GM may eliminate Saturn, Saab and Pontiac

[dgale]

Bloomberg news reports GM may be eliminating these brands. It's about time Saturn goes. It would have been a lot cheaper to have bought these dealers out in the 90's. But instead GM elected to pump billions into a losing division. What GM really needs to do is consolidate BPG further and actually form a new division. Could even just call it GM. This might eliminate some of the stigma that surrounds BUick and Pontiac. Cut out products that don't sell such as G5,G3, Canyon, Lucerne. Let Chevy have the cheap version of Tahoe and Suburban or just one length and GM retains just the Denali nameplate. GM probably has been pushing the consolidation of PBG for this very moment. If they come out with a formula for compensating dealers such as the Oldsmobile formula GM will save a ton of dough since the compensation will be based on what percentage of sales are made up of Pontiac. Only time will tell. But certainly less models will hopefully get dealers back on track and start competing against everyone except who they are competing against now, which is their local GM dealer. Too much overlapping. Got to love it when Lutz said a while ago that there would be no more model proliferaton. So what happens Chevy gets the Traverse and Pontaic gets the Aveo in the form of G3.

[XDCX]

Thanks for the post - it will be interesting to see what GM does.

I think part of the reason GM wanted Chrysler was because it would have allowed them to consolidate their dealer body. It would have been easier to justify the killing of Pontiac and Buick if you were also killing off Chrysler and most of Dodge.

Concerning Saturn, what a financial disaster that's been for GM. If GM would have spent the Saturn money on the Chevrolet Brand they could have fended off the advances of Toyota and Honda.

I've also been surprised at how many Saturn Stores have closed lately - that's never a good sign for a brand that was supposed to be a flagship for GM.

Concerning the Oldsmobile payments, I don't get the impression that GM is going to be using that model to buy out too many dealers. I think they favor letting the economy do their dirty work. In fact, it makes me wonder if there's a hidden agenda to their decision to delay incentive payments and step-up curtailment policies.

[XDCX]

If the Pontiac, SAAB and Saturn dealers were worried before, they have every reason to the terrified now.

Part of GM's recovery plan includes the elimination of brands and Pontiac, SAAB and Saturn are at the top of the list.

I can't imagine any other OEM would have any interest in SAAB or Saturn and that can't be good news for the dealer network.