Cars That Go Boom: Detroit's Big Three & Me

[BigWatchPilot]

I think we have covered all the bases, thanks for an interesting conversation!

BWP

[erd04056]

GM needs to quit Michigan and all union states and move to some place
where it can build cars+trucks without the threat of UAW strike. In
my experience, radicalized union strikers would rather freeze to death
walking a picket line than deal with economic reality. Some may get
the chance in the coming months.

Declare bankruptcy, get rid of the pension and health care benefit
division, get rid of the UAW, and move. Buy 100 square miles in
eastern Arkansas at the Mississippi and I 40 and start with people
that want to work. Get rid of top management, too.

The alternative is chapter 7 -- nobody gets anything. Sugar daddy
uncle sam will not fix the obvious problems at GM.

Copied from a Chevy forum....very heated discussion of this very subject there.

[MrZoSo]

GM needs to quit Michigan and all union states and move to some place
where it can build cars+trucks without the threat of UAW strike. In
my experience, radicalized union strikers would rather freeze to death
walking a picket line than deal with economic reality. Some may get
the chance in the coming months.

Declare bankruptcy, get rid of the pension and health care benefit
division, get rid of the UAW, and move. Buy 100 square miles in
eastern Arkansas at the Mississippi and I 40 and start with people
that want to work. Get rid of top management, too.

The alternative is chapter 7 -- nobody gets anything. Sugar daddy
uncle sam will not fix the obvious problems at GM.

Copied from a Chevy forum....very heated discussion of this very subject there.

Chrysler and GM have been producing cars in Canada since the mid 70's. The big 3 have been in love with Mexico for ages, and now manufacture all over the world. This union worker breaking the company is a complete myth created by corporate to side track how much money they have been stealing (I mean earning) over the years.

[Jackjo]

I think it is pretty safe to say the big three aren't going anywhere.

Not sure exactly what the government will do for them or if it is the correct thing. But our leaders have never been too good at doing the "correct" thing.

Besides, I really want a new Dodge Challenger but won't be able to till next year when the sale of my business is final.

The U.S. auto makers are no doubt poorly managed but who says they build crappy cars. I have owned over a dozen in the last 15 years and had nothing but stellar performance out of all of them. I love the quality of some imports too but the U.S. auto makers have been on a roll when it comes to cool cars.

Pretty tough to beat the styling of these three IMO! Not sure if this pertains to the conversation but I just wanted to post these cool rides!

Take that!! Overpriced imports!!!

[Pugwash]

GM and Ford have profitable overseas divisions. It's in North America where they are loosing money.
So why is it they can make a profit selling cars to Europe and not in America? They are also profitable selling cars in South America as well.

Look at the cars they sell outside the Americas.

Ford US:


Ford EU:


GM US:


GM EU:

We all saw it coming? Who are you including in the "we all"?

Um, didn't you see this coming? Come on, you must have.

In Europe, we've had crappy gas prices for decades and our car market adjusted accordingly. We call 2l cars large and can't get our heads around why anyone would need 5l V8s. Big engines go in luxury and sports vehicles, not runabouts.

It was common knowledge that gas prices would not remain low in the US. A finite resource that retains demand throughout its life-span will always have increasing prices over time.

[SFA437]

I LOVE the Sport Ka. Wish we could get them in the States!!

I had one here, as well as a Peugeot 307 Sport.

Nimble, efficient and can fit in places an F-350 never would. I'd buy one Stateside in a heartbeat.

That being said I own an XJS 12 cylinder so I do get the big displacement engine.

Comparing both is comparing apples and oranges. Yes they are both motor transport but made for vastly different markets and uses. I can't pull a trailer or load a days worth of construction supplies into a 307

[The_Monkey]

Look at the cars they sell outside the Americas.

Ford US:


Ford EU:


GM US:


GM EU:

Honestly, if GM were still making Pontiac GTO Judges, they'd probably be in a lot better position.

GM US:

[normanduke]

I can't think of one GM car I'd want.
Maybe the before the last version ' Vette, but any company that has foisted the hideaous Escalade on the American public should be put out of its misery pronto or at least left to die on an ice floe.

I know. What about the Workers and the lit-tle chil-dren ?
Well, what are unemployment benefits for ? We're paying for that already.

The problem is that GM has gilt-edged pensions and health benefits.
I knew a woman who was having a complete set of dental implants at $4000 each and psychiatric counseling done in tandem on her husband's GM retirement bennies.

What we are really being asked for here is to underwrite expensive health benefits for GM employees and their families while 50 % of the rest of America has none. Zilch.

I am just marvelling at the current scene.
The federal government is handing out billions and billions of dollars to billionaires with their hat in their hand and tin cup....welfare on the grandest scale for the very rich. Meanwhile, back on Main Street the average Joe owns the last car he will ever have.
Not fair. And really, where does this end ?
Does it end ?
It doesn't.

