Bought the Hemmings Classic Car GM issue in March and had it sitting around last week when I came home with the latest Fortune (Dec. 8, 2008). Thought I would put the two together as the kind of year GM is having, on the one hand celebrating 100 yrs, on the other, possible doing out of business. The two covers kind of say it all.
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Re: GM-Happy Birthday or Happy Demise!
Steve,
The Fortune article, which I referred to yesterday in another thread, made a point about how GM's divisions had lost virtually all of their distinction by the mid-1980s. I recall very well the outrage and controversy of the mid-1970s when GM started putting 'corporate' (ie: Chevrolet) engines in Pontiacs, Olds and Buicks, but as a Canadian, we had experienced that phenomenon much earlier. GM Oshawa had been producing Chevrolets and Pontiacs for the Canadian market through the 1960s with only Chevrolet engines (283, 327, 396) installed. Indeed, even the Pontiac model names differed from the US: Laurentian, Parisienne and Grand Parisienne (with 283/327 and 396 engines) versus Bonneville, Catalina and Grand Prix (with 326/400/428 engines). We even had a distinct, Canada only mid-size, the "Beaumont", merely a re-badged Chevelle, instead of the Tempest (GTOs were imported, however). The Beaumont sported all of the Chevelle options etc, including the 396 engine in the "Super Duty" model (SD 396).
By the late 1970s (at least up here), the distinctiveness between model features (aside from trim/some options and slight body panel differences) was substantively reduced. My 1975 Firebird had come with a Pontiac 350 producing ten more horsepower with the same carb/exhaust combination than the same year's 350 Camaro, but my later 1978 Firebird Formula came with a 305 Chev engine, and the optional 400 was actually an Oldsmobile-built 403, unless you ordered the "T/A 6.6" option, which got you a real Pontiac 400.
The "greatness" that was GM for many years, offering real choice and distinctiveness among its five main car lines was long gone by the mid-1980s, but the costs of churning out five different 'versions' of similar products remained, as did the large number of dealers demanding equal product lines across all of the divisions. Thus we had Buick and Oldsmobile 'minivans' to compete with Chev and Pontiac versions (I wonder if Cadillac dealers ever considered demanding one too?)--even Saturn got into this game--albeit late; Olds had to have a version of the Chev Blazer/GMC Jimmy (the Bravada); and most recently the new GM SUVs produced at first for Buick, GMC and Saturn have now been joined by a Chev version the Traverse (can a Pontiac version be far behind?).
Aside from the most significant labour cost disadvantages faced by the domestics versus the transplants, the excessive investment and costs of trying to maintain five (core) lines in a marketplace saturated with choices from the Europeans to the Japanese, Koreans and soon, the Chinese, is clearly unsustainable, as GM et al have discovered. But as Taylor notes at the end of his article, it's not clear that GM's corporate culture will recognize and take the rapid and radical measures needed to save the company. Time will tell, but sooner rather than later...
grant
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