GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
05-10-2011, 10:32 AM
#61
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
05-10-2011, 10:45 AM
#62
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
If you want a G8, get a G8, but to put down GM for not having a replacement for a niche car is kind of getting nit-picking. They have all kinds of sporty cars in the Chevy line-up. Spark and Cruze at the bottom end, Camaro in the middle, and Vette on top. I would agree the Cruze needs the 2.0 turbo like the Cobalt, but the sold 25,000 Cruzes last month, so it is not like they are hurting to move them.
-Geoff
"[the market] will be micro-segmentation, as automakers go after narrower markets with shrinking duty-cycles."
Hmm.... Seems not so nitpicky now.
05-10-2011, 11:15 AM
#63
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
Still, they were like 10% of the volume on Cobalt, so they would probably never make money. Let someone else lose money making them.
I see you're points, but every car you are asking for is a money loser. I am glad GM is not making them. I want GM to be around forever making Camaros. I could care less if they hit the niche markets. Those few sales aren't worth the money.
Making "sporty" cars is not a niche. Let's forget the RWD Sedan BS for a minute. Pontiac was not about the G8. Pontiac was about cars that were more expressivly styled then Chevy's. The best example is to take a look at Pontiac's lineup in say 2001. Pontiac sold about 400,000 cars that year..and every car it sold was a rebadged Chevy.. Your realize how many car companies would kill to have that sales volume? The reason Pontiac was succesful then? Simple...do you think someone who bought a 2001 Grand Prix GT would buy an Impala? No. Do you think someone who bought a Grand Am GT would buy a Malibu? No again. Was a Bonneville SSEI driver looking at Buick LaSabre's..Hell no. The reason Pontiac is dead is because every car in that 2001 lineup was either NOT replaced, or replaced with a car that was a failure. GM took the money it made on Pontiac and plowed it into everything but Pontiac. Then when the Pontiac models got old, they got replaced with cars that had terrible styling for the segment, and not enough investment to be competitive.
Bonneville sold 60,000 units at one point this decade. GM gave it a redesign with a terrible interior..sales tanked, and they killed it. Grand Prix was selling near 100,000 units..they came out with the 2004 redesign and sales tanked. I remember in 2003 looking at a Grand Prix GTP. Even with the rebates you could not pay less than $28K for it. In 2005, you could get a redesigned GTP for almost $25K after rebates. Rather than fix the car..GM let it become a rental queen then killed it. The 1999-2005 (?) Grand Am looked like it could eat a Mustang GT for lunch. It obviously did not have the performance to back it up..but it looked the pary and sold over 100,000 units a year at a point. Then GM then listened to everyone flaming them for Pontiac's boy racer styling, so they **** canned it, and came out with the G6. The G6 was doomed because of the name and boring design. I remember when it came out, there was supposed to be a WRX like AWD version that never came. Instead they gave them away on Oprah and to rental fleets. Hell..even the Sunfire sold 90,000 units a year at one point. It was replaced with the G5..which I bet struggled to sell 10,000 units a year. They did not even advertise it...and Pontiac was not allowed a sedan for some reason. When Pontiac did get new cars, they were bandaids like the GTO and G8. They were great cars..but because of being made by Holden, would never be able to be sold in enough volume to jusify a brand. The only thing I remember GM spending a lot of money on for Pontiac the last 5 years of it's existance was the Solstice and advertising on Jimmy Kimmel.
My point in all of this is that there is a viable business making sporty cars. Somone who would buy the old boy racer styled Grand Prix or Grand Am IS NOT going to buy a Impala or Malibu. They are going to buy Nissans or Mazda's Pontiac is dead not because there are not buyers, but because GM over a 10 year strech took everything Pontiac did well, and every car name it was known for a threw it out the window. I mean even in 2005..is someone told you Pontiac would be dead in 5 years..who would beleive it. Hell..then Buick was being mothballed and on deaths door.
