bench seats in between. Some had fins, swept-back things designed to give the car the same presence on land as a shark has in the water. These made some cars look hideous - even to Americans. The fins later came to symbolise American excess, in car design and in everyday living. Classic Americans included the 1949 Ford pick-up, 1955 Chevrolet, with its small block V8, and 1963 Buick Riviera. The Riviera was inspired not from anything Detroit could dream up but by a foggy night in London. General Motors designer Bill Mitchell was standing outside the Claridge Hotel when a Rolls-Royce appeared out of the fog. The sharp corners of the car coming through the mist gave him the idea for the Riviera. That was the golden age of American cars, in the 1950s and 1960s, when Detroit designers ruled. Then came the 1970s Arab oil embargo and new federal laws and carmakers were forced to rethink fuel efficiency. American cars got smaller. New safety standards were introduced. Somehow in all of this American cars pretty much became boring - with one or two exceptions. Since then, Japanese and European carmakers have captured more than half the American car market and and are gaining in sport utility vehicles, or off-roaders. Korean carmakers Hyundai and Kia are also making inroads. Kia is turning to small-town mid-America to fuel its next wave of growth. It is on target to sell about 280,000 vehicles this year and wants to double that volume within five years. "If you look at mid-America, places like Indiana, places that aren't the image markets, this is where Kia can make huge advances," says Kia America boss Len Hunt, until two months ago the head of Volkswagen in the US. Kia also has its eye on customers who may not even be considering a new car because they have credit problems: "Sixty per cent of Americans have credit issues, yet they're not villains," he said. General Motors now has about 25 per cent of the US market - down from a peak of just over 50 per cent in 1962. Ford has a similar share. The Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler has 14 per cent. Toyota has 11 per cent, and Honda 8 per cent. The Toyota Lexus is the most popular luxury car, ahead of Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The Toyota Camry and Honda Accord are the best-selling sedans. Most Japanese brands sold in America are built from parts made in America. Eight out of 10 Hondas sold in America are built in American factories. About 90 per cent of the parts for those Hondas are made in America, too. Detroit is under siege. GM is losing billions of dollars. It is shutting down plants and laying off 30,000 workers. It is hamstrung by pension and health costs and it isn't making the cars American buyers want. Wall St fears bankruptcy - chapter 11 - protection. Chief executive Rick Wagoner (they call him The Rick like they call real estate billionaire Donald Trump The Donald) refuted the bankruptcy rumours in an e-mail to 325,000 employees. "I'd like to just set the record straight here and now: There is absolutely no plan, strategy or intention for GM to file bankruptcy," Wagoner wrote. FORD, also burdened by health and pension commitments and flagging sales, is expected to close plants and lay off thousands of workers next month when its trouble-shooters Mark Fields - former chief of Mazda and Ford of Europe - and Anne Stevens - an engineer who is head of product development - report to the Ford board on December 7. Fields and Stevens, say analysts, will recommend that Ford close four assembly plants and some engine plants, lay off 4000 white-collar workers, and shut down some of its 53 corporate officers. Blue-collar jobs will also go. "We want to make sure this is not all just done on the backs of a certain level of the company," chief executive Bill Ford said. For years, the powerful United Auto Workers union and GM, Ford and Chrysler put together deals that gave workers above-average hourly wages and rich health and pension benefits. The car companies could pass along the costs to consumers. The Big Three largely had the market to themselves. But not any more. They are now taking a back seat to imports and Japanese, Korean and German carmakers with non-unionised US assembly plants. So far this year, Ford's North American automotive operations have lost $US1.4 billion ($2 billion) before taxes. Ford sales in the first two weeks of November were down nearly 30 per cent. GM's sales are also down. But the Chrysler Group, which went through crisis after crisis in the 1970s and 80s before merging with Germany's Daimler in 1998, isn't as burdened with fringe benefits, although it too is laying off workers and cutting costs. The slump in sales of pick-up trucks - traditionally the pillars of profit - and sports utility vehicles is hurting the Big Three. But in spite of the rise in fuel prices and an active environmental lobby pushing the use of more efficient engines like hybrids, they are mounting aggressive advertising campaigns in support of the truck. GM is pushing its Silverado pick-up hard with a new campaign called Long Live the Truck, aimed at men - who make up 87 per cent of the full-sized pick-up's buyers. Of those, it says, 81 per cent are married, 28 per cent are university graduates, and 22 per cent are retired. The average age is 51. New ads call the 2006 Silverado the "one true truck". They emphasise its claim to be "longest lasting - most dependable". The campaign's print advertising includes a 10-page brochure called: Men, Women and the Truck: A Relationship Handbook. The booklet begins: "It's a simple truth. Man's fascination with the truck is hardwired into his DNA." The Silverado is the second-best-selling vehicle in the US, trailing only the Ford F series. In the first 10 months of 2005, Chevrolet sold 599,578 Silverados, a 4.3 per cent increase over the year-ago period. But Silverado sales in October were 39.1 per cent below the same month last year. John Roth, Chevrolet's truck advertising manager, says the Silverado campaign seeks to promote the bond between men and their trucks, at work and play. A television ad for the Silverado observes: "Men love trucks. Why? Because trucks don't ask why."

