FKA MotorCity Agent

Since one side of my family works for Ford and the other side GM choosing which car (Camaro or Mustang) to buy this Spring has been a little difficult (good place to be in light of other potential life issues). Well, GM has just forced my hand, or made my mind up for me. Starting January 5, 2010 GM will no longer offer GM employees, or their family a discount on Camaro - so that means HELLO 2011 MUSTANG!



If you're intrusted here's the link. Click and scroll to the second page.

https://www.gmfamilyfirst.com/GMEMP/...amilyfirst.pdf

fdjizm

Why would GM do anything to negatively effect their sales just doesn't make sense.
The camaro is a cool car, but the "fisher price my first car company" backing it sucks.

FKA MotorCity Agent

Well, they just priced me right out of buying one. I think it's a sharp looking/performing car, but not an extra $2,000 sharp.

houtex

nvm, welcome to the fold!

FKA MotorCity Agent

....What?

Arrow

Now Saturn's kicked the bucket, too. So the market for Mustangs just got that little bit wider.

Maybe Ford should capitalize on their success this year by taking a page from Geico. They could run numerous ads that bombard us with "Ford...One company DID save you money this year." Or "Think of the money we could save if GM ran like Ford!"

FKA MotorCity Agent

I just hope Ford doesn't take up the same idea as GM.

houtex

"nvm" = Never Mind. As in, whatever I said, I don't want to say anymore. It was pithy and not worthy of being posted, but as the 'delete' doesn't work, I did that instead.

"welcome to the fold!" - obvously I'm welcoming you into the fold of new Mustang owners. Well, mine's still 'new' as it's an S197, but more importantly, the fold of Mustang owners.

I don't know why that's worthy, but ok.

05fordgt

They aren't that stupid! Yes, the GT500 will be exempt but that's expected.

coffeejolts

Is this for ALL Camaros? How stupid. I can log on to gmsupplierdiscount.com and price out a Corvette Z06, but a base Camaro is just waaaaaay too special for the discount? Have they forgotten that the Camaro is supposed to be a volume car?

Coupe66US

Maybe they forgot that they need to make money on it?

bob

Actually the F5 is hot at GM and they may have a variety of reasons for not allowing rebates with the Camaro. As bad **** as the Z06 is, its essentially a dud saleswise. Vette guys love the looks and like to crow about the performance, but they neither want to pay Z06 prices (the reason for the upcoming Grand Sport) and they dont want to sacrifice creature comforts over the regular vette (such as they are, GM has already increased the thickness of the Z06's glass in an effort to abate folks who complained about wind noise).

Also there is the matter of amortized costs with the F5, its gotta be paid for in short order. Ford got lucky with the pony car market and made a killing. IIRC they were looking at 80k units a year to be profitable and whatever time table it took to pay for all the engineering and resources needed to manufacturrer the car. Obviously, the Mustang blew those estimates out of the water and the engineering and manufacturing costs were paid for very quickly in comparison.

Fast forward to MY10 and MY11, Ford can improve on the S-197 relatively cheaply and maintain competitiveness while GM has to hunker down and hope the car keeps on selling in big numbers so that they can stay with or keep ahead of the competition.

GM can do a few cheap things like retune the suspension and maybe eek out some more power, but they cannot upgrade the interior or reduce weight without substantially adding to the already exsisting overhead in the car.

Ergo, no rebates or similar cost reductions.