Chevy and Cadillac are not going anywhere, so they won't be in the poll. And lets assume that no matter what Buick will still be sold in China and Saab will be sold in Europe. What one of the 6 on the cutting block for the US market should be saved?

 

Pontiac should be saved. They need to work on the image but if they can get some more affordable sporty cars out there I think it could work. Their marketing sucks, as evidenced by a very good car (G8) not selling. I think they are in a better position to market around their heritage than any of those other companies. People still think of the old GTO and Trans Ams when they think of Pontiac. When they think of the other companies, they just think of boring cars (except for Hummer, but that brand has such a bad stigma associated with it)

 

If there were no Buicks, what would the old people drive?

 

I said Buick and here is why:

It is already a well established, successful, and profitable brand in China (where all engineering and design will be done).
It has a rich history of medium-high price, high content luxury cars.
It is off of so much of the population's radar that an image makeover would be rather easy.
It can bridge the gap between low cost, volume Chevrolets and high cost high content Cadillac.

Keep SAAB in Europe but make it into rebadged Chinese Buicks. Opels get sold as Chevrolets in the US. Caddy is Caddy everywhere.

 

Toyota Avalons

 

The only place I think Buick should be kept in China. I believe it's the best selling car brand out there, or one of the top 3 at least. I don't think it will ever be able to improve it's image here though. They have been trying to do that with the Lucerne and Lacrosse and it's been a failure so far.

 

After sitting in a couple of Saabs today, there is no doubt in my miond whatsoever which division has no excuse for still being around in North America (or anywhere else).

For those of you who picked Pontiac as the division that should go over Buick, it may be intresting to point out that Pontiac sold over 1/3 the amount of cars Chevrolet sold so far this year (627,200 vs 220,900), Buick sold a mere 80,000 cars and even worse, Saab sold 16,000. Even the forgotten Saturn division sold over 72,600 cars this year so far.

Chevrolet's volume comes from trucks. That 3 to 1 ratio between Pontiac and Chevrolet turns into a 6 to 1 ratio when trucks and SUVs are included. Cadillac trounces Buick. Again, Saab isn't even on the playing field.

The Pontiac motor division can be the easiest to adsorb into other divisions, but looking at some of the other divisions, I think (in order) Saab, Buick, GMC, Saturn are the ones that rank higher on my chopping block list than Pontiac.

 

GM needs to figure out how to only make one vehicle in each segment in the entire world. If Opel makes a great lil hatchback - then nobody else should design one. If Holden makes the best non-luxury RWD chassis, then nobody else should design one.

GM then needs to learn to sell one vehicle in each segment per market. The US market should NOT have more than one vehicle in the same market. Pontiac and Chevrolet cannot be rebadged - but they could be rebadged with any other global market.

GM also can't just shut doors on profitable divisions. GMC for example, sells a lot of vehicles that Chevy wont just pick up. GMC needs to be incorporated into Chevy trucks. People know a GMC is a pretty Chevy, but still pay the premium for the GMC. I dont know how to combine those though and not loose sales though.

 

Or absorb other divisions. I think a good idea would be to have Pontiac do ZERO design work, and sell smaller sporty vehicles which are imported Opels and larger sporty vehicles which are imported Holdens.

I'm still pissed they lost a huge selling grand prix for a small volume G8... You cant be stupid about it.

 

Pontiac

 

Pontiac AND Saturn. Keep GMC as an "upscale" Chevrolet (like the Denali is to GMC).

I think the rest can go Bye Bye.

It's absolutely necessary to keep Buick in China, but that doesn't mean it needs to be kept here... The brand has been left to die and too much damage has been done to it, it's time to let it go in the states.

 

I agree completely.

Just get Pontiac back in the "sporty" market, and start using real names again.

Have saturn sell the econoboxes, and how much can it cost to put GMC badging on Chevy trucks?

 

It would have to be either Saturn or Buick. (I chose Saturn.)

Regardless, even if Buick is still sold in China, they could sell over here as rebadged Chevrolet/Cadillac. (Think up-level Chevy or entry-level Caddy.) The same argument can be made for Pontiac.

Saturn makes sense because it has no overseas presence; yet here there are still a large number of consumers that consider it an import and don't realize it is actually a GM product. (Hence better sales opportunities/marketability.)

 

I say GMC and make anything over 7500gvw a GMC......

pontiac is dead...anything they make could be a chevy
buick is in the tank....I thought the were going to get rid of them after olds....

 

As well as Buick is doing in China, it's customers are all dieing in the USA (literally and figuratively) Caddy and high end Chevys can pick up Buick slack. Cadillac has the luxury and Chevy can build the large sedan for those that still buy them.

Saturn just isn't taking off despite the great cars, If it can't succeed with the current line up then it never will.

Pontiac could be easily saved by selling rebadged Opels and Holdens (which is what Holden is now) instead of rebadged Chevrolet's. At least Commodore's and Astra's with nothing more than a Pontiac grill wouldn't be confused for a Chevy. As someone mentioned before, Pontiac has never sold only performance cars, but that doesn't mean they can't sell all sporty looking cars. Why can't a Delta II car be made to look as bad *** as the G8, WS6, Woodward GTO, Sky or Solstice? They also need to pick a name and stick with it. It really makes me made they let the Grand Prix name die. They would probably sell a lot more G8's if it had that name.