Bonneville sold 60,000 units at one point this decade. GM gave it a redesign with a terrible interior..sales tanked, and they killed it. Grand Prix was selling near 100,000 units..they came out with the 2004 redesign and sales tanked. I remember in 2003 looking at a Grand Prix GTP. Even with the rebates you could not pay less than $28K for it. In 2005, you could get a redesigned GTP for almost $25K after rebates. Rather than fix the car..GM let it become a rental queen then killed it. The 1999-2005 (?) Grand Am looked like it could eat a Mustang GT for lunch. It obviously did not have the performance to back it up..but it looked the pary and sold over 100,000 units a year at a point. Then GM then listened to everyone flaming them for Pontiac's boy racer styling, so they **** canned it, and came out with the G6. The G6 was doomed because of the name and boring design. I remember when it came out, there was supposed to be a WRX like AWD version that never came. Instead they gave them away on Oprah and to rental fleets. Hell..even the Sunfire sold 90,000 units a year at one point. It was replaced with the G5..which I bet struggled to sell 10,000 units a year. They did not even advertise it...and Pontiac was not allowed a sedan for some reason. When Pontiac did get new cars, they were bandaids like the GTO and G8. They were great cars..but because of being made by Holden, would never be able to be sold in enough volume to jusify a brand. The only thing I remember GM spending a lot of money on for Pontiac the last 5 years of it's existance was the Solstice and advertising on Jimmy Kimmel.
My point in all of this is that there is a viable business making sporty cars. Somone who would buy the old boy racer styled Grand Prix or Grand Am IS NOT going to buy a Impala or Malibu. They are going to buy Nissans or Mazda's Pontiac is dead not because there are not buyers, but because GM over a 10 year strech took everything Pontiac did well, and every car name it was known for a threw it out the window. I mean even in 2005..is someone told you Pontiac would be dead in 5 years..who would beleive it. Hell..then Buick was being mothballed and on deaths door.
What's funny is now GM has the money to properly invest in perhaps another brand and make it sucessful. I don't think Buick has the reach to pull the kind of buyers who bough Pontiacs and Saturns.
And yes, I know Buick is "the fastest growing American brand" But it's not hard to top what Buick WAS selling; especially since they've more than doubled their line up.
The purpose of a business is: TO MAKE MONEY!!!
That means that no one..... I say this again.....NO ONE outside of the most rabid Pontiac enthusiasts (the same ones who ignore the state Pontiac was in for it's final decade in existence, and the actual drain it was on General Motors) who regrets GM dropping Pontiac.
There were people from GM who I personally talked to (as I'm sure a couple others here also have) who off the record, and away from cameras mentioned the fact that Pontiac was bleeding the company.
And Pontiac wouldn't have been "bleeding the company" had GM fulfilled it's promise to make the brand into the niche brand that it was supposed to be. There is absolutely NO REASON that Pontiac should've been trying to be Chevrolet.
Pontiac's dead.
GM's spending the money making better cars.
GM's spending the money making better cars.
Chrysler did the same thing earlier with Plymouth and many years before with Eagle. Ford just finished doing the same thing with Mercury.
General Motors is making money on SALES....... a LOT of money.
Last edited by FUTURE_OF_GM; 05-10-2011 at 12:09 PM.
05-10-2011, 11:42 AM
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05-10-2011, 11:45 AM
#65
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
05-10-2011, 11:50 AM
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
If the G8 had came out as a Chevrolet or Buick instead of a Pontiac, we still be able to buy it.
The only Pontiac that reall sold in the retail market was a crossover.
Pontiac became a womans car brand. Of every foreign or domestic brand sold in the United States, Pontiac by far had the highest percentage of female buyers. On the retail side, about 75% of Pontiac buyers (most likely more, I'm being conservative) were female.
And this is somehow a BAD thing?!? Women make over 60% of the major purchase decisions now? It seems that GM (and Ford) would be smart enough to capitalize on this. Instead; they're allowing this demographic to become fascinated with Toyota, Honda, Acura and Nissan.
On the flip side, Dodge had the highest percentage of male buyers of all brands sold in the US. About 80% if I remember correctly. Even the Magnum statiowagon was bought by men over women by a roughly a 3 to 1 margin.
Not to mention the price... The G6 was more expensive, so it was priced away from GA buyers into GP territory (The G6 essentially finished off BOTH of Pontiac's volume players) And on top of that, Pontiac had NO suitable entry level car to accommodate orphaned GA buyers. Plus, the media did all it could to destroy the G6 right from the start.
