WI GM didnt kill Geo Saturn Hummer Oldsmobile Pontiac

Olds nd Geo staying longer would've sped up GM's financial woes. Buick (for the better in my opinion) and Cadillac (for worse in my opinion) successfully changed so that they could appeal to a newer and younger demographic, Oldsmobile did not and that caused sales to drop in the '90s and 2000s, and was why they eventually went away in 2004. Not many people bought Geos to begin with, they lasted less than 10 years if I remember correctly.

As for Pontiac, they made crappy cars the last 10-15 years they were in business (My '02 Grand Prix, despite getting it with low miles isn't without fault, mostly electronic and tranny issues, but then again GM sedans from the mid '90s through the 2000s as a whole were pretty bad). Change that, they might stick around. Sales may slump during the recession, but would bounce back afterwards.

Hummer. I don't know much about them to comment, but I have seen more of them on the road over the last year than I did from about 2008-2012. Mostly rednecks and gangbangers buy them used these days, personally, I think they're boxy gas hogs.

Saturn, it always baffled me as to why they got rid of those. They seemed successful during their run, and with gas prices rising in the late 2000s, and with them being all over the place over the last 3-5 years, I think they would've sold well.

Personally, I think GMC, which isn't a whole lot different from Chevy should've gotten the ax.
 
Personally, I think GMC, which isn't a whole lot different from Chevy should've gotten the ax.

GMC is hideously profitable, since they're charging $3k more for a Chevy with a nicer interior that doesn't look like shit, and then there's the Denali packages. It'd be nice if they got some exclusive vehicles in the US, instead of just being rebadged Chevrolets. But Chevrolet is probably the worst thing that ever happened to GM organizationally since the bankruptcy, since everything not made by Adam Opel AG, or intended as a Cadillac, must be sold in some incarnation as a Chevy. It's really quite detrimental to the company as a whole.

Hummer was a brand that just no longer had products that were en vogue, which is why it got killed. Same as Geo maybe eleven years earlier. Incidentally, both of them only ever produced one good vehicle each. (The H3 truck and the Geo Storm.)

Saturn and Pontiac's memorable products at the end were basically just rebadged Opel and Holden vehicles, plus the Kappa twins. Keeping them wouldn't have been hard, but would've basically killed Buick, which was the exact same thing in China.
 
The Pod would have to be late 70's or early 80's to save Olds or Pontiac I feel. also personally as someone who family always drove Buick's I think them getting rid of the Skylark brand made them more generic. I agree on the Chevy part.
 
The Pod would have to be late 70's or early 80's to save Olds or Pontiac I feel. also personally as someone who family always drove Buick's I think them getting rid of the Skylark brand made them more generic. I agree on the Chevy part.

Eh, if the Fiero wasn't sabotaged by GM upper management, and had gotten something better than the Iron Duke, it would've been a respectable vehicle. Especially if it had the turbo'd LD5 or LC2 as a performance engine. But that would've been a threat to the Corvette, which is apparently sacrosanct to GM management, and shall have no internal competition of any sort.

Oldsmobile's problem was entirely the Cutlass family and especially the Cierra, which honestly really should've been spruced up more over it's 14 year lifespan, especially after the Taurus and Sable started to just show it up in every respect. Like just giving it the 3.0L LN7 instead of the LK9 when that was available would've done a lot for the model, since it'd compare better against the Ford Vulcan V6. As would shoving the Quad-4 engine into the thing in '87-88 to keep it current, even if the styling was pretty dated.

As for the Skylark, from the X-body models onward, the thing was kinda a zombie. Buick and Oldsmobile both could've used more high performance options in the 80s and 90s, but realistically, GM North America at the time just lacked the willingness to produce them.

Had GM kept Oldsmobile's products up to date, and then gone whole hog on the European thing, by selling GM2900 based Opels as Oldsmobiles or Buicks after the high-end J-bodies died an unmourned death, we'd probably be having a very different conversation.

But that's pretty much every american automaker in the 80s, since they were all doing something completely insane. Like Ford's experiment with Merkur, AMC using Renault engines in things, and Chrysler not really developing a replacement for the K-car until AMC's engineers pretty much took the place over.
 
The Pod would have to be late 70's or early 80's to save Olds or Pontiac I feel. also personally as someone who family always drove Buick's I think them getting rid of the Skylark brand made them more generic. I agree on the Chevy part.

I agree, at least with Olds. They were on their last legs by the time the '80s ended. Pontiac, and GM as a whole, I'd say a POD no later than '96 would do the trick. It seems like after that, GM (at least mechanically) became over engineered pieces of shit. I agree with you on Buick to, my family always drove Buicks as well and they did become generic in the late '90s and early 2000s.
 
