Quote:
Originally Posted by Dean
I agree with the last piece about them being GM dealerships, that would actually step over the imports that are splitting brands. But you would have to drop dealerships by 90% to do that.
I do think Pontiac and GMC need to die though. Both are mostly just rebranded Chevy products. Why did we ever need a Camaro and a Firebird or a whatever the 2 pickups or SUVs are? They add no value as they are largely indistinguishable. Chevy is the brand with the best recognition, those two don't add much in this day and age IMHO. They have been the next in line after Olds for a while.
That leaves Chevy, Saturn, Cadillac, Saturn and Buick. I would probably collapse Saturn and Buick or Buick and Cadillac over time.
I just wish they would declare bankruptcy so they can drop 3/4s of the dealerships.
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That's a lot of Saturn.
But seriously, all of the GM brands are just rebadging of the same vehicles.
Blazer = Trailblazer = Bravada = Rainier = Envoy = Jimmy = H3 = 9-7X
If that's not an example of what GM is doing wrong, I don't know what is. That's not "platform sharing", that's spending a crapload of money for 8 different companies to manage and 8 different dealerships to sell the same damn mediocre SUV no one wants.
Killing Pontiac doesn't do squat to fix their real problem. Pontiac is just a name. GM needs to kill *all* their sub brands, insofar as them being independently managed entities. GM should build a single lineup of cars, and then put their recognizable names on the appropriate models. There should be no difference between a "Chevy G6" and a "Pontiac G6" aside from the symbol on the trunk-lid because they'd both be designed and built by GM proper. Those brand names have value, the massive overhead of treating those brand names as individual sub-companies has negative value.
So killing Pontiac is nothing but an unnecessary publicity stunt. "Ooh, poor GM has to kill their most storied brand... poor GM."