What GM needs to do to get back in the red is to make the car that we need i.e. a mini two seater that gets 50 MPG plus.

**********************************

Posh, aren't you afraid of scareing the children by putting up that pic of Rosa De Lauro ? LOL. Really, she gives them nightmares !
And then to top it, Nancy ( face lift ) Pelosi.

[Posh]

I'm glad it stayed civil and everyone shared their thoughts, please continue. It's stories like Hustler's that make me cringe, but I cringe more under the multiples. Although I think he'd be able to find a job, I would hate for him to do it in the current economic climate. Even companies without problems have frozen hiring because, as I am fond of reminding everyone, everything is connected to something else in the world (socially, financially, psychologically,etc.); this IS a global economy. Ford, Chrysler and GM's North American operations have caused them some trouble but they actually all do fairly well in most other markets worldwide, except Japan for OBVIOUS reasons. This is an oversimplification but: they shouldn't simply be allowed to implode because they gave the American public what they wanted when they wanted it. I saw plenty of people driving in their SUVs, sipping Starsbucks while paying 1.50 for gas, and they were doing it in American SUVS before and even after Japan got hip to the game.

In any event, this crisis is scaring me to my very core for more reasons than losing a large piece of the American national identity. I didn't have much to say about the destruction of Lehman (they are a rival!) but the cost of America losing its entire auto industry is too much to think about. Guys, I'm really upset at what their destruction could mean for the future of many other companies, some not even automotive related!

From financial news sources all over the world, from colleagues everywhere, in every single industry and sector, data about vital economic statistics are severely out of whack. I mean, these are statistics that have gone to danger levels that have hitherto been unseen EVER, and no one thought we could possibly see them like that. TED spreads, stock market indices, home costs and values, LIBOR rates, consumer confidence rates and other info that assess the long- and short-term strength of the economy of our country and the world are OUT OF CONTROL!

I don't like doomsday scenarios but in my very conservative estimation, losing any company in this atmosphere is not good but losing any of Detroits Big 3 could mean the collapse of far more than many lay people realize.

[MrZoSo]

Posh...You have my personal assurance ( ) that GM (or Ford ) is not going to go away anytime soon. They will recover, and faster than anyone could ever imagine. Just be patient.

[Posh]

Posh...You have my personal assurance ( ) that GM (or Ford ) is not going to go away anytime soon. They will recover, and faster than anyone could ever imagine. Just be patient.

Well, Mr. ZoSo, since I have your personal guarantee that the American automotive landscape will not change in the near-term, I can now stop hyperventilating into my Gucci bag.

And I have the patience of Job, seriously, probably more than anyone else you know. Go ahead and try to think of someone else; I'll wait.

[metricsgeek]

Great discussion. 50B... Imagine if the govt were to sponsor an xPrize and pay someone to start up a NEW COMPANY. Avoid the legacy issues, and management issues, and legacy labor intrenchment. Spur innovation NOW. 50B goes a long way, friends.
Don't give it, let someone EARN it. Quickly so that we can move these experienced car people into the jobs and transition.

[Dave123]

Honestly, if GM were still making Pontiac GTO Judges, they'd probably be in a lot better position.

No kidding....that GM comparison backfired on Puggy....

[Dave123]

Posh...You have my personal assurance ( ) that GM (or Ford ) is not going to go away anytime soon. They will recover, and faster than anyone could ever imagine. Just be patient.

GM is not going anywhere,there isn't anyone that would think that,i hope.

[MrZoSo]

GM has the money today to pay AOL for a full banner click on add to support a loan. (paraphrasing) It is in the best interest of America...So sayeth GM.
I agree Dave, GM is going no where. Relax and watch how the master of making money steals a few billion from uncle Sam. You have to love it.

[Blobe]

What would Joe The Plumber do ?

[Pugwash]

No kidding....that GM comparison backfired on Puggy....

No, I don't think it did.

I picked that GTO because it's a gorgeous car, and completely impractical. The fact you're lusting over a car like that shows you're still struggling with reality.

[The_Monkey]

No, I don't think it did.

I picked that GTO because it's a gorgeous car, and completely impractical. The fact you're lusting over a car like that shows you're still struggling with reality.

Muscle Cars are actually surprisingly practical, the engines and transmissions are basically indestructible, you have to try really hard to kill them... the suspensions are on the stiff side so you can load a surprising amount of crap into them, most of them can actually seat four adults, they've got mountains of torque so, should the urge strike you, you could use it to pull a trailer or boat... and since the cars are devoid of all the heavy modern safety equipment they're fairly light given their size so the fuel economy isn't nearly as bad as you'd expect.

Besides all that, they sold. The end of the Muscle Car era was the beginning of the Malaise era, which started the downward death spiral of the US automotive industry.