Amazingly enough, GM had no problem losing $800M on Saab in 2008 alone for about 25,000 sales. That would have been enough to fund two more kappa cars for the mainstream brands. Then consider all of the money thrown at Saturn with a dealer network of 500 stores for the 07-08 model year, while Pontiac with 2,000 dealers was starved for volume products.
Saab pisses me off more than anything. There was absolutely NO justification for purchasing or funding Saab... EVER.
Sporty midsize FWD sedan? The next Malibu may be leaning that way although it may not have the over-the-top looks that a small handful of Grand Prix buyers would prefer.
I chuckle when people condemn the Cruze for not being "sporty" or not offering a coupe. Did anyone from GM ever say they consider the Cruze Chevrolet's entry level sport compact? It has always been their intention to market it as a global economy car. You want an entry level sport compact? That is what Sonic is supposed to be for. Cruze and Malibu have only intended to be mass market appliance passenger cars. Please don't try to make them into something they are not.
but then how many people are buying Hummer like vehicles in today's economy?
Last edited by FUTURE_OF_GM; 05-10-2011 at 12:10 PM.
05-10-2011, 11:51 AM
#67
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
It is the ONLY GM car we will consider...but I don't know how I feel about a 250hp turbo 4. I mean, my own Chrysler 200S, for less money, has 283hp, the torque of a V6, and flat out hauls ***...again, for a lot less money.
The 0-60 of a $23,750 200 Touring is better than a $35,000 Regal GS. In a word, that's pathetic. GM cannibalizing V6s is also an issue I have with them right now.
Interestingly, my uncle has driven NOTHING but new Chevrolets since the 1950s. He owns currently an '09 Z51 Vette, an '07 Impala SS, and an '03 S10 Xtreme. As he put it, the Impala has only gotten worse in his eyes (no V8 option = why trade his?), not better. The Colorado has never impressed him, not surprisingly.
What new model is supposed to catch his eye? He's a die-hard Impala/Monte Carlo guy...as he put it, "for the first time in 50 years, Chevy has absolutely nothing to offer me."
Sooo...if I feel this way, my own uncle feels this way, I have to wonder...how many others are getting that feeling, too?
The 0-60 of a $23,750 200 Touring is better than a $35,000 Regal GS. In a word, that's pathetic. GM cannibalizing V6s is also an issue I have with them right now.
Interestingly, my uncle has driven NOTHING but new Chevrolets since the 1950s. He owns currently an '09 Z51 Vette, an '07 Impala SS, and an '03 S10 Xtreme. As he put it, the Impala has only gotten worse in his eyes (no V8 option = why trade his?), not better. The Colorado has never impressed him, not surprisingly.
What new model is supposed to catch his eye? He's a die-hard Impala/Monte Carlo guy...as he put it, "for the first time in 50 years, Chevy has absolutely nothing to offer me."
Sooo...if I feel this way, my own uncle feels this way, I have to wonder...how many others are getting that feeling, too?
05-10-2011, 12:05 PM
#68
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
5. Finally, the question of turning Pontiac into a "Niche" brand.
Think about that for a moment.
That niche brand would have included the G8GT &/or GXP, the Solstice, and maybe, just maybe the G6 convertible hardtop, and it would have been sold in Buick showrooms at low production numbers.
Now, consider everything that's wrong with that idea.
c. However, the G8 could have survived on and carried the Pontiac name. And that's where the whole idea of a niche brand becomes incredibly pathetic.
You would have a Pontiac name on a single car that was imported from another country just to keep the name alive. A division that had decades of history, many historic nameplates, a brand that was General Motors 2nd largest brand, and for a time the 3rd largest car brand in the United States, reduced to nothing more than a badge on a car that's sold (outside of Australia and New Zealand) everywhere else on the planet Earth as a Chevrolet.
It's almost as sad as AMERICAN divisions that sell volume cars that are designed in and some cases rebadged from loss making cars in Korea and Europe...
Oh.. wait a minute....
05-10-2011, 12:43 PM
#69
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
05-10-2011, 01:56 PM
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
It is the ONLY GM car we will consider...but I don't know how I feel about a 250hp turbo 4. I mean, my own Chrysler 200S, for less money, has 283hp, the torque of a V6, and flat out hauls ***...again, for a lot less money.
