GM, A Damaged Brand(s)…Forevers

GM is bankrupt, and President Obama is telling you to buy their product and not to lose confidence in a company that neglected its product, its workers and gave leadership get out of jail free cards for decades.  Add it up and you get a long ass bankruptcy, if they are out of this in 90 days, I will buy a GM product.

GM has a lackluster product portfolio pipeline (even the Volt is off target) and will need to rebuild its brand and image from an atomic level upward. Not an easy thing to do when the product life cycle of getting new cars on the road is over 18months. I really hope they can do it.

Focus grasshopper, and get rid of Buick.

Saturns Last Orbit

General Motors plans to build the last Saturn vehicles this year, two years earlier than first envisioned, as it speeds up efforts to shed dealerships and divisions, CEO Fritz Henderson said today. AutomotiveNews 04.27.09

I have said before General Motors  has no relevant brands, and they do not, BUT, if there were a GM brand that was close to having any cred…it was Saturn. The latest redesigns were fantastic, however, came during the storm of our great recession and their most recent mediocre repositioning didn’t help either.  The brand portfolio to keep GM relevant should look something like so: Saturn, Chevy, Cadillac. It will be sad to see big blue fail in the next few years, but they will.