GMC is hideously profitable, since they're charging $3k more for a Chevy with a nicer interior that doesn't look like shit, and then there's the Denali packages. It'd be nice if they got some exclusive vehicles in the US, instead of just being rebadged Chevrolets. But Chevrolet is probably the worst thing that ever happened to GM organizationally since the bankruptcy, since everything not made by Adam Opel AG, or intended as a Cadillac, must be sold in some incarnation as a Chevy. It's really quite detrimental to the company as a whole.

Hummer was a brand that just no longer had products that were en vogue, which is why it got killed. Same as Geo maybe eleven years earlier. Incidentally, both of them only ever produced one good vehicle each. (The H3 truck and the Geo Storm.)

Saturn and Pontiac's memorable products at the end were basically just rebadged Opel and Holden vehicles, plus the Kappa twins. Keeping them wouldn't have been hard, but would've basically killed Buick, which was the exact same thing in China.

That was just a re-branded Isuzu Impulse that's why it went away so fast when Isuzu stopped making cars it was gone. Geo's were done on the cheep by GM in partnership deals with Isuzu, Toyota and Suzuki. Ford did the same thing with there cars at the time also.

Saturn and Pontiac could been saved Olds maybe.
 
Looks like what killed Saturn was A they expanded the brand into segments it never should of gone with the Mini van and the bigger crossover. The Vue was nice but like the Pontiac Aztec it had a niche market. They also started re-branding European and Aussie built cars as Saturn's. Had they left the brand alone it could of lived. Add the fact that they royally screwed up when they killed off the EV-1.
 
Not good business practice but about this: Pontiac has a more aggressive look while Olds is classy and smoother. Pontiac gets a sportier looking but probably mechanically identical version of the Malibu (call it the Grand Prix), the Impala (call it the Bonneville), the Chevy Traxx (as the G4X or something), and the Camaro (as the Firebird), while the Chevy SS becomes the Pontiac GTO. Olds gets a version of the Cruze (with a slightly bigger engine, like the Buick Verano), the Buick version of the Mokka (call it something that starts with "I" and make it a twin of the encore), a version of the Traverse (perhaps as the Bravada; it should look a lot like the Enclave), and the Buick Lacrosse is sold as the Oldsmobile Cutlass. Make Buick the stylish yuppie brand. Give it a sporty and stylish compact SUV, perhaps version of the Cadillac XT5 or the Envision (except built in the USA), as well as the Opel Insignia/Buick century. Saturn becomes a green brand and the volt and bolt are sold as Saturn models. Discontinue all other Saturns. Geo sells Korean and/or Chinese models and are sold through Chevy dealers. They sell the Spark as the Metro, the Sonic as the prism and the Captiva as the Tracker. For Hummer, the obvious thing is to just keep making boxier, uglier versions of the Tahoe/Yukon, but it would also be worthwhile to follow through and bring in the H4 to compete with the Wrangler, which has its market all to itself.

I think GM made all the right calls with brand-axing. I do however, think Daimler Chrysler might have made a mistake in dropping Plymouth.
 
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FBKampfer

Banned
I'd be driving a newer Trans Am, and might have factory supported headlights that aren't those horrendous sealed lamps.
 
[QUOTE="Chris Triangle, post: 16141311, member: 34149" ] Saturn becomes a green brand and the volt and bolt are sold as Saturn models. .[/QUOTE]

That was my thoughts. Have the Saturn brand as the EV and Hybrid brand. As well have non-ICE started in that brand.

Make Saturn the "Green" cars
 
I’m still driving around a 2007 Saturn Vue. Mechanics often comment that they have a considerable amount of staying power despite being out of production for so long - I find that to be true because you can find so many on the road still. If they had just kept the brand for a couple more years through the worst of the recession they probably could’ve become poor man’s Subaru or something to that effect
 
I’m still driving around a 2007 Saturn Vue. Mechanics often comment that they have a considerable amount of staying power despite being out of production for so long - I find that to be true because you can find so many on the road still. If they had just kept the brand for a couple more years through the worst of the recession they probably could’ve become poor man’s Subaru or something to that effect


Concur with that. My 2002 SL2 is still going strong. They should have left them as good-looking economy cars
 
Geo was a result of many mistakes that General Motors had made around that time keeping it around would have been a complete waste of money and resources in my opinion.

Many of the additional mistakes that we're made by General Motors around that time (Mainly the 1980's) include (And yes they also likely contributed to the demise of Pontiac and Oldsmobile although I could be wrong).