The 0-60 of a $23,750 200 Touring is better than a $35,000 Regal GS. In a word, that's pathetic. GM cannibalizing V6s is also an issue I have with them right now.
Interestingly, my uncle has driven NOTHING but new Chevrolets since the 1950s. He owns currently an '09 Z51 Vette, an '07 Impala SS, and an '03 S10 Xtreme. As he put it, the Impala has only gotten worse in his eyes (no V8 option = why trade his?), not better. The Colorado has never impressed him, not surprisingly.
What new model is supposed to catch his eye? He's a die-hard Impala/Monte Carlo guy...as he put it, "for the first time in 50 years, Chevy has absolutely nothing to offer me."
Sooo...if I feel this way, my own uncle feels this way, I have to wonder...how many others are getting that feeling, too?
The 0-60 of a $23,750 200 Touring is better than a $35,000 Regal GS. In a word, that's pathetic. GM cannibalizing V6s is also an issue I have with them right now.
Interestingly, my uncle has driven NOTHING but new Chevrolets since the 1950s. He owns currently an '09 Z51 Vette, an '07 Impala SS, and an '03 S10 Xtreme. As he put it, the Impala has only gotten worse in his eyes (no V8 option = why trade his?), not better. The Colorado has never impressed him, not surprisingly.
What new model is supposed to catch his eye? He's a die-hard Impala/Monte Carlo guy...as he put it, "for the first time in 50 years, Chevy has absolutely nothing to offer me."
Sooo...if I feel this way, my own uncle feels this way, I have to wonder...how many others are getting that feeling, too?
The thing is GM now has the dine and the ability to bring in or make these high HP high performance cars..and there is NOTHING..Ford is doing a good job of making those cars..as is Dodge..GM?? Nothing..
and this could of been done a year ago..bring the Holdens here right when Pontiac died..bring the Chevy badged ones and the buick badged ones..right away..
BUT NOOOOOOOOO.....
05-10-2011, 02:07 PM
#71
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
Let's at least tell the whole story here, in the 50's and 60's GM, Ford and Chrysler owned the market because everyone else was a fledgling little automaker. Doesn't matter how hard GM tried to be everything to everybody, the arrival of Toyota and Honda and Datsun/Nissan to a lesser extent was bound to eat away 50%+ market share.
05-10-2011, 02:15 PM
#72
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
I know what the point is, Pontiac has literally only been gone a couple of years. It may take Chevy a product cycle to develop more spirited variants of its bread and butter vehicles. They need to. As you mentioned, re-developing the SS sub brand would be a good start.
Land Rover? really? 
Jeep has taken quite a bit of heat from the purists for stuff like the Patriot and Compass, but they figured out they need to change with the times or risk irrelevancy.
Originally Posted by FUTURE_OF_GM
I'd say Jeep and Land Rover have quite a few customers...
Jeep has taken quite a bit of heat from the purists for stuff like the Patriot and Compass, but they figured out they need to change with the times or risk irrelevancy.
05-10-2011, 03:51 PM
#73
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
It is the ONLY GM car we will consider...but I don't know how I feel about a 250hp turbo 4. I mean, my own Chrysler 200S, for less money, has 283hp, the torque of a V6, and flat out hauls ***...again, for a lot less money.
The 0-60 of a $23,750 200 Touring is better than a $35,000 Regal GS. In a word, that's pathetic. GM cannibalizing V6s is also an issue I have with them right now.
The 0-60 of a $23,750 200 Touring is better than a $35,000 Regal GS. In a word, that's pathetic. GM cannibalizing V6s is also an issue I have with them right now.
05-10-2011, 04:20 PM
#74
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
The points about more power for less money are valid.
05-10-2011, 04:29 PM
#75
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Re: GM Struggling to keep Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer owners from defecting-
GM won't have the luxury of a bunch of small-engined Fiat-based vehicles to tip their CAFE numbers that Chrysler is going to have. So GM has to downsize more engines in their mainstream vehicles.
I think small turbo engines are the future all around, though.
Agreed. You and Jason are both right on that one.