We Suck 2.0: GM recycles lame apology strategy from 2003
Clunker.
I knew it sounded familiar.
GM thinks we are all Gigantic Morons. The failing company published a two-page letter to American taxpayers today admitting that it made crappy cars and ran its business into the ground. Here’s a flavor of the new GM grovel epistle:
We deeply appreciate the Congress considering General Motors’ request to borrow up to $18 billion from the United States. We want to be sure the American people know why we need it, what we’ll do with it and how it will make GM viable for the long term.
For a century, we have been serving your personal mobility needs, providing American jobs and serving local communities. We have been the U.S. sales leader for 76 consecutive years. Of the 250 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads today, more than 66 million are GM brands – nearly 44 million more than Toyota brands. Our goal is to continue to fulfill your aspirations and exceed your expectations.
While we’re still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you. At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market. We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. And, we made commitments to compensation plans that have proven to be unsustainable in today’s globally competitive industry. We have paid dearly for these decisions, learned from them and are working hard to correct them by restructuring our U.S. business to be viable for the long term.
Today, we have substantially overcome our quality gap; our newest designs like the Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac CTS are widely heralded for their appeal; our new products are nearly all cars and “crossovers” rather than pick-ups and SUVs; our factories have greatly improved productivity and our labor agreements are much more competitive. We are also driven to lead in fuel economy, with more hybrid models for sale and biofuel-capable vehicles on the road than any other manufacturer, and determined to reinvent the automobile with products like the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle and breakthrough technology like hydrogen fuel cells.
Until recent events, we felt the actions we’d been taking positioned us for a bright future. Just a year ago, after we reached transformational agreements with our unions, industry analysts were forecasting a positive GM turnaround. We had adequate cash on hand to continue our restructuring even under relatively conservative industry sales volume assumptions. Unfortunately, along with all Americans, we were hit by a “perfect storm.” Over the past year we have all faced volatile energy prices, the collapse of the U.S. housing market, failing financial institutions, a stock market crash and the complete freezing of credit. We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Just like you, we have been severely impacted by events outside our control. U.S. auto industry sales have fallen to their lowest per capita rate in half a century. Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds itself precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash.
This is why we need to borrow money from U.S. taxpayers. If we run out of cash, we will be unable to pay our bills, sustain our operations and invest in advanced technology.
(Here’s the PDF on GM’s website.)
Like I said, I knew this apology strategy sounded familiar.
That’s because GM ran a “We’re sorry we suck so much” ad campaign five years ago in that sounded the same themes.
Flashback June 2003:
From time to time, companies find it necessary to apologize. They may not do it in so many words, but in the wake of a crisis or a scandal or a huge, news-making problem, they will mount an advertising campaign to assure you, the consumer, that efforts are underway to “win back your trust.” During the Ford/Firestone fiasco a couple of years ago, for instance, both of those firms launched forgiveness campaigns.
What’s a little more unusual is a company coming out and apologizing for just being generally lousy over the past couple of decades. But that is essentially what GM is doing now, with a curious campaign touting its journey on “the road to redemption.” GM has run big two-page ads in major newspapers and also spins its tale on the Web.
Like all ad campaigns, the bottom line is that GM, right now, is a fine, high-quality company, whose products you should buy immediately. It’s the journey to this obvious destination that’s interesting. “Thirty years ago, GM quality was the best in the world,” the print ad starts. “Twenty years ago, it wasn’t.”
And apparently the company muddled along in a sub-par manner for 10 years before deciding to change. “The hard part [was] breaking out of our own bureaucratic gridlock,” the ad copy continues, and “learning some humbling lessons from our competitors.” After a “painful” decade of effort, they’re now back up to snuff, putting out great cars, etc., etc. The ad cites positive consumer-satisfaction research and recent automotive awards, presumably the hook for the campaign. “The road to redemption has no finish line,” the copy concludes. “But it does have a corner. And it’s fair to say we’ve turned it.”