http://www.forbesautos.com/news/headlines/...autoturkey.html Automotive Turkeys 2005 by Dan Lienert Forbes.com NEW YORK — The word "turkey" is like the word "lemon," appealing if you're sitting down to dinner, troubling if you're talking about investments. Bankers and theater producers call failures "turkeys," and each year Forbes.com applies the term to cars as well. We do this, naturally, around Thanksgiving. The 10 vehicles in the slide show that follows are the ones that have seen the biggest declines in sales in the American market in the first 10 months of 2005, compared with the first 10 months of 2004. The Land Rover Freelander SUV is among the top automotive turkeys for 2005. When you read the slideshow, you may find yourself asking, "Now, where do they get off calling a $96,000 Mercedes a turkey?" Our response is that the Mercedes in question, the CL-Class, is one of the hottest coupes on the market — one we would give an arm and a leg to own. But with a sales decline of 53 percent this year, the CL has been a showroom dud for parent company DaimlerChrysler — the third-biggest flop in the business, in fact. Joining the CL on the list are Audi's TT sports car and other amazing vehicles. In the past, we have reviewed the CL and TT favorably and the cars in the slideshow do not reflect our personal opinions about which cars are turkeys and which are not. But the list does feature such wastes of steel as Ford Motor's Mercury Monterey minivan and Mazda B-Series truck. Unloved, pathetically low-selling copies of Ford vehicles, these two cars have virtually no reason for existing. View Automotive Turkeys Slideshow For more than half the cars on the list, the sales declines have to do with aging models. A car typically goes seven years between overhauls, and sales tend to decline near the end of what manufacturers call its "life cycle." A healthy model line, however, can remain popular until it is replaced — and can be a tough act to follow. General Motors put out an overhauled Chevrolet Corvette in the later part of 2004, but in 2005 Corvette sales have actually decreased. In fact, not only has the new Corvette not lived up to the dying days of the old Corvette, but the dying Corvette’s sales actually improved as the car was dying. From January to July 2004, just before Chevrolet released the overhauled Corvette, the outgoing model line managed to post a year-over-year sales increase, according to Automotive News. For some of the cars in our slideshow, such as the Mercedes CL, the parent company has deliberately slowed production to prepare for a replacement model. Such manufacturers might object to our calling such models "turkeys" — but if Chevy could find a way to make a dying Corvette go up in sales, just to give one example, then it is fair to consider an older model that goes down in sales unsuccessful. While we expected older models to have prominent places on the list, we also expected to see many SUV sales plummet due to higher gas prices. Surprisingly, only two SUVs are on the list despite all the news out of Detroit that the SUV business — the bread and butter for American automakers — is in ruins. But don't forget that the Detroit automakers rolled out sweetheart deals in the summer, in which they were peddling SUVs with employee discounts. In many ways, comparing year-over-year sales for the first 10 months of 2005 does not paint a complete picture of the auto business. With the employee-discount programs gone, sales of all kinds of American cars slowed to a trickle in October, and SUV sales will fall off the table in the fourth quarter. In January, look for our annual feature on the best and worst-selling cars and be prepared to read about more SUVs than you will see here. This story's slideshow features major automakers only and excludes such blue-blooded companies as Bentley and Maybach. This is because the ultra-pricey brands tend not to release monthly sales figures and often release sales data only once a year. To focus the piece on major automakers, we also excluded such tiny specialists as Panoz and Lotus from consideration. We also did not include vehicles that have been sold in 2005 but are headed for discontinuation, such as Pontiac's Aztek SUV. In some cases, it's hard to tell whether an automaker plans to keep a car around or not, so our rule of thumb was this: If the automaker is still selling the vehicle on its website, we considered it in our tabulations for the list. But if we had official confirmation that a car is to be discontinued, we excluded it from consideration even if it is still being advertised (example: Lincoln's LS sedan). Please note that our definition of "discontinuation" does not include model-year changeover. Volvo, for example, has stopped building its current-generation C70 convertible in preparation for the arrival of the overhauled, 2006 C70 next spring. Because a replacement is on the way, we did not consider the C70 that has been sold this year to be a car headed for discontinuation. It is simply a car headed for an overhaul. For the results of our research, please follow this link. This Thanksgiving, automotive investors need to be on the lookout for two kinds of turkeys. The bad turkeys are in the slideshow. Note: Forbes.com contacted every major automaker to verify the sales data we obtained from the companies' media websites. At publication time, the following automakers had not confirmed the data despite multiple requests in email messages from Forbes.com: Audi, Chrysler Group, Ford Motor, General Motors and Volkswagen.

It's the way I look at it too....it pays homage...celebrates that culture.

It really has gone upside down!....for example, Buick is highly regarded in China...a prestige car....here, not so much.

I hear you....but not much different than 'Pontiac'....an Indian chief and the Pontiac emblem is an Indian arrow.

1958 Chevrolet Apache

I never liked the Led Zep campaigns.....I cringe everytime it comes on. Old geezer rock from old geezer rockers from England...doesn't make any sense. The only thing in GM's defense, some of their first choices didn't pan out. First an artisit has to be willing to do it and secondly there is the cost.