That's all well and good, but most new car models don't have that level of aftermarket support.

 

For the midwest, I don't think the importance can be overestimated.

If GM went down hard, other makers will pick up some of the slack, yes, but the slack will not be equal to 100% of GM's volume, the cascading job loss and erosion of confidence would see to that.

Tons more people would pack up and leave, and then they'll be someone else's problem, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, and it's not as if those places didn't already have way more people than their infrastructure can handle...

 

The fear is certainly there and the media wields a lot of power if it continues to write negative material in the press.

Mitsubishi Motors Australia (MMA) underwent a similar scenario here when the media painted a less than rosey picture of their manufacturing future downunder... the media effectively killed their chances of success here in Australia despite the good product being built. Now Mitsubishi is a successful importer as opposed to a doomed local manufacturer... and the media can no longer write stories of doom about MMA.

 

I don't know if the American car companies will ever make a huge comeback.
They've been eroding market share for years.
People are continually switching away from American cars to foreign cars.

And now after this whole bail-out/loan debacle, it seems everyday Americans are making it a priority to make SURE they go down.
I read a lot of the non-auto message boards. I'd say 90% of the people on those forums are vehemently anti-American auto industry.

Hell, just look at this board, to all those people who came out of nowhere or signed up just to blast the American auto industry back in Nov. and Dec. (btw, what happened to all those people? If they weren't the definition of "troll" then I don't know what is. They'll probably be back in this thread, however).

I just think that the average American is done with the American auto industry and their products. I haven't seen anything that would make me think otherwise. And I don't think there is a damn thing the American auto industry can do about it.

 

It's not just the trolls but those with strong views on capitalism. But if you look around in every developed nation with a car industry, it's in urgent need of repair and govt loans are the last lifelines for some. Take France's ailing car industry for example, it's not just American companies. Capitalism just makes poor nations richer while eroding the manufacturing industries of the developed nations. This tends to suit the banks, oil companies and governments just fine, however, but then the government tries to step in when it's supposedly all too late.

Just my observations.

 

I'd like to see the local job market absorb thousands of unskilled workers all dumped onto their plate at once. It would be impossible so many would leave, crowding into larger markets along with the other cast off workers who also had the same idea.

I can't even imagine how bad it would be for the mostly self contained economies of many places in the midwest. Cut millions of spending dollars out of an area in one fell swoop like that and things are likely to get extremely ugly quickly.

 

True, I was just commenting on how the possibility of Ford going defunct didn't deter me from my purchase - That said, I can certainly understand not wanting to buy, say a Volt if GM was about to go out of business since it would be next to impossible some years down the road to get parts for it.

 

Here's something Robert Reich's Blog that supports your observation a bit.

 

GM cannot fear people into buying thier cars. They cannot make a fear campaign again. That is a sign of weakness and it shines through. It scares people away from GM because we have the ability to sense weakness.

How can GM regain strength? Let me ask you this, what do women look for in a man?
Confidence.
Toyota is bleeding money, but are they scaring anyone?
Is Honda making commercials about millions of people losing thier jobs?

GM should stand there and show that they will be there for you. They need to come out and talk about how they will be there, they will be here for everyone, beyond making cars, but there for communities across the US, across the world.
GM needs to show people that they are not going away, they are not going to die and leave people with more problems.
Talk about the great cars, dont downplay others.

GM has a marketing and PR problem. It needs to be fixed asap. Everyone from LaNeve down need to be shown the door. These are the times where your strengths show through, and GM couldnt market the cure for cancer.

 

Fair enough.

However, I submit 2 items that both prove and disprove that thought.

The 4th gen V8 f-body had a 6 speed manual, better brakes, higher handling abilities, and IMHO, slightly better interior materials than a Mustang GT (yes, I said that being a Mustang fan... I'm nothing if not honest ). Yet Mustang outsold all F-body combined by more than a 2 to 1 margin, despite both (in V8 form) having roughly the exact same price.

Same Camaro, different scenario.

The 4th gen Camaro was essentially dirt cheap at $22K. With incentives at the time, you could actually get a LS1 6 speed, 160+ mph Camaro for as little as $18K plus tax and registration. Roughly the cost of a well equpted Cavalier back then. A absolute steal, and should have had a line going out the door, right?