I dug up the Web ad on GM’s site via the Wayback Machine. You can watch a bit of it here.
GM’s “road to redemption” five years ago turned out to be another dead end.
If you subsidize it, you’ll get more of it.
The “$15 billion” auto bailout installment is essentially a blank check for a carmaker that admits it has run a failing business for the last 25 years.
Gird up those loins.
Dude, where’s our filibuster?
Time for the rubber to meet the road, to borrow a phrase.
***
Reader Joe B.: “So was GM lying when they took out that print ad in 2003, or are they lying today? And either way, would you lend to or invest in a company with negative net worth? More: All GM CEOs since the early 1980’s have been claiming that “this time” they’d fixed the quality control problems – Roger Smith, Bob Stempel, and everyone else who was at or near the CEO post at GM for the past 30 years claimed that the problem was fixed. It never was fixed, and it will never be fixed.”
Three words: Let. Them. Fail.
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Niiiice catch.
Excellent Michelle.
To hell with the big 3 and the UAW.
I’d take my 3 words from Ezra Levant:
Fire. Them. All.
Best in the world in 1973, oh really?
On the heels of the 1971 Vega Kammback, a nameplate synonomous with quality, does anyone need to be reminded of the ever more quality-licious 1973 Chevy Impala Station Wagon?
Seems to me they’ve spent their 40 years in the wilderness, time to crucify them. Now.
“We drove our business into the ground so you can bail us out and drive our cars!!”
No sympathy here for any of the Big Three. None. Nada. Zero.
Which also happens to be the amount of bailout money they should get.
How about bailing out the taxpayer?
Personal mobility needs? Is that what they call it?
Sounds like a janitor who’d rather be called a facilities engineer.
Tip to GM: you can start your rehabilitation by getting this into your thick socialist heads:
YOU MAKE CARS.
Yup, too many trucks and SUVs in the product mix. Guess what type vehicle is selling so fast here that the local dealers are running out of them at the moment? You guessed it, trucks and SUVs. I know exactly one person who owns a hybrid.
Oh, and by the way, you guys took a great car (The Saturn) and a great concept (build it outside of Detroit with workers who CARED) and then sucked it back into your collectivist UAW cocoon. YOU RUINED IT.
NO SOUP FOR YOU!
A tad off topic, but the guy who bought the Tribune comapnies when they were $13 billion in debt seems bright enough to run GM
/sarc
For Chrissakes!!!!! They let Oldsmobile wither on the vine and die! I used to love Buicks. Now the few Buick models they make look like Jaguar clones. There isn’t an original idea left in their heads. The last time they took a chance was in the early ’80s with the HT4100 Cadillac engine. My monster Fleetwood got 25 mpg on the freeway back then. Plenty of pep, too. Now everything is pseudo-Japanese or Euro-like. I saw a Cadillac they other day; the only way I knew it was a Cadillac was the emblem on the hood.
Oldsmobile wants you to know “This is not your father’s lame apology.”
Chevy wants you to know “Like a Crock!”
GMC is building a new truck called a “Gimme”
…thesego on and on…
The Big 3 need to go bankrupt just so the UAW can finally be crushed. They are a parasitic organization so blinded by their own power that they can’t see they are killing their host.
Should The Big 3 Stooges get the money? No. Will they get the money? Yes.
This bail-out, welfare plan is another train that’s left the station. I just wonder, if the nation’s largest employer, Wal-Mart, needed a big hunk of government chesse would they get it? No, of course not.
The truth is that it’s really the UAW that’s being bailed-out. Don’t forget it either.
Studebaker – Gone
Rambler – Gone
American Motors – Gone
Oldsmobile – Gone
Cord – Gone
Packard – Gone
Kaiser – Gone
Hudson – Gone
Crosley – Gone
Chrysler – On life support since Carter
Hey, GM, go ahead…….J U M P
Nice, very nice digging up GM’s own garbage from 2003. Just doing the work the MSM and Congress refuses to do.
