QOTD: Do You Care About GM's Move?

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Normally, when a large, well-known company moves its headquarters, it's pretty big news.

That's because in many cases, the company is moving across the country, or perhaps from the city to the suburbs.

However, General Motors announced a move earlier this week and it seems like it's been met with a shrug.

That's because in this case, GM is moving just a few blocks.


It's not like Boeing bouncing from Seattle to Chicago to Virginia, or even United Airlines decamping Chicago for its suburbs (or McDonald's, which moved from Chicago's suburbs to the city proper). The General is moving just a mile.

But it does mean that GM will be leaving one of the most recognizable buildings on the Detroit skyline. Not only does the Renaissance Center, uh, center the skyline when viewed from certain angles, but it's interesting inside, as well.

And for visitors, infuriating -- it's an easy building to get lost in. Also, the Marriott's heating system seemed to struggle with Michigan winters during some of my auto-show visits. So maybe the new office will be friendlier to outsiders, let alone GM corporate employees.

I guess I will miss the RenCen in some ways, but I can't bring myself to care too much otherwise. If GM left Detroit for NYC, or even for Ann Arbor, I might struggle to get my head around it. But regardless of what I think of the RenCen complex, I can't get too upset about GM moving just a 15-minute walk away.

The question I ask of you, especially those of you who live in the Detroit metro and/or have connections to GM, does this matter to you? Or is it such a small move that it doesn't really matter?

Sound off below.

[Image: GM]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Groza George Groza George on Apr 19, 2024

    I don’t care about GM’s anything. They have not had anything of interest or of reasonable quality in a generation and now solely stay on business to provide UAW retirement while they slowly move production to Mexico.

    • See 2 previous
    • RHD RHD on Apr 21, 2024

      In my experience, GM stands for "Generally Mediocre". They have brought about their steadily shrinking market share from decades of below average quality. Not everything that GM built was bad, of course, but enough were to turn a very significant number of potential buyers to other automakers.



  • Socrates77 Socrates77 on Apr 20, 2024

    They're pinching pennies for the investors like always, greed has turned GM into a joke of an old corporate American greed.

  • Jos65791744 Tim Healey’s chosen trade involves wordcraft, yet he misuses a simple word like “geopolitics.” Maybe he should stick to genuflecting to the PC crowd about Columbus Day and leave big boy topics like the effects of globalization on domestic markets to folks who talk gooder than he.
  • Akear I will forget about the Malibu when I have a new Camry in my driveway.
  • 1995 SC "Tariffs are paid by the customer, not the entities the tariffs are enacted against. Unless they are enacted by a politician of my chosen party. Then they function as intended and are good, sound policy."-A bunch of posters here
  • Akear Since EVs are such a small percent of the market do these tariff really mean anything?
  • Chiefmonkey It's amazing how stingy automakers have gotten with sedans. The lack of engine options, lack of customizability, lack of sedans period... it is absolutely miserable. I want to go back to 2009 and buy a brand new Camry LE V6 or something of that sort.
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