Quote:

Quote:

If GM could make a car that lasts five years without major problems, they wouldn't be in this mess.



They've been doing this for the past 15 years at least. The problem is, everyone remembers the Chevy Citations from the 1980s.



Bingo. As one car guy to another Scott, this is right on. They make a lot of great cars now but it's too late. To anybody under 40, GM Ford or Chrysler do not exist, it's that simple. They totally screwed the pooch in the 70's and 80's with the Vega, the Pinto, the X cars, the unbelievably awful Olds diesel, the equally awful Seville 4-6-8 and how about that little pos Cadillac Cimmaron based on whatever that Chevy was called? What a bargain that was. The list goes on and on, I'm digging em up now. That turbo V6 Regal (not the Grand National, that was pretty hot), the turbo Trans Am, that little crap Mustang II, the Buick Le Sabre, there's a classic for ya, man the hits just keep on comin. There's that very smooth jewel like Olds Quad 4. Not. Oh yeah, lets not forget the Dodge Diplomat and all of it's siblings. And then of course, Chevy importing that total pos Isuzu whatever it was in an attempt to compete with Honda. If you can't tell, after I stopped playing music for a living I sold, test drove, financed or managed all of those brands during that time because I was a patriotic Air Force veteran and no way was I working for a Japanese car company. My mistake. I finally gave up and worked for BMW for several years.
Meanwhile, the Japanese companies captured that whole generation of buyers and they're not coming back. The business model that GM had now works beautifully for Toyota. Get the buyer in his first car with a Corolla, then move up to a Camry, then move up to Lexus. Of course don't forget the dealer "experience" with all those domestics. It was an experience all right. Most but not all, of the foreign dealers are much better too.
The current generation of 20 somethings are more open to some domestics but only a few and I doubt it will be enough to sustain the former big 3 without continual government subsidies. Still, they didn't live through all those "great" cars, so maybe they wind up saving the companies because as you said the current models are fine. They're right up there in the JD Power rankings.
All this bailout really is is a jobs program and probably necessary given the current economic climate. But, in a few years when we're humming along again, the government will feel it's safe to pull the plug on GM and Chrysler and they will probably dry up and go away unless GM can make a going business just with Cadillac and Corvette and maybe selling Buicks to the Chinese. Even the Toyota Tundra is starting to eat the Silverado now. Not sure about Ford, they may make it.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.