The problem is that neither GM, Ford nor Chrysler have the creative engineering talent on-board to get out of this mess. They’ve cut, cut and cut some more when it comes to the White Collar workforce.
Any good, young engineer, coming out of college, would be totally insane to sign-on with any of The Big 3 Stooges given how they’ve treated these guys…. like Kleenex.
I want a Stutz Bearcat
…sigh…
They do work???
“Let. Them. Fail.”? They already have failed. And been doing so since the 1980s at least. They’ve essentially been grinding themselves down to bankruptcy for 25 years through a combination of terrible business decisions, foolish givaways to the unions, and a general failure to recognize that their business model is obsolete.
It’s not that they’re “too big to fail,” they’re really too big (and dumb) to succeed.
…they’re too big for welfare.
So we have circled back to “What’s good for General Bull Moose, is good for the USA.”
I’m not sure, but I think that was a line from “Li’l Abner” mocking a GM slogan that what was good for them was good for the US. I was too young to understand the reference when I watched the movie…but old enough to know Julie Newmar was the star of the movie (regardless of how the credits read).
No sale here…if it looks like BS and smells like BS it is BS…NO BAIL OUT for the bungling3 and the corrupt union…course the sleazy dems have to pay the unions back now…they’ll get the money.
And don’t forget this 1st $15 billion is a small band aid not a cure all…they’ll be back in 6 months…let ‘em fail.
FWIW, I’m quite happy with my ’02 Chevy Malibu.
I hate bailouts, but I’m also a bit wary of just letting all those manufacturing jobs, of which we have so few these days, vanish and go south. Any agreement needs to be in the form of a loan, something Lee Iacocca asked for and paid back early. Detroit needs a new Iacocca, and no one is currently able to step up to the plate. Hell, no one is able to even take batting practice at this point.
If it were Joe Biden talking it would be:
LOL
The recycling of old excuses is pretty lame.
What they ought to do, if they were to go down guns blazing, was at the same time point out the destructive trade policies, inhibitory government regulations, and suffocating union requirements that became the bales of hay on an already staggering camel.
One huge question that I have been wondering about is, where are the shareholders in all of this??? Shouldn’t the shareholders of these companies have more power, more say about who gets fired, what restructuring is done, and, moving forward, what business strategies are used ??? Hello? This is a publicly traded company. If I was a shareholder in GM or Chrysler I would be contacting lawmakers and asking them what right they think they have. This whole deal is so effing ridiculous I can’t believe more people don’t think it is utter crap. Oh wait, that’s right, a greater percentage of CONSTITUENTS disagree with this than REPRESENTATIVES. Why wont our reps listen to us??? Why and how do they just refuse to represent the beliefs of the people they serve?
On December 8th, 2008 at 11:14 pm, Hangfire said:
Earlier this year, I was looking into buying a used Olds. They had a very high owner satisfaction rating. The Aurora looked especially appealing. Unfortunately, GM couldn’t sell Oldsmobiles.
I personally don’t think that GM churns out crap these days, but plenty of Americans think they do. It’s not bad PR, they built that bad reputation themselves. It’s a huge hole they are in. Making it more comfortable takes away their incentive to climb out.
I have two hondas because every American car I have driven was a
Piece of junk. Go bankrupt, good riddance.
(and forgive weird typig, gotta get used to this new phone)
Aaaaaand, to all the people who are in such fear of losing all these manufacturing jobs. Listen, do any of you actually believe that a company with the history of GM or Chrysler would just up and vanish like a fart in the wind ??? Bankruptcy doesn’t mean they go away. They restructure, retool, enact a fresh, contemporary and viable business strategy and continue to build cars. Sure, some jobs will be lost but who in his right mind actually believes everyone who works for GM or Chrysler would lose his job ?? Just isn’t going to happen. It’s a scare tactic used by the…dare I say it?… UAW.
http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189
One for each foot?