1. - Failing to put valuable resources into improving it's production facilities which could easily allowed them to be more efficient, flexible and would have allowed faster production time.
2. - Fuck ups in the GM10 (W Platform) Program resulting in a $7 Billion Dollar disaster for GM that was ill executed from the start (General Motors choked right from the beginning).
3. - Over-dependence of Badge Engineering for many of it's vehicles resulting in too many GM vehicles looking too similar.
4. - The Cadillac Cimarron being one of the most notable automotive clusterfucks in history (Taking a Cavalier and adding fancy high end luxurious features was not worth it).
5. - Cadillac rushing it's High Technology engine into production when it should have instead turned to Chevrolet for example for a more fuel efficient V8 as a short term solution (That would gave them more time to ensure reliability when it eventually enters production).
6. - The Oldsmobile Diesel engines being a major mistake (GM should have let Detroit Diesel develop them instead).
7. - General Motors offering too many 2 door coupe versions of many of it's vehicles for too long (They should have reduced its 2 door offerings to just the Camaro, Firebird/Trans Am and the Corvette by the end of the 1980's).
8. - Keeping the Chevrolet Chevette (And Pontiac's version) in production in it's rear wheel drive form much longer then they should have (Should have been replaced with a Front wheel drive model before the 1984 Model Year).
9. - Chevrolet offering way too many sub-compact models (Although built from Japanese car makers) in the mid 1980's being sold alongside the aging Chevette (Such redundancy is not even needed).
10. - General Motors failing to move away from a outdated business model that resulted in unneeded Redundancy, Bureaucracy, Infighting among the divisions.
11. - The 1984 reorganization at General Motors getting botched from the start (This contributed to the over-dependence of Badge engineering).
12. - General Motors spending tons of money trying to remake itself and buying up non automotive companies like Electronic Data Systems and Hughes Aircraft Company (The Billions of dollars that was wasted would have been much better spent on Improving it's production facilities and Vehicle line ups).
13. - The ill fated V8-6-4 Engine from Cadillac although it was a real good concept what hurt it was that the technology was not as advanced to make it practical (It only became practical after the turn of the century when the technology caught up).
14. - General Motors making numerous vehicles that had too much overlap in the market segments that each of the vehicles competed in.

There was a lot of good that was seen in Saturn but they should have started expanding the line up (Like adding a Mid-size car, Some SUV models of different sizes possibly a Full size car) within the first 3 or 4 years of production (That could have easily kept many customers with the brand when they got ability to trade up to a larger vehicle).

Regarding the issues facing Oldsmobile multiple factors had unfortunately resulted in the division being run into the ground (Management, Lack of Investment in R&D, Internal Competition). What could have likely helped Oldsmobile was trying to update the products more aggressively like if the GM10 program was done the right way from the beginning the redesigned from the ground up Cutlass Ciera could have resulted possibly appearing in 1987 Model Year in both Sedan and Wagon versions (Or possibly as the next generation 88 instead) which would have made the vehicle real competitive with the Sable much earlier. Keeping the Nighty-Eight as a rear wheel drive vehicle would have also have done better as well dropping it's own V8 engines that were not Fuel Injected with Chevrolet V8's equipped with Fuel Injection.

For Pontiac to have been helped the GM10 program being done right could have worked as well but if GM had invested the billions in it's automotive divisions instead they could attempt to develop a Turbocharged (Single or Twin) version of the 3.4 DOHC V6 and/or the Quad-4 (If it was properly refined and was done better) as well.

The price per gallon of Gasoline unfortunately had dictated the viability of Hummer and Oil gluts don't last forever (The money that was spent on Hummer would have better spent elsewhere) even the current Oil glut will eventually come to an end (Nobody knows when that will happen).

Other facts regarding Geo - The Storm was a good niche product for the segment it was in and unfortunately the decision that Isuzu made to completely discontinue making cars doomed the Storm. The viable products that I do think Geo had sold the Metro and Tracker should have been sold under the Chevrolet nameplate (The Storm would have fit in better with Pontiac anyway) from the start instead of waiting until the 1998 Model Year like they did anyway (The Prism was even not worth building and selling anyway).

Even as mentioned in a previous reply (By a now Banned user) Ford, Chrysler and AMC had made mistakes as well.

Ford experimenting with Merkur was ill fated form the start (Pricing caused by the Exchange Rates, Internal competition and pending U.S. Safety requirements did it in).
The use of Renault Engines by AMC was forced upon them by Renault itself.
Chrysler not replacing the K Platform sooner (Was started after the AMC engineers took over the engineering operations) became a liability for them but failing to update the Full size Dodge Ram pickups (Got a long overdue redesign in 1994) had hurt them as well at that time.
 
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