In OTL, Oldsmobile was closed on April 29, 2004, but here in this ATL, a millionaire / venture-capitalist, pre-Great Recession, decides to negotiate to buy Oldsmobile off General Motors.
In the ATL, the millionaire (a noted car enthusiast like Jay Leno is in OTL), who doesn't exist in OTL, decides to reboot Oldsmobile as "Classic Americana" and focus on smaller volume, high profits and luxury.
However, I'll have to take the 2007-2012 recession into account in any ATL.
Saturn got closed in OTL on October 7, 2009 for production, but October 7, 2010 for sales.
In the ATL, Saturn is refocused into an eco-friendly, hybrid-only brand (at around the same time as Lexus in Europe doing exactly that), and General Motors decides to offload it during the 2008-2012 recession, perhaps to Magna (in OTL, Penske Motors was negotiating with Nissan).
Saturn slowly, over the years, stops using GM platforms and IP, and expands internationally, beyond the U.S. and Canada for the first time, marketing itself as a tech-focused, "cool" automotive brand, pre-dating Tesla. I haven't fully worked out how though.
Then there's a third one which hasn't happened yet in OTL - Holden being offloaded, perhaps at around the same time as Vauxhall/Opel got offloaded to PSA in 2017, due to General Motors finding Vauxhall/Opel unprofitable.
GM wouldn't offload Buick, as they want a presence in China.
I'm trying to work out how to make this plausible for an alternate history and where you could have the POD for each, since it's effectively three separate ATLs for one company.
Sorry if some of this doesn't make sense - I'm not a frequent participant here but I want to try and make this seem plausible.
In the ATL, the millionaire (a noted car enthusiast like Jay Leno is in OTL), who doesn't exist in OTL, decides to reboot Oldsmobile as "Classic Americana" and focus on smaller volume, high profits and luxury.
However, I'll have to take the 2007-2012 recession into account in any ATL.
Saturn got closed in OTL on October 7, 2009 for production, but October 7, 2010 for sales.
In the ATL, Saturn is refocused into an eco-friendly, hybrid-only brand (at around the same time as Lexus in Europe doing exactly that), and General Motors decides to offload it during the 2008-2012 recession, perhaps to Magna (in OTL, Penske Motors was negotiating with Nissan).
Saturn slowly, over the years, stops using GM platforms and IP, and expands internationally, beyond the U.S. and Canada for the first time, marketing itself as a tech-focused, "cool" automotive brand, pre-dating Tesla. I haven't fully worked out how though.
Then there's a third one which hasn't happened yet in OTL - Holden being offloaded, perhaps at around the same time as Vauxhall/Opel got offloaded to PSA in 2017, due to General Motors finding Vauxhall/Opel unprofitable.
GM wouldn't offload Buick, as they want a presence in China.
I'm trying to work out how to make this plausible for an alternate history and where you could have the POD for each, since it's effectively three separate ATLs for one company.
Sorry if some of this doesn't make sense - I'm not a frequent participant here but I want to try and make this seem plausible.