This is exactly why this is the perfect opportunity for GM and Chrysler to get complete makeovers and show people that they do, in fact, make cars different and better today than they have in the past. Otherwise, customers think it’s business as usual. Total reorganization and a clean slate would do wonders to rebuild customer perception and confidence in their products. But what do I know? I only have a BS in Supply Chain Management and everything GM and Chrysler have done in the past 20-30 years flies in the face of what I was taught.
Build better product and streamline the supply chain while implementing correct marketing. It just doesn’t seem so hard to me.
On December 8th, 2008 at 11:11 pm, FilmLadd said:
This past summer, I bought an ’06 Saturn VUE. I’m pleased, so far. The repair record for the first couple years was iffy, but it has improved in recent years.
The interesting thing about Saturn, “a different kind of car”, was that when it was introduced, there was no mention of GM. They clearly understood that their brand was damaged and would not help the fledgling car line.
Exactly, the same tactic that got ‘em where their at, in a financial hole, their trying it on congress…it will work for them too.
How many of these tax payer money give away artists were reelected last month?
Chapter 11 restructuring would be the logical way out.
As far as the company PR, they are right about the perfect storm. They didn’t create this scenario and are victims of it. That said, it is also important to note that there is no reason that they couldn’t have banked profits and not have been so leveraged. To make deals with their workers that sacrificed stability on a bet of continuing sales increases was sheer stupidity. Paying rafts of mucky mucks astronomical salaries was insane too. Good administrative help can be had for a few hundred thousand a year. Nobody there needed to clear a million even. Bank money in good times to carry through the lean.
GM need not go under. It is really up to them not the government.
Mark my words, this is guaranteed…
If the U.S. does bail out the Big Three and we take a stake in the corporations, then we will see slight changes, at best. Once the government has a vested interest, then they will feel obligated to continue the life support regardless.
There will be no significant reduction in the labor agreements. If and when regulators are assigned, they will be asleep at the switch when the top officers raid the corporate bank for bonuses. No accountability because if you make a public mea culpa, then (for some reason that escapes me), the media and congress will believe they “suffered enough”.
We will see an increase in the tariffs for foreign cars and nobody gets hurt except car buyers, the taxpayers and their subsequent generations of taxpayers.
This just sucks more and more…
Saw about 3 minutes of Michael Moore supporting the bailouts because his dad was a UAW member and autoworker.
Had to barf after listening, but FYI, if MMoore supports something, darn good bet we should oppose it with every last fiber of our being.
And MMoore should be shipped out on the first one-way flight to Cuba. Would be another POC-man the USA can function better without…
I will no longer buy an American car by the Big Three. If the government becomes an owner of debt or equity of those three, they can do so without me as a customer.
That just about goes for any company that becomes a ward of the state.
The stigma of buying foreign autos no longer applies to me.
Big Three and Big Gov can have each other. Frankly I don’t want to have anything to do with them. F’ em!
How about we ship GM to Cuba? Then they can update all those Desi Arnez cars down there.
The problem with GM cars was the 3-4 year rule. You did not buy a new GM model (or engine/transmission) until it was out for 3 to 4 years to get the bugs out. Recently Toyota had some slippage in regards to quality. Their CEO was out in front of it.
The only chance the Big 3 have to turn around is to build quality (both perceived i.e, fit/finish and actual) like their jobs/careers/livlihoods depended on it. BECAUSE IT DOES.
They still don’t get it.
Here’s a clue GM.
You are in business for one reason only, to make the best product possible for the lowest cost possible.
Everything else is secondary, a necessary evil, a by-product of your primary goal; build the best damn cars and trucks and price them so they sell like crazy while returning a fair profit to your investors.
Everything else will take care of itself.
In my old business I used all brands of trucks. The Toyotas cost one third less to maintain and lasted one third longer than the Detroit iron. If Detroit has finally fixed it’s quality control, I’ve not heard of it. The Japanese manufacturing invasion forced higher standards on to US companies. Now it’s time to force lower labor cost on them also.
