1fastdog

Well "Mr. Barbituate", I wish I could be so glib about things that will have as big an effect on us as a people and I'm glad not to be as nescient as you appear in discussing the demise of any of the big three.

GM should redouble or triple it's efforts to market their vehicles the best way of all.... put them in front of buyers and forego whatever is possible at the dealer level and look harder at what media buys are worthwhile.. Nothing is a given and an evangelistic approach is the best route.

I have yet to be around potential buyers that didn't prove to be a real opportunity to demonstrate what there is that GM has to offer, particularly if you discuss things one on one, and be willing to hand them the keys to allow them to conjure up their own conclusions. I believe, more than ever, that GM has cars which are fully worth consideration by potential buyers.

Camaro is but a part of this.

The hubub about trucks and SUV's is somewhat misfounded. GM has been concentrating on cars rather than trucks before the energy price hikes or the recession was evident. There's product on the ground, product in the pipe, and some product on hold that is proof that such is the truth. The foreign brands were all over trying to break in to the profitable truck market. You have to look no further than the huge money which was being focused on the Tundra on the car show circuit to miss that the East clearly believed the truck and SUV segment was worthy of the cash and sweat equity expended.

No car company saw the energy price issues coming at the speed it manifested. None.

The financial institutions debacle, and subsequent inflation, has more to do with fuel prices than even our government will admit. There are socio-economic driving forces that had no one in Washington willing to sound a warning that loans were being offered to those who neither could not afford them, nor did they concern themselves with the "flippers" who believed using "other people's money" would show and prove to be the most misguided exemplar of entrepreneurship. The bottom line is that it was a bad gamble into an overextended position. Either way, it was not wise. We are bailing them out and for no good reason...

GM has worked very hard to pare itself down to it's core business and that business is the vehicle business. They have sold off things not directly vital to that. As but one example, Cerebrus was sold a 51% share in GMAC and that <note sarcasm> looks stupid now in light of what the credit market is, right?

I'm not going to go happily into a world that's strictly willing to accept a car market which offers little choice other than appliances built by slave labor. To me the economic situation for the big 3 which are arguably cornerstones of U.S. manufacturing as being cause for little other than a blaise' comment by folks that figure it's not a serious situation to contemplate.

I don't refer to the japanese as being culprits, either. They can be but a transient episode in all of this as well...

China and India are more than capable of taking the present climate and trends to a whole new level < or low level, depending on how you see it >.

It is a different world, for sure. However, people are still people. and they do want to see their dreams come true. Some dreams ride on four wheels. This site itself is witness to that.

GTOJack

So many bankruptcy rumors have popped up that Wagoner on Thursday sought to quash speculation that the automaker was heading for bankruptcy and said that it had plenty of access to cash to weather the current downturn.
Wagoner said the automaker has "no thoughts whatsoever" of bankruptcy. "Under any scenario we can imagine, our financial position, or cash position, will remain robust through the rest of this year."
By David Shepardson of The Detroit News Washington Bureau

No mention of next year if things stay bad with sales/gas prices/economy.

JohnnyTuinals

I am sure GM will be around for awhile,but not sure for how long.
Does not matter what GM has in its pipeline,Their products should be on the showroom floor and not waiting as long as they did....
All the auto companys knew this would happen one day and here it is.
As for the japanese
I think they make great autos.
I remember before Japan started to make great cars.
The big 3 were the worst in the 70s
I knew people that would want to buy a car.Many would ask what day the cars was built on.......
People would stay away if the Big 3 had their cars build on a monday or a friday.
Mondays employees would have hangovers
and fridays employeees wanted to go home so the cound get drunk....

1fastdog

Thanks for your impressions of the car business in the U.S. 38 years ago.

I also remember hearing that the horsepower days were dead and gone during the '70's.