GM pulls plug on '08 line of cars Product czar Bob Lutz wants to speed new trucks, SUVs to market faster. Excellent choice in lieu of looming $3.00/gallon gasoline costs. What a dolt! :rant:
....This is SOooo Stuuuupid, on Soooo Many levels. I was actually excited about and anticipating the Velite as my first ever New-Car purchase :spank:
Yeah, excellent choice. Take the only car that everyone thought could change the image of Buick because we need more Sierras.
It's sad to see an American icon like GM slowly dying. But the auto industry is fiercely competitive now on a worldwide basis. You need smart management, good product, and customer loyalty to survive. Unfortunately, they have gaps against the competition in all of those.
"This is scary. It puts GM behind the eight ball," said Joseph Phillippi of AutoTrends Consulting in Short Hills, N.J. "It makes you wonder why can't they get it right. Where does it seemingly go wrong?" Who's wondering? They've got: * Engineers who are chomping at the bit to produce some really killer products, * Production plants that could make them, * Customers who really WANT to buy them, BUT: * Beancounters who keep nickel-and-diming those killer products down into mediocrity, * Styling that makes everybody go :sleep: , * Sales and service guys that are NOT rewarded for taking care of the customer. If Lutz and the rest of GM "management" would pull their heads out and come down from their ivory tower, they'd see what's painfully obvious. :rant: :rant: :rant:
Ah, the forward thinking, tkae charge, brilliantly played strategy we've come to expect from modern-day-managers. Morons to a man. Here's a thought: keep our office and assembly jobs but outsource managers. I'm sure some guy in India can lie/cheat/recite crap just as good as anyone on our side of the pond.
Anybody else get the feeling that Lutz is just a little out of touch? He was supposed to be the guy that saved GM, hasn't really done a damn thing! What is strange is the resurgence of the Caddy line up, why can't they do that same thing across the board? I don't think this truck/SUV focus is a good think. With gas prices the way they are and could be going, You will see a resurgence in the car market just in time for GM to roll out these trucks. And even if you don't, you'll never beat Ford in the Truck market, ever. Even look at Chrysler, you may not like them, but you can't deny the buzz that the Magnum, Crossfire and the 300 have created, add that to the new Mustang from Ford and what does GM have? Not a damn thing, well Caddy, but that's not an everyman car. That SSR was a still birth, and that whole new line up stinks.
Buick going way of Olds? I'm worried about this, I believe the fix is really in to reduce GM to Caddy, Cheby and Pontiac
This all seems so familiar-- Where have I heard all of this before??? Oh-yea, now I remember, it was Chrysler back in the 70's-80's Perfectly good company looses touch with reality, stops listening to its customers, starts building CRAP and is self-convinced that "people will buy our product" because "were still a great company" People STOP buying their CRAP, so company hires a top level executive from the competition to "save" them. [Iacoca came from Ford, Lutz came from Mopar] New top level exec. tries, but misses the mark, or comes in with too little-too late to save them. Government steps in with tax-payer dolars to bail them out... It works, but company is then strapped with HUGE re-payment plan to government, eating up all it's profits, leaving little or no returns for investors. Investors and shareholders frustrated with lackluster returns in the face of massive re-payments bail on the company stock- reducing the company's value down to little more than the worth of it's tangible assets. Overseas company swoops in and does a hostile takeover........ So ladies and gentlemen... Place your bets- Who will it be??? BMW? Toyota? VW? Diamler?
I'm not sure any other company can swallow GM.. It's just too big, maybe they'll portion out an odd brand or something. It will continue on down until they wake up and it hurts... When there's no money left, then people get their wages cut, no more investments are being made and so forth. Then they'll start turning up the heat in the areas where it's needed. Until then they'll play it like, but we are so good, look at our current lineup, it's great. People lye to themselves as long as they get fed. There's no need for any change here, the check is coming in, I have food on the table. There might be some moaning from shareholders, but they still get paid and it doesn't hurt them to run this business like it's run at the moment. I read yesterday that they we're cutting white collar jobs, up to 28% in some areas. I guess it's starting to hurt somewhere, so when they get this idiot Lutz out, and somene new comes in everybody will be hungry to get food on their plates again, therefore willing to get the right car out on the market. Anyone interested in buying a Pontiac G6, Chevrolet Cobalt or Buick LaCrosse? Didn't think so...
One of my earliest memories is Dad's brand-new '68 SportWagon - it had a plate on the driver's door :This Car Assembled Especially for James Myers". :bglasses: I fell in love with Buicks back then as a kid, and still drive the first car I ever bought, a Buick. For 40+ years, my Dad has driven Buicks, dealt with Fred Hughes Buick in Abilene, and has been one of their most brand loyal customers. :TU: Then Fred retired, his spoiled son took over and ran the place into the ground until GM corporate stepped in and "reorganized", bringing in a new owner, more in line with GM's new cost-conscious philosophy :rant: Since then, it's all "SALE SALE SALE Flags and Gags" gimmicks to get you in the door so they can make a sale, and the service dep't is a local joke, NOTHING like it used to be. :moonu: BUICK LOYALTY? GM poked mine in the eye by dropping V8's, beat it senseless with the FWD-only lineup, poked fun at it with that early 90's Skylark thing, kicked it in the groin with killing off the (big-butt uglified) Riviera, and was choking it unconscious by letting the last actual Buick engine die off. They finally killed it off with this latest asinine move. Buick is already dead, at least to me. Phooey. They can kill off Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac, whatever, I don't really care anymore. I'll drive my ol' REAL Buick with pride, and continue to be a fan of (old) Buicks. To heck with GM. :spank:
C'mon,I don't believe this! That is the most stupid thing I've heard-what is unbelieveable to hear is that it is coming from a guy that you would think has common sense. Obiviously he doesn't,especially now with gasoline approaching $3.00 a gallon,SUV's and heavy trucks aren't economical. It's ashame that with a great car like the Velite,GM would've had a chance, and that would have given Buick a shot in the arm. Another beautiful concept car in the dumpster. :ball:
With GM stocks at a 50+ year low, I think it's time they unload Buick and Pontiac. To many GM models, not enough quality. Cadillac and Chevy is all they need, with a better quality entry level non SUV Chevy's.
This is just sad. I am not into new cars at all, If I had to buy a new car lets say by winning a lotto or something I would buy a Cadillac. We had a Cadillac and I just loved it, the only down side was that it had that 307 olds. I would of worked hard and bought this rwd V8 But now I will not since they pulled the plug.
I was watching Autoline Detroit on Speed yesterday and they were saying that while the truck segment is almost the bread and butter of GM right now, the sales were 100% stagnant this past year. In other words, for the first time in years, there was no net gain in truck sales. It may have reached it's plateau. It's certainly not unreasonable to think that either. Trucks have been going out of control for the past 20 years. A forward thinking individual (pertaing to GM, an oxymoron of course), would take this message and act. Scrapping the velite to build more ho-hum mediocre SUV's put's him in the category of Helen Keller.
Yeah, the market is already flooded with trucks and SUVs...So GM decides to cancel/hault a fresh and new program so they can focus on producing EVEN MORE trucks and SUVs. ...as Dee said. STUPID ! !
