jsaylor

More sweeping changes from GM, announcements regarding the same to be made tomorrow. Of late these things have not been very kind to anything performance oriented. The ever worsening condition of GM makes me wonder whether the Camaro might end up a one tour wonder.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/06/g...ges-on-friday/

MBK

it might. i think they raised the price of the 09 corvette to 49K.. who knows what will happen to the camaro

Moosetang

You mean "Maximum Bob" Putz didn't single-handedly save General Motors with "his" GM-saving products the Camaro (overweight and overdue), the G8 (ha!), and the Volt (ZZZzzzz)?

Zastava_101

I think Camaro will survive. They built it right and priced it right, so, yeah, it should survive at least for 2 generations.

jsaylor

Exactly. The only problem with all of Bob's 'gotta have it' cars is that the vast majority of folks apparently don't feel as though they gotta have one.

The critical issue is what they make on the car, and with all the Zeta cancellations limiting economies of scale my guess is they wont make much.

htwag

$40K for a Volt? Th'at eveyman's average price, right? Ain't gona happen. GM kills more cars with price than Ford does.

GrnT

Why buy a Camero when you can buy a mustang that’s been proven for a more affordable price.

05GT-O.C.D.

History will repeat itself as GM doesn't learn from past mistakes.

bob

He's got his hands tied by GM's bureaucracy, Maximum Bob had alot more freedom at Chrysler.

Zastava_101

Actually Camaro was more successful than Mustang from mid 1970s to late 1980s.

In GM 1990s GM stopped paying any attention to Camaro because everybody were buying SUVs and Trucks.

05GT-O.C.D.

History as in bringing vehicles into the market 5 years after it's competition... ala Camaro, Solstice, HHR, etc.
There are lots of reasons that the Camaro was lost in the 90's - it's no one reason. One thing we don't hear mentioned is that the Camaro fans let it die. When Ford spoke of cancelling the Mustang, the community spoke, and Ford listened.

Vermillion06

The more important question is whether GM will survive and have enough resources be able to produce Camaros in the first place.

bt4

Excellent question:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/07/news...ion=2008110711

According to this CNN Money article, GM esitmates "in the first half of next year its estimated liquidity will fall significantly short of what it needs to continue operating". Translation, GM will be broke. And they might approach that point by the end of the current quarter.

Even if the government steps in with a bail-out, Jsaylor mentioned the cancellation of some of the products on the Zeta platform: less products means fewer opportunities to defray the cost. That makes it harder to maintain a business case (cost justification) for the new Camaro.

Zastava_101

GM will survive, there is no way government would let GM go down.

05GT-O.C.D.

Yes. With all the bailouts, they're definitely not going to lose such a major domestic producer. It's not just the company, it's the tax dollars from revenue, sales, payroll, etc. It's the votes of workers, unions, etc. Way too much at stake.

Reminisce

Yep this is true, and cannot be disputed. There is NO WAY the government will let GM go out of business. Ford and GM alone provide way too many jobs to this economy. GM going under is not a good thing, it would only make our economy worse. I for one, hope they can survive, and I am a diehard Ford guy, but not with blinders on.

bob

Indeed, the fallout would be staggering - GM by itself would be pretty bad, but all the other bits and pieces that rely on GM would implode as well and thats where the real problem would be.

I can appreciate a fan of any particular make, but man do I reserve a special hatred for people that want to see the domestics go out of business as if the event would occur in a vaccum.

m05fastbackGT

Camaro may have been more successful during the mid 1970's, however Mustang has been more successful since the late 1980's.

jsaylor

The truly unfortunate thing is that GM is probably better off to simply go bankrupt and start over. Yeah, the ramifications would be huge, and virtually all if not all of the existing leadership would likely get the heave-ho, but the truth is that the vast majority of those chumps needs to be given their walking papers since they obviously have absolutely no idea of how to run a car company.

I genuinely don't believe you can fix GM right now short of starting over with largely if not entirely new management. If I could have one wish regarding all of this it would be that they find a way to minimize the harm done to the hourly employs this would effect by somehow keeping production moving forward as much as is plausible while reorganization takes place.

Hollywood_North GT

This is the issue: a bailout may do nothing to force GM into greater efficiency. On the other hand, filing for bankruptcy protection could enable GM to get rid of underperforming brands and emerge as a smaller, more tightly run company.

As to the top management - I'm not sure who should be let go. While some strategies have clearly failed, I think one can also make a case that GM is producing some of the best quality - and most interesting - cars in its entire history right now (who among us wouldn't love to own a new CTS-V?). So I don't know how much of this is bad strategy, and how much of it is the right strategy at the wrong time, aka too late in the game.

One definitely bad strategy, IMHO, is too **** many brands and duplication across brands. GM only needs two (three at the most) marques in North America anymore. If they want to keep Buick for China - and can do so efficiently - then fine. But Pontiac and Saturn should go. Since many of the Saturns are rebadged Opels, anyway, just rebadge the most desirable of them as Chevys and find a way to take the Euro engineering and build them in North America...like Ford is going to do with the Fiesta.