NO BAILOUT!
So, where’s MY bailout?
They should all go Chapter 11 and restructure properly under a judges guidance, not be allowed to limp along using MY money!
Simple here — The Democrat socialists want control so they can push their AGW hoax on people from the inside. It’s not working from the outside … Lawsuits and all that, so they get control of the companies presto, problem solved — Hoax is reality.
Me, I will never by a gubbermint car.
Duh…Thank you, Captain Obvious!
Should’ve thought about that 30 years ago while you were kowtowing to the union thugs.
They’re too stupid to realize it!
HEY CONGRESS!
After you allow Detroit to restructure their labor cost, remove the 30% tax on corporations. Manufactures will swarm back to the US if the business environment was friendly.
Remember the poster – “If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your thing.”
Or in the words of Curly, “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking ’till you do suck seed.”
GM has been sucking a long time and are now sucking the seeds of failure. Let them go.
TMoney
Don’t suck a lemon success.
Some of you on here seem intent on defending GM, Ford, and Chrysler and their products. To you I say “bollocks”!
GM cars are terrible. They use cheaper materials in their noisier, less stylish, poor-driving crapmobiles for the same price points as their foreign competitors. The only GM cars that stir any sense of “wow, that’s nice” are the Caddies, and you have to fork over $40k to get one. Sorry, caddies aren’t Lexus nice.
We have to let these guys go bust and go away. Liquidation. No bankruptcy, no bail-out. They need to get out of the way. Americans can make cars. Americans can build great car companies. However, America needs to get out of the way to make room for the rise of the new industrialists who can build, out of the scrap heap of old factories and hungry masses of assembly line workers, the next great American car companies.
Just my 2 cents.
TMoney
Hey Terry. I’ve got a good plot for your next book. The Bush administration forced the economy of the world to retract, therefor creating less demand for oil. Our real enemies to the west are the oil rich countries and now have less revenue to undermine us.
It has potential, but it is early in the morning in Idaho and I need more coffee.
We can pull BILLIONS of dollars out of this economy to help the Failing Three and thus give them an excuse to NOT do what it takes to survive. It will be the Great Depression II. Legitimate Businesses are afraid to make any moves because they worry what stunt the government is going to pull.
If the Failing Three, or any part of them, do fail SOMEBODY is going to pick up those plants to make cars. But they won’t do it with the current management, union and proposed Car Czar in place.
From the people who brought us Social Security, Medicare and Barney Frank.
“I am from the government and I am here to help.”
Ronald Reagan
If a taxpayer had a financial background like the big 3 would a big 3 dealer give them a car loan? Probably not – so why should the taxpayers give a loan to the big 3?
Democrats have to be giddy pondering this high profile welfare mass and how they can perpetuate another legacy of government teet suckers. If you ask me I think this might even be a plan between the executives and lib congress to wedge the issue and reward UAW, all the while running the business into the ground.
This has nothing to do with cars, but the product and the taxpayer will be the casualties.
FamilyMan #45
Hmmm…this brings up an interesting point as to whey the bailout will probably pass. The $15B will go to the unions ($10B) (democrat lackeys) and $4.5B back to the government in taxes, leaving a mere $500M to keep the companies afloat.
This has the appearence of looking like the government has done something helpful. And, as we all know, the government is always more interested in appearence than actually getting something done. (Remember the democrat response to Katrina, anyone?)
note: countdown to the troll attacking me here too…3…2…1…
I’ll even bet GM has a team of sociologists and community organizers on payroll…studying the minions and plotting the next move into perceived global warming and great depression II hysteria, in order to move the company into that direction so politicians can more easily move the US into accepted socialism.
Am I wearing the tin-foil?
