By Michael Karesh
April 27, 2009
Time's up! GM has announced that 2010 will be Pontiac’s final year. No surprise to anyone who's been reading the writing on the wall. But nevertheless a sign that those in charge of GM's destiny are more interested in appearing to be doing something than in actually addressing the core weaknesses of the car manufacturer. Why is so much attention focused on GM's brands? Because, like the CEO, they're what outsiders can see and at least superficially understand. The real problems are both less visible and less easily comprehensible.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 247: Brandicide Won’t Save GM
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 40 comments 
By Paul Niedermeyer
April 27, 2009
Excitement is an ephemeral phenomenon. As was Pontiac. It had its glorious day in the sunshine of the exciting sixties. Pontiac was like the polite, quiet middle child who ran away to California in the early sixties, became a huge star, crashed in 1970, and played the county fair nostalgia circuit ever since. In between repeated bouts in rehab. And now we’re here to pay our last respects.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 246: Pontiac R.I.P.
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 41 comments
By Robert Farago
April 23, 2009
As GM's journey to bankruptcy nears its conclusion, the punditocracy is busy contemplating the company's afterlife. The current line of thinking: the feds will cleave General Motors in two. Bad GM gets Buick, GMC, HUMMER, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn. Good GM "buys" Chevrolet and Cadillac. It emerges from Chapter 11 unencumