GM: No plans to phase out any brands


By Jason Stein
Automotive News / March 24, 2005

DETROIT -- General Motors reasserted on Thursday it has no intention of eliminating any of its brands in the future.

Mark LaNeve, vice president of sales and marketing for GM, told Automotive News the automaker is investing heavily in all eight brands. Phasing out a particular division is not under consideration.

"We have no plans, or even discussions, of killing any brands," LaNeve said, "We're investing more heavily than ever in product and marketing programs."

On Wednesday, GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz told a Morgan Stanley Automotive conference in New York if one of GM's "troubled brands" fails to turn around, "then we'd have to take a look at a phase-out," Lutz said.

Published reports linked Pontiac and Buick to Lutz's comments.

LaNeve reemphasized in a message to dealers Thursday that both brands are safe.

LaNeve also said GM is managing Buick, Pontiac and GMC as one channel and providing those divisions with a product portfolio "to service that channel and to focus " the lineup.

That represents a key difference from Oldsmobile, which GM killed last year, he said.

"These portfolios we're going to deliver we don't have to deliver an A to Z portfolio for those three brands," he said. "We can tighten and focus them. I'd rather have four or five great Pontiacs or Buicks than eight undistinguishable products. That business model makes a lot of sense."

 

Cut spending on Saab in U.S
Cut spending on Daewoo
Cut spending on Fiat
Cut Subaru and sell to Toyota

 

And what would we have without the small amount of organized labor still involved in manufacturing in the United States?

People complain about people about democrats or liberals buying imported "foriegn pieces of crap" and then others (sometimes the same folks) turn around and bash the unions. You know,the only thing that separates our skilled workforce from a bunch of Koreans working for beans. Without the unions cars wouldnt even be built in the US, and if they were you'd better believe it wouldnt be by anything resembling a non-immigrant US citizen.

/rant

 

This seems more like an attempt by Lutz to motivate dealers. "Sell more cars or we're taking your toys away." Combined with the LeNeve comments, it seems to have little weight and just a haphazard, loose-lipped sound off from Bob.

 

Amen.

 

Yup, me too. I have a GTP and if Pontiac goes, it will be replaced by a Maxima.

 

Pontiac/GMC is considered by GM as one group. I doubt Pontiac is going anywhere.

 

here's a tip, don't double up on cars. initially GM started to share minor between brands like pontiac and chevrolet to save money. then they started sharing whole platforms. eventually you end up with multiple cars/trucks, with a little different skin. what GM needs to do is stop making multiple cars in the same categories. if chevy has a mid size rwd v6 then pontiac shouldn't have that same car, maybe they should have a FWD i4? one company sells a minivan, maybe another can sell a higher end mini van or conversion van or whatever. the only thing is that GM would have to balance this out and not leave one brand with only cheap cars, it will hurt that brands image.

 

Neither brand is going anywhere.

We got a letter straight from Detroit today telling us it was all taken out of context, etc, etc... Essentially, Lutz said a lot more than what was quoted. If I remember tomorrow, I will take a picture of the letter.

I work in a GM store, btw.

 

Was it this letter?

 

Killing Buick would be one thing, but killing Pontiac would be a bad idea IMO...I'd look at GM completely differently and lose a lot of loyalty if they killed Yacs.

But then again I am a biased muscle-car head...

 

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showthread.php?t=352296

 

SAAB would definately work as a Europe only brand, I think that is a great idea.

Daewoo is a good engineering force, that is cheap, working on new small cars for the GM world. They should not have their spending cut.

Fiat is a done deal once GM pays them the randsom, I mean settlement money. BTW GM did get some plants, diesel tech, and tranny stuff out of the crap whole.

Subaru is essential to GM keeping SAAB alive. BTW I don't think Toyota would buy it. GM only owns about 30% of Fuji heavy motors who own all of Subaru so GM really doesn't own it and it is definately not in the GM fold.

 

Pretty soon it's gonna be Chevy and Cadillac, thats it.

 

Chevrolet, Cadillac, Pontiac and GMC.