By the way, my husband and I and our parents have always had US cars, but when it came time for us to buy new cars, I got a Subaru Forrester because 1. I wanted a station wagon sort of car and the Forrester was about the only thing out there and 2. you hardly ever see a Subaru at a used car lot – people drive them for decades until they don’t drive anymore – they’re that good. A couple of years ago, my husband (a HUGE lover of Oldsmobiles)went for the Prius to cut his gas costs and for the roominess. His idea for the carmakers – go back to building cars that people can fix/maintain themselves. And cars that don’t have all sorts of bells and whistles – if you need a back up camera, you shouldn’t be driving.
Frankly, I wish we had seen some of this contrition from the Republican Party.
No kidding. I had an old Subaru GL 4WD that a friend gave me, had 200k miles on it, used no oil, ran like a new car, and I put another 100k on it, then gave it away (wife made me get rid of it cause it was ugly). Worst decision of my life!
Yeah, while Japan was working on engines and drive trains back in the 80′s… Detroit was perfecting the Opera Window.
Detroit needs to be forced into bankruptcy… the UAW needs to be eviscerated… and their management needs to be sent packing. Only then will they have a chance at success.
But don’t count on any of that happening. Bush and the Dems will fork over the money they want. Nothing substantial will change. The govt will just hope most people aren’t paying attention and hope most people will just forget and go on with their lives. And.. they’ll be right. It’s pathetic.
Of course. Look what they’ve targeted:
Homeowners
Banks
Car Manufacturers
Farmers
Schools
(…an endless list)
What’s next? How could we say NO?
And if you think it will only be 15 billion, I have a bridge to sell you…
Obama and Bush already did-sorry–
Off topic: Illinois Governor Taken Into Federal Custody
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/09/report-illinois-governor-taken-federal-custody/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-rod-blagojevich-1209,0,7997804.story
Woo Hoo, they finally got Blago!!!!
ABC 7 Chicago claims that Blago was selling the Obama senate seat to the highest bidder or possibly intended to insert himself into the position.
I wish ONE COngressman had asked, “Why should we bail you out when your other competitors in this country are not in the same condition you are?”
The 800 pound gorilla in the room.
Just heard the same story about the IL GOV… You get the government you deserve!!!… Anyway about GM… The last GOOD GM car I owned, a 75 GRAND PRIX… My son totaled it in 86… Replaced it with a n 85 OLDS 98… What a CRAPMOBILE… Been in FORDS EVER SINCE… GM has been foisting garbage on the BUYING PUBLIC for years… The only difference now, THEY ARE APOLOGIZING for their CRAP… In other words they have been selling YOU CRAP for years, and now are SORRY they got caught…
I too recall sitting in the theater and watching Julie Newmar (aka Catwoman) bigger than life on the silver screen.
Yes, “Lil Abner” was the movie, but that is about all I recall from the whole thing!
You think Detroit cannot make a good automobile, just wait until the design comes out of Washington. The Auto-Industry cannot hire and keep good engineers, Washington never had any.
Throw the bums out.
So, it looks like Japan is winning WWII after all!
Iraq will likely be doing the same in the financial industry 50 years from now.
Bad management + bad unions + virulently punitive and systemically incompetent government = FAILURE!
I can’t wait to get my hands on the 2009 Pelosi Crossover.
After getting all my shots, I’m gonna ride that burned-out husk of a Barbie doll into the ground!
After those 10 minutes are up, time to go hit up Obama for my “failed expectations” bailout!
But Ford wants to argue.
Fortunately we have had one bad car; unfortunately we never could get Ford to own up to it-they kept arguing with us. Damn Ford Granada did keep running I must admit that. Windows opened and closed when that wanted, same with the doors. Mirrors would not hold position, seats came apart-and Ford argued. The paint job made the car look like it had a disease. And Ford argued.
Being who I am I still drive American-my wife and kids all drive Japanese or BMWs.
I now have a 2004 Town Car-Rear Wheel Drive thank you- and a 2005 F-150 and they are excellent. But I want to pay for them ONCE.
