The automobile industry is going through a tough on a global scale, and thing have gotten especially bad here at home, severe enough that the U.S. Government has stepped in to offer incentives to new car buyers to trade in their worthless clunkers. Both Chrysler and General Motors have gone through bankruptcy hearings and are undergoing major restructurings, at the moment it looks like Ford is standing at the top of the hill. Despite the poor outlook, the General has plans for a very bright future and they involve a few changes in the Cadillac lineup.
First of all there will be a production version of the Cadillac CTS Coupe, it will first make a debut as a concept in February and go into production in May, the road going model will then be followed up with a factory tuned high performance V-Series version a few months later. The CTS Coupe will be powered by a gasoline direct injected V6 that will deliver 270 HP. The big boy CTS-V on the other hand, will be powered by a 556 HP 6.2 Liter supercharged V8, the same engine that is found in the sedan.
Cadillac is also preparing a new concept car called ATS, the production version of the ATS will be available in both sedan and coupe body styles and is the General’s answer to the entry level luxury category dominating BMW 3-Series. While the larger Cadillac DTS is set to be replaced by a new model that is much sleeker, currently known as the Cadillac XTS, a model to be placed on top the Buick LaCrosse.
The more mundane next generation Chevrolet Malibu will go into production in 2012, while an all-new midsize model from Buick is scheduled to go into production in the next 24 months.
It seems like a PGA calendar isn’t complete without a Buick-sponsored event being mixed somewhere in there. But after everything that’s happened in the auto industry, the fifty-year partnership between Buick and the PGA has now reached the final hole.
For the longest time, Buick has been an institution in the US pro golf circuit, having sponsored a plethora of golf tournaments – including two big PGA events, the Buick Open and the Buick Invitational – over the years. The car brand’s latest tournament – and apparently, last one too – occurred barely a week ago when Tiger Woods bagged his fourth Buick Open title.
Details regarding the amicable split have been kept under wraps but if you’re one to read between the lines, it seems that GM’s current restricting may have had something to do with it.
GM’s restructuring has long been an open secret, especially considering that the company was dangerously close to being shelved altogether. Now that their slowly getting back on their feet, GM is hard at work in re-establishing their brands to once again become the major players they once were.
Maybe now Bob Lutz has learned a lesson about making promises he can’t keep. It wasn’t that long ago when the high-ranking GM official talked to Automobile Magazine and all but guaranteed that the Pontiac G8 would be spared from the chopping blocks and be re-christened as the Chevrolet Caprice.
Lutz’ declaration was met with raised eyebrows, especially those coming from GM CEO Fritz Henderson who previously said that the G8 – and all subsequent Pontiac models – would cease to exist by the end of the year. Turns out that Lutz may have bitten off more than he could chew and in a recent entry on GM’s blog took back his proclamations and said that upon further review, the supposed G8-turned-Caprice wouldn’t make too much sense given the unstable state of the US auto industry.
It can be argued that Steven Rattner, the head of US President Barack Obama’s auto task force was the person responsible for saving the US auto industry. After all, he was the one who oversaw the bankruptcies of both GM and Chrysler and he was the one who initiated the bail-out plan that ultimately saved both companies from extinction.
And now, after only six months on the job, Rattner has decided to call it a day, filing his resignation, which was announced by the White House last Monday. Rattner’s decision - he said was brought about because he wanted to go back home to his family in New York – has resulted in talks that he relinquished his post due to an investigation regarding an investment scandal.
According to the Associated Press, Rattner has become the subject if an investigation with regards to a state pension fund that provides numerous benefits to more than a million government employees. That, of course, comes at the heels of another controversy involving Rattner and his association – he’s an investor - with Cerberus Capital Management, which, incidentally was the former owner of Chrysler.
If General Motors is to bounce back from its beleaguered state, it’s got to deliver on its promises. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz made one when he said that the Pontiac G8, scheduled for the chopping block at the end of the year, will eventually resurface in Chevrolet showrooms as the Caprice.
"The last time we looked at [the G8], we decided that we would continue to import it as a Chevrolet," Lutz said. "It is kind of too good to waste." Despite the Vice Chairman’s promise, there still seems to be mixed feeling within the organization regarding the future of the G8. One of the people against the move happens to be CEO Fritz Henderson, who has been repeatedly heard saying that he isn’t a fan of rebadging.
