Car-Forums.net

[beadutun]

For GM, should they eliminate Pontiac, GMC, Buick, Saturn and rebrand their more profitable vehicles into Chevy? The foreign divisions like Opel and Holden would be merged into Chevy as well. What about Saab? Sell it or keep it? Hummer and Cadillac would not be touched. For Ford, simply eliminate Mercury and keep Lincoln. What to do with Mazda and Volvo? Same situation like Saab. Anything good, bad and/or ugly about this?

[rafferty]

No, but Kia and Hyundai ought to eliminate themselves completely.

[erin]

Yes, GM should eliminate Saturn and Pontiac. They make essentially the same cars as Chevy. For Ford, they should get rid of Mercury because it is the same as a Ford, just with different styling and a slightly higher price tag. They should keep Mazda because they have some good cars out such as the CX-9 and 6.

[mario]

I think that GM should keep their brands. When all this is over, they would still be making money off of those brands. I just don't know how and when this crap will be over. I don't think Ford should sell Volvo however. If they were to sell Volvo, Sweden should buy it back, but they don't want it. I honestly don't know what will happen :-/

[deane]

Ford should keep what they have. They have already went from 33% of Mazda to only 13% & they sold of Land Rover, Jaguar, & Aston Martin. Volvo is a fine car & Ford should keep them in their lineup. Mercury is a nice upgrade from a Ford if you can't afford a Lincoln.
As for GM, Hummer could probably go, GM has other good trucks in their lineup. GM has done a great job of making all their brands diffrent. Chevy for the "everyday guy (gal)", Saturn for the step up from Chevy, Pontiac if you want a sporty/fun car, Buick for the luxury without spending to much, & Cadillac for the top. Saab I just don't know. Unlike Ford who only has 3 brands without Volvo GM has 6 besides Saab (GMC). Maybe Saab should go?

[hagly]

Ford should keep what they have. They have already went from 33% of Mazda to only 13% & they sold of Land Rover, Jaguar, & Aston Martin. Volvo is a fine car & Ford should keep them in their lineup. Mercury is a nice upgrade from a Ford if you can't afford a Lincoln.
As for GM, Hummer could probably go, GM has other good trucks in their lineup. GM has done a great job of making all their brands diffrent. Chevy for the "everyday guy (gal)", Saturn for the step up from Chevy, Pontiac if you want a sporty/fun car, Buick for the luxury without spending to much, & Cadillac for the top. Saab I just don't know. Unlike Ford who only has 3 brands without Volvo GM has 6 besides Saab (GMC). Maybe Saab should go?

Sadly GM should have dropped some years ago.

Dropping GMC would have meant that Chevy would have been the best selling truck since time began, but by keeping two brands alive, the competition has been able to somewhat claim they sold the most trucks when in fact GM as a whole has outsold all truck models.

I hate to see Pontiac go because of their racing history. I don't know why Hummer was ever built.

Buying Saab was a business error IMHO.

Saturn was a stab at killing the union, while competing with the foreign junk, though it is a good car, the people finally got tired of the rah rah foreign mentality of jumping jacks every morning, etc. and joined up.

Hate to lose any American nameplates. Here's an idea, why don't we stop buying foreign and buy American brands and bring this great country back to it's former glory? Peace.

[thorn]

I think Congress and auto analysts are totally wrong on this. Just because the US companies have many more small dealerships and more brands of cars has nothing to do with anything. How many platforms are sold under the Toyota brand? More than GM. It's just a different marketing approach. The US companies made a huge bet on the price of oil and lost. They got caught building way too many pickups and sport utes when oil rose. They are hamstrung by the UAW requiring them to pay ridiculous wage and benefit and retirement packages for relatively low skill jobs. They even have to pay the laid off workers. The same work is done overseas and even in the US by Toyota and Honda in their non-union plants, for much less. The writing is on the wall for the UAW.

[victorino16]

GM should dump AT LEAST Hummer, as that company isnt helping the cause at all. it should also probably offload saab. i'd probably keep the rest.

FORD ON THE OTHER HAND has already dumped most of its brands. Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) used to be ford, volvo, jaguar, aston martin, lincoln, mercury, and land rover. well, ford already dumped Jaguar and Aston Martin to an Indian company, it may soon hack volvo, and it might as well shut down mercury and lincoln becuase they're both over prices gussied up fords, and if you have that kinda money to spend on a car, would you really buy a gussied up ford POS???

I cant say what GM should do with its overseas brands, like Holden and Opel as I dont really know much about them. Ford should start selling its European cars like the Euro version of the Focus as that car is wildly popular and soooo much better than the US Focus.

[radclyf98]

I think for GM, they should drop Saturn and Saab. I don't think I've ever seen a Saab dealership in my life, and I might have seen a Saturn dealership once or twice - and I live in Michigan! If they can sell them, then that takes care of a few dealerships that GM wants to unload.

As for Ford, I really don't know what to think about Volvo. The cars are built very well, but if Ford can't spend enough time to bring them back to profit, then they have no reason to keep them. Mercury has no reason to go. Maybe some of the Mercury models like the Sable and Mountaineer should go which don't get very many sales, but it would be foolish to sell off or destroy your brand that leads all domestic models in reliability.

This whole situation is a mess, and I hope these automakers can get back on their feet. People that buy only Honda and Toyota because "they are better" are idiots because they don't realize how many homegrown American jobs they are killing. My uncle was laid off from Ford this summer, so this is a big issue that I am concerned with. America does not need to eliminate more jobs on the home front and support new ones overseas, and many people unfortunately don't see this.

[bearcban]

No. GM and Ford can eliminate as many brands as they damn well please, but it's not going to fix the real problem that is hurting them - the fact that due to unions and worker health insurance etc it costs them a lot more to build cars than it does for Toyota etc to build cars.