carman21

The rear is a modernized version of a 1960's Ford Galaxie, I think, I'll have to look this up, can anybody confirm this? A Great American automobile, can't wit to see it in New York along with the LaCrosse and Cruze.

Sounds like if you pay taxes at all you may pick up the tab.

No, if you buy anything over the next few years you will pay for all of this.

Inflation is going to be out of control by 2011.

Did you know Canada has a NASCAR equivalent called CASCAR? Neither did I.

I guess its like what the CFL is to the NFL.

Red Light!!

We'll I know that paying for liposuction(superficial restructuring of GM or Chrysler) for a patient without removing their brain tumor(the UAW) is a futile task.

Oh just give GM, Ford, and Chrysler the whole $700 billion already for God's sake....

I'm thinking it is partially a Republican, conservative thing---the Red State Revenge for losing the election---where is the largest concentration of red states? The South (incl. Texas). As they like to say, 'The South Will Rise Again'. This is part of that, I believe.

The GOP wants to gut the UAW to save Detroit and/or they want to protect their state's auto industry. The Dems if they want to save Detroit is to help the unions get more control over Detroit or just plain nationalize it and/or they want to let Detroit die and use it as an excuse to unionize the foreign automakers. We should just take our chances with CH 11 and tell Washington and the UAW to go f*** themselves.

Questions to ask:

The cost of getting rid of Pontiac

Killings Oldsmobile cost GM a percent of market share AND it cost GM an estimated $1b to negotiate the closing/transitioning of dealerships, etc. Since GM has combined the dealership channels of GMC/Pontiac/Buick, would closing a "Pontiac" really cost much at all? If Buick had cars to attract potential Pontiac purchasers (something GM would need to work on the timing of), how would the dealerships be affected--other than signage? Marketing materials are a non-factor: that crap gets updated practically every year anyways. The cost of closing a Pontiac may not be too bad--certainly not as costly as Oldsmobile turned out to be.

Getting rid of Saturn

Can Saturn be sold? With Saab, Hummer, and Volvo all on the market at the same time, selling Saturn would depress prices even further. I'm not sure Saturn could be sold for anything near it's worth. Since GM (smartly) managed Saturn dealership growth, most cities have just a handful of Saturn regionally-based dealerships. Being that the volume of Saturn dealerships are small, could a Buick/GMC dealership network absorb Saturn dealerships remaking themselves into Buick/GMC dealerships? Worse case scenario is that GM ends up buying back some of dealerships and shuttering themselves.

The sale of Hummer/Saab

Can the sale of Hummer/Saab offset some of the loses of the above-mentioned items? How sweet would it be for GM to shed itself of FOUR brands at a small-compared-to-Oldsmobile-net-cost? Personally, I'd target VW/Audi for Hummer. VW/Audi doesn't have a large US-presence in SUV's. Here's a lux/premium brand that fills a market-space for them. GM could contractually provide platforms & powertrains for the Hummer brand as necessary for as long as a purchaser would require.

Pontiac will become a niche brand, that is fine, just remember that Scion is also a niche brand...

Saturn could be bought by some Silicon Valley start-up or existing tech firm that wants to build an electric car for the masses. Think Tesla or Fisker....

Hummer will likely be bought by the other automotive manufacturers in the US, like PACCAR or Navistar.

Saab will be bought by some Chinese group like SAIC.

Volvo seems like a good buy for VW or BMW.

Shoot, I thought those bitches would continue to fall lockstep in behind Obama, just as they did before the election. They're stupid. Except for very brief moments, SNL has not been funny since the days of Belushi, Aykroid, Curtin, et al.

Amen!

Sounds like it will be a government assisted bankruptcy for GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

I hope we can either drop the UAW or expand the UAW into foreign-owned plants (the key is to trap the foreign automakers into manufacturing in the US).

A Strong GM is the Key to the future.

Selling off Assets like Opel seem prudent at this time.

However, it may be smarter to ride out the storm.

GM does have a tidal wave of strong products sourced from Opel right now.

GM in 2012 will be a serious player again in its homeland thats a major change so the key right now is survival.

If anything were to happen selling Opel to Daimler seems the most likely scenario.

We Elect Morons in Threes

Johnson Dumb

Nixon Dumber

Carter Dumbest

Clinton Dumb

Bush Dumber

Obama Dumbest

God willing there is still another Reagan to pull us out of this mess... Anyone? Anyone?

I would love to see PSA come to North America.

Peugeot would take on VW.

Citroen would morph into an answer to Audi.

Ultimately, I'd love to see the Japanese big three be replaced by VW, PSA, and Fiat. Renault replacing Hyundai.

Full article at CarAdvice.com.au

Well there you have it, out of 6.6 billion people on the planet, 60 thousand of them have anonymously decided that Toyota is the, as PR would say, all-time best-ever company. Just so there is no confusion, that is approximately 0.00091% of the "world's" population.