Nevertheless, Lutz is bent on keeping his promise, saying that the wheels have already been set in motion and that export agreements with a number of countries, specifically Australia, where the Holden Commodore has already been rebadged as Chevrolets in a slew of countries. This precedent, according to Lutz, is something that he is looking at using in order to repackage the G8 as a Chevrolet-badged vehicle under the Caprice name.
General Motors has long been itching to get back on its feet after a disastrous stretch that saw it come on the brink of bankruptcy. Thanks to the government’s intervention and a company-wide house-cleaning meant to give the company a fresh start, General Motors is finally ready to roll. In a move that will change the complexion of American car manufacturing, GM decided on veering away from their ‘business as usual’ approach and instead, work on a new attitude of quality over quantity, a promise made with the intent of paying more attention to its customers and vehicles.
After selling the last of its good assets to a new, government-backed automaker, GM CEO Fritz Henderson declared that GM is ready to turn another chapter in their storied history, a chapter he says will bring GM back to the top of the auto industry.
“The last 100 days has shown everyone, including ourselves, that a company not known for quick action can indeed move very fast,” he said. “Starting today, we want to take that intensity, the decisiveness and the speed of these last several weeks, and transfer it from the battlefield triage of the bankruptcy process to the day-to-day operations of the new company.”
General Motors may be a long ways from getting back on its feet in the US, but in another country, the Detroit-based manufacturer is standing tall.
Despite a tenuous hold on the US auto market, GM can take comfort in the fact that they’re Chinese consumer base has more than picked up the slack, accounting for a whopping 814,442 vehicles in sales in the first six months of 2009.
It doesn’t come as the least bit surprising to us to see China establish themselves as the world’s leading auto market. After all, the country still comprises about 1/6th of the entire world’s population so naturally, that many people would entail a lot of customers too. GM also benefited through a number of stimulus policies the Chinese government has implemented, allowing foreign brands to import their products easier.
General Motors and Toyota may have ended their 25-year run as production partners at the NUMMI plant in California. Yet despite the split, the two auto giants are still in the works on a new partnership. We’ve heard that Toyota is in talks with GM about the possibility of supplying a rendering of Toyota’s popular Prius hybrid vehicle to its Detroit-based counterpart.
While the plan has yet to be finalized, sources have said that the two heads of both companies - Toyota president Akio Toyoda and GM top dog Fritz Henderson - are expected to convene at the GM headquarters in Michigan sometime in August.
As a boy, GM’s former global purchasing czar, Bo Andersson, snatched his neighbor’s cat and sold it for $5 in order to satisfy his sweet tooth. Now Russian carmaker GAZ has snatched Andersson from GM as it moves fast to take full advantage of its planned acquisition of Opel with partners Magna and Russia’s largest lender Sberbank.
GAZ announced on Monday that it has invited Andersson to head its board of directors. "The ex-vice president of GM, Bo Andersson, has expressed his agreement to take the post of the chairman of the board of directors of GAZ," the company said in a statement.
Andersson spent more than two decades at GM after earlier posts at Saab. Most recently, Andersson had been GM’s group vice president for purchasing and supply chain. Andersson’s resignation from GM was a surprise to many. Upon leaving GM, Andersson said in a brief e-mail to a new organization, "I have a new better job where I will work as CEO." At the time Andersson had declined to say exactly where he was headed.
Andersson was an aggressive cost cutter for GM and his knowledge of the GM system will help GAZ get up to speed quickly. GM has since announced that Bob Socia, currently executive vice president of Shanghai General Motors, will be appointed GM vice president, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain.
RIP Pontiac. General Motors announced today that Pontiac will not live to see its 85th birthday.
GM’s original plans for Pontiac were for it to become a niche brand under its new viability plan. Now the cuts have gone deeper, and Pontiac is completely cut off. All fans of GM’s performance division can do now is hope for a revival sometime in the future.
This will be a quick death. GM announced “The Pontiac brand will be phased out by the end of 2010”, which is the equivalent of a fire sale in the automotive world. But Pontiac is not the only one to be hurried out the door. The revised plan moves up the “resolution” of Saab, Saturn, and Hummer to the end of 2009, “at the latest”.
There is no word about if any of Pontiac’s car will be absorbed into other lines. The only cars that are unique to Pontiac in the U.S. are the G8 and Vibe. Disposing of the G8 should be as easy a stopping the boats from Australia, but the Vibe, which is joint venture with Toyota, may be harder to untangle.