Yet, not only did no one buy it (all were loaded to the teeth or were more expensive SS models), in the final insult, although the Z28 was capable of 99/100s of what a Corvette was capable of and was half the base sticker price, the Corvette significantly outsold V8 Camaros the last couple if not few years both cars were in Chevy showrooms.


When it comes to economy and family cars, you are pretty accurate (though the fact that Hyundai hasn't dominated the market yet doesn't quite make it 100%). But as a whole, outside of those 2 exceptions, I think there's other factors that drive purchase decisions. Image and value likely trump simply getting the cheapest thing that works IMHO.

 

People don't buy the cheapest thing that will get the job done.

If they did that everyone would be buying hoopties off the used car market, nobody would be driving sports cars or luxury cars unless you define "job" as going fast or going somewhere in the lap of luxury, and SUV and light truck sales would probably be 1/5th of what they are today unless you define "job" as the preference of driving a vehicle much larger than you really need.

People aren't that mindless. They usually weigh a huge number of factors whether they realize it or not and quantify those into a rough value, and then see what car offers the most of their definition of value for the least amount of money. In other words, "bang for the buck", whereas bang is subjective on a person by person basis and buck is also a relative term depending on what that person can and wants to afford.

 

i remember seeing in 03 two ads in the local paper. one was for a fairly loaded brand new at the time 2002 V6 camaro. the price was 31k. couple pages later there was an ad for essentially the same equipment in a 03 mustang GT. price? 28k.

same price they are not.


the only thing the camaro had more was t-tops.

 

I would have to assume that the price was inflated because Camaro had been cancelled, and the dealer was trying to sell it at a premium. "Be the last one to buy a Camaro!" or "Get it before it's gone!" etc.

 

Note: I said most people.

The new car market in the U.S. is what, 15 million cars (prior to the economic crash)?

So that's roughly 7.5% of the 18+ population (200 million) buying new cars. Let's imagine that the average new car buyer keeps their car 5 years, so I'll even multiply that percentage by 5. That works out to less than 40% of people, leaving more than 60% shopping on the used car market, or just sticking with what they already have.

60% is clearly an acceptable example of most. I know the math in my example is extremely vague, but I think that if you were to get more specific on the numbers, you'll find that the 40% figure is high, not low.

Most of the cars I see on the road are 3-10 years old. Which is exactly the kind of car that "gets the job done" for someone who doesn't do their own maintenance (which, again, is most people). In general, an older car than that is going to start costing more in maintenance, making it more expensive in the long run than a newer car. Most people go out and buy a new(er) car when their current one starts to get expensive to maintain.

Taking everything into account, that really is the cheapest thing that gets the job done.

Guy, regarding your example of Camaro vs. Corvette sales... neither buyer falls under the category of most people. If GM hits their ~50k/year target for the 2010 Camaro, that will still be less than 1% of the total new car market.

 

Since you're getting all technical/legal with me on wording...immediately before your use of the word "most" you also said "Only a tiny fraction of the public buys like that." Strange how you ignored that line when you went back to make your case in this last reply. You had to have been looking right at it.

That would suggest your use of the word most was not referring to a simple majority (which 60% would be) but rather a vast majority (which 60% would not be).

So your definition of a car that's 'the cheapest thing that gets the job done' is almost any used car? The same parameters still apply to used cars as new cars. If you are a soccer mom with 2 kids, you don't need a used Suburban, so you aren't just buying the cheapest thing that gets the job done. If you buy a used BMW or Lexus or Corvette or even Camaro for that matter you aren't buying the cheapest thing that gets the job done.

Unless you define "job" as what a person desires well in excess of what they actually need... but to me the job is the point A to point B practicality of a vehicle.

So all of the above math IMO doesn't change what you're saying... you can still very easily buy a used car that meets guionM's description that you said fits only a tiny fraction of the buying public

guion said:
"The public will always spend their money on the best product possible for the price."

And while the word always isn't correct, your statement that only a tiny fraction of the public buys that way, from where I sit, is also incorrect.