Was this randomly selected Toyota employees?

What of the other 99.999...%?

Well you'd think they'd be making some money since the new Camaro has been on sale for 3 years and they brought the Chinese Park Ave and SLS over here right at release. The Chevy Beat sure has been selling well ever since it replaced the Aveo in summer 2007. Of course with gas prices the way they are, it's no surprise that the 2-Mode hybrid has about a 50% adoption rate on all new GM cars. When the Cruze goes on sale in January '09 sales will probably take off pretty quick. </mirror universe>

GME makes money in spite of itself... not because it does anything particularly well.

Too Funny, yet sad at the same time.

Now I get it. We all have every right to be pessimistic right now, and not just about cars.

Exactly, I just pray that GM and Ford can survive these times.

The good news is that GM and Ford are in their best position for real growth since World War 2 if they are able to spread their best products globally.

I'm just being overly dramatic. GM seems to want such a crappy thing to happen, at least their product management hints at it.

I am just a bit pessimistic about things like this.

Stick a fork in this sucker, Its Done!

Hummer, Saab, and Saturn are being sold off and Pontiac is being phased out.

GM is going to be the global brands of Chevy, Buick/Opel/Vauxhall/Holden, and Cadillac. GMC will be phased out altered greatly or become GM's ONLY brand selling trucks.

This of course is the worst case scenario considering GM's woes, the economy, Gas Prices, and CAFE.

This car looks great. I'm buying one.

I just wish it were named at least Allure to match the Canadian version, if not Invicta.

I suppose this is GM's Passat rather than an ES or TL.

Comparing to the concept now....the old Volt would have looked quite ugly on the road.......

Quite right!

Not bad at least its a nicer alternative than the Prius.

I liked everything but the front grill.

Obama's fly new ride.

Whatever makes you happy, .

McCain would be happy with the latest Packard. :rotflmao:

I'm not telling anybody to not buy a Camry, I just want to reduce how many people can actually find one at the dealership. Tariffs can't work against a Camry build in Kentucky or California. Besides Tariffs would cause trade wars and that would hurt our already weakened domestic automakers. Reducing actual sales of foreign automobiles whether made here or abroad will reduce our trade deficit as profits will stay here and not in Japan.

The lay-offs at Toyota, Honda, and Nissan plants and dealers will be offset by new hires at GM, Ford, and Chrysler plants and dealers. In fact, the Domestics may just buy Japanese plants to build their vehicles in more modern facilities.

The only reason that Japan, Inc. has impacted our market so badly is that our government has taken every opportunity to smash and bash our domestic automakers while Anti-American liberals are enthralled by the Big 3's(being evil polluting corporations) demise and Anti-Union conservatives are enthralled to see the demise of the UAW. So of course we are where we are today. Thank your government and media. Not to mention, Blue States losing jobs gives Democrats a reason to complain about Bush and win elections and new plants in Red States help Republicans there. Either way, we are screwed.

Believe me, it pains me to go against my free-market and freedom of choice instincts on this one but, we have not been in a free and fair market for 40 years.

I propose a plan to revive our Domestic Automakers home field advantage as well as give our Automakers a strategic advantage in other markets.

1) Restrict sales of foreign automakers to the sales of American automakers in that nation.

Ex. If Detroit sells 1,000,000 cars in Germany, German automakers can only sell 1,000,000 vehicles in the US.

Since we have the largest auto market of any of the homelands of the major automakers, we will have a major advantage in global sales.

If other nations try to counter our restrictions by lowering the number of vehicles we can sell there, it will just hurt their own automakers here.

This will encourage stubborn markets like Japan to open up to American products to keep their market share in the US. I doubt that they could muster the volume before the damage is done to Japan, Inc. USA

When China and India surpass our market volume we will just have to scale it to equal ours.

2) Increase the number of automakers allowed to sell in the US.

This will give domestic automakers the advantage of being the largest automakers in the US. This will keep US automakers on their toes while allowing their size to protect them from the assault.

I would suggest adding French, Italian, Russian, Indian, and Chinese automakers.

3) Create higher standards for safety, quality, fleet mileage, and emissions for foreign automakers than domestic automakers.

This will keep out low-grade automakers that are just selling cheap junk.

4) Treat the Domestic automakers products that are manufactured outside the United States the same as vehicles made by foreign automakers.

This will ensure that all American cars are made in America. Not Mexico, China, or elsewhere.

5) Ban US Automakers from being bought by foreign companies.

That's pretty self-evident.

I believe that this plan will revive and rejuvenate our ailing domestic automakers.

I realize that this is not Capitalism but, how Japan came to dominate our market is not Capitalism either.

Oh Yeah, sorry if this is not up to normal quality standards, after my long hiatus at school, I'm back at C&G ! I'm glad to see everything is up and running again.

Kia Sales are terrible!