Hammer Time: Die Brands! Die!

I’m sick and tired of all the GM crap. Four brands will die. Boo friggin’ hoo. Nobody seems to mention that virtually all the cars are either cannibalistic shitboxes or uncompetitive black holes. I won’t miss them. In fact, I wish GM would take a whole lot of other brands with them to the pit of liquidation. For starters . . .

Suzuki. I’m sorry. But any company that bases most of their line-up on cars even GM wouldn’t take deserves to die. Like most of the second tier, Suzuki has a grand total of one good car. The SX4. Other than that, it’s trashville. The XL7, Grand Vitara, Reno, Aerio, Forenza, Verona, and whatever Italian named pseudonym or pig in sweatsocks Suzuki has marketed over the past decade, has failed. Miserably. Completely. The last genuine hit Suzuki had was over 20 years ago with the Samurai and even that quickly bit the big one. For all I care, Suzuki can donate the SX4 and perhaps a Swift on the side to Subaru and fold up their tent.

Mitsubishi is another one that seems stuck in a time warp. Back in the early 90’s, the parent company was spending serious coin on getting this brand noticed. There was the landmark 1st gen Eclipse, and . . . well . . . I can’t remember. Oh, yeah! The Expo, Diamante, Galant, Precis (ouch!), Mirage, 3000GT and Montero. Some of these models were good fifteen years ago.

Today? Misubishi’s line-up is like Mercury without the Jill. Not a single vehicle offers anything competitive to the customer with the soul exception of the Evo. That doesn’t help since they sell only about 200 or so of those a month. As of now even the one- model MINI brand outsells Mitsubishi’s six model line-up for all of 2009 (eight if you include the Evo and Spyder). So, I say screw this rental car junket. Let Porsche have the Evo, let their derivative traders give it a decent interior and give the rest of the lineup a decent funeral.

Finally, I say Chrysler must die. No, not the entire company. Well, actually, yes. Eventually. But first I would start with the Chrysler brand. For a normal company, you would say that Chrysler now sells six distinct models. Aspen, PT Cruiser, Town & Country, Sebring, Sebring Convertible and the 300. But wait. What about all the 2008 Crossfires and Pacificas that have yet to find a home? What about the 2008 PT Cruiser? It may have been designed during the Clinton era. But apparently many of those will likely remain on sparingly visited auction lots well into 2010. In the dealer world those still count.

Personally, I just don’t see many of the other models making it out of wholesale heaven either. The Aspen’s the worst of the SUVs. The Sebring is the worst of the sedans. The Sebring convertible deserves to have a big “Made by Tonka” stamping on its dashboard. Since T&C minivans can now be had as a base minivan, and 300s can be given bare-bones interiors, I say what’s the point? Just kill the brand. Make one mediocre model instead of two terrible ones. Let Dodge take over the minivan and 300, and let the public be freed from a slew of unloved models that were made in Chuck E. Cheese hell.