But Ford wants to argue.
All the companies aren’t being run the same way – check out this from Chrysler LLC – it seems like they at least get it:
# The first question is, what changes has Chrysler made to help itself? Since Chrysler became an independent company in 2007:
* We eliminated over 1.2 million units of capacity, or 30 percent;
* We reduced fixed costs by $2.4 billion and, separated over 32,000 employees – including 5,000 on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. And at the same time …
* We invested in product improvements – over half a billion dollars in our first 60 days
* We improved our latest JD Power quality scores, and reduced our warranty claims by 29 percent; Part of our business model transformation includes alliances and partnerships – for example – the agreements to produce vehicles for VW and for Nissan. As a result, through the first six months of the year, Chrysler met or exceeded our operating plan, ending the first half with $9.4 billion unrestricted cash.
# Why does Chrysler need the funding? We need to address the unprecedented drop in vehicle sales caused by the financial crisis. U.S. sales are down from a 17 million unit selling rate in early 2007, to an estimated 11 million unit selling rate for the fourth quarter of 2008 – a 38 percent decline. We lost 20 percent of our sales virtually overnight when the financial market crisis forced us out of the consumer lease business. With customers not buying … with dealers not ordering … with our plants not producing … Chrysler’s cash inflow has suffered.
# So how will the bridge loan be used? Cash will support ongoing operations as we continue to restructure the business, including in the first quarter alone:
* $8.0 billion in payments to parts suppliers $1.2 billion for other vendors
* $900 million in wages
* $500 million in healthcare and legacy costs
* $500 million in capital expenditures
For the record I’m a semi-regular poster, not a shill for Chrysler or the domestic auto companies.
BOYCOTT BAILOUT RECIPIENTS.
That is good brianod1 and if that is true- Chrysler not cooking the books- I hope they find the capital. But not taxpayer capital with a Federal government fiscal interest in the company.
I know the Europeans do it. But we are not Europeans and I for one do not wish to live in a European style nanny state.
What we are asked to do is pick up the Legacy Costs of the UAW agreements plus lazy ass management. If we do there will be no reason for Detroit to get their heads out and do what they need to do–build cars we want at a price we are willing to pay-once.
ArizonaNeanderthal, I wasn’t endorsing the bailout, just pointing out that all three companies aren’t the same, and that part of this is most definitely not of their making.
brianod1, very good. I was just commenting on how I thought they should do it.
Did General Mess-up use this same strategy after inflicting the Corvair and Vega on unsuspecting buyers?
dan708, I owned a 1965 Corvair Corsa coupe (140HP) and there was nothing wrong with it that simple maintenance didn’t fix. Remember, Ralph Nader doesn’t drive!
On the other hand, the Vega was a piece of garbage.
The major issue here is one of quaility. From 1955 to 1973, the Big 3 really did produce some nice cars.
55-57 Bel Air – GM
67-73 Chevelle – GM
68-72 Satellite/Road Runner – Chrysler
68-72 Barracuda/Challenger – Chrysler
65-69 Mustang – Ford
You’ll notice they’re all muscle cars.
What happened was the OPEC (Organization to Pilfer Every Cent) oil embargo in 1974. Smaller, fuel efficient foreign cars fit the bill while the Big 3 became the Insignificant 3. They tried to work with the UAW which just sucked the money out of the automakers. When Nissan opened a plant in Tennessee, it was without union labor. That’s why they opened it there! The UAW screamed foul but the american car buyer saw the low cost and quality and made the capitalist decision; vote with your wallet.
I own two Toyotas. But being 6’4″, I’d like something that fits ME. I was thinking of buying an Impala. However, if the government bails them out, I’ll buy another foreign car. The quality will drop even further as the gov’t buys adds in all the automotive trade rags to blow smoke up our @sses about how great the new gov’t cars are.
Think Lada or Yugo. Great cars! NOT!