One of the largest mistakes the US automakers have made in my lifetime was basically abandoning cars in the late '90s and focusing, almost exclusively, on the SUVs and Trucks people were buying up as fast as they could churn them out until just this year... they got greedy and then got caught looking... when gas hit $4 a gallon it was like someone flipped a switch and the US automakers, GM in particular, got caught with massive surpluses of monster SUVs that nobody was buying... they'd retooled a bunch of their car plants to SUVs because cars weren't selling and SUVs were , then everything switched over the course of a couple months... and they got caught.

[MrZoSo]

I just heard Ashton Kutcher state the best idea ever: "You know who should bail them out? The oil companies."

[MrZoSo]

We need our private jets so please give us the money...<~~Click

[tick123]

I feel like if we bail them out they will continue to fail...unless they start making the EU models in the states

[mingus2112]

Any of you guys read Lee Iacocca's book "Where have all the leaders gone?" It's a fascinating book overall, but there's a good section (may even be a whole chapter) on his time at Chrysler, the time after and his thoughts on the current auto industry.

The main thing that I got from that section and remember today is how he compared the American auto industry to that of Japan. Think about this: How many sedans does GM have? Compare that to Nissan. How many coups does Ford have? Compare that to Toyota. All of these american companies are products of decades of mergers and acquisitions. Each time they kept most of the product line. Chrysler did a REALLY balsy thing by dropping the Plymouth name. But it was really something that needed to be done.

These companies need to trim the fat. They don't have the brand loyalty because their product lines are so thin.

As for the size of our vehicles vs the size of European vehicles. . .it's easy to see how that happened. When I first got my license, gas was 79cents a gallon. Roads in the US are, for the most part, three times the size of roads in European towns. We just have the ROOM for these cars and they were cheap enough to operate when we got hooked on them.

Now we like our big roomy cars and gas is too expensive.

So bailout? Yeah. . .but some restrictions should apply. Get rid of redundant product lines. How much different could a Ford SUV be than its Lincoln and Mercury counterparts?

-James

[R2D4]

I keep my money and "investments" in safe places. Which will never be discussed with the likes of you fools.

Luman, I don't think your mattress is a safe place. Try putting your money in a safe. LOL

[R2D4]

A good solution I heard was to give GM a government contract to make the federal car (or something) that would be a hugely efficient car/truck used by all government forces and partly paid for in advance like is done with the defence industry. Or tell them to make some military stuff.

If they're being propped up purely to keep jobs, don't do it. Create new jobs.

This is a great idea and it's not new, in fact this has bailed out many other types of manufactures all the way from cars to toasters. Thanks for posting this Pugs. They should restructure themselves and work on something that benefits all of us like my self-winding car idea.

[Posh]

In my vacation time I finished devouring several books and have been managing to catch up on the posts and articles of many of my favorite blogs. I only have a few because there's so much detritus vying for attention that I tune almost all of it unless I find they have information I can actually use or its written by someone who gives a sh*t about the "content" they choose to provide. NEWSFLASH: some bloggers, sites, etc. don't really care about the topics they cover. Good old apathy and advertising mixed together to form a sludge that clogs the Internet. The media analysts I'm friends with have their cheesey little slogan which I'm certain you've heard. "Content is King." Well, I believe most content is Crap.

But someone sent me this link to a site called Motorobilia which is a blog about the automotive industry that actually is extremely intelligent and written from a standpoint of DIRECT experience with industry itself, particularly the domestic side, something that most wannabe pundits don't have at all.

This blog post, Of Apples and Automobiles, is so good I had to share it because it definitely suits this topic. Here's an excerpt:

Nobody buys Apple computers. People have voted with their wallets and they just don't like Macs. They're disenchanted with recalls, years of poor customer service and now won't even consider an Apple product. Apple's share of the personal computer market is a fraction of what it once was. What's that you say? "Apple sold about 8 million computers last year, how can you say nobody buys Macs? Apple has one of the best consumer reputations in the world." It's true that Apple sells millions of computers, about a 3% share of the personal computer market, and has exceptionally loyal customers. How could it be that a company that sells so many products could be seen as a complete failure? Of course it's not true, but bear with me.

Riled up yet? Here's another:

Remember that 3% market share for Apple computers and how ridiculous it sounded when I said that nobody buys Apple computers? Well, somehow 55% of car buyers, 400,000 people, must not have gotten the memo saying nobody buys American cars anymore because that was the market share of the domestic brands in October. When 97% of consumers choose other products, Apple, with their cutesy Mac vs PC commercials, is regarded as a marketing success with a great consumer image, but when 55%, a majority of car buyers, choose domestic brands, those brands are presumed to have the stench of death about them.

And here's something I've been silently saying under my breath for some time and it's finally been said aloud: STOP ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACKING THE AUTO INDUSTRY! LOL

Both great. I suggest bookmarking Motorobilia. What do you think? I think it's great to have critical thinking on the issue when clearly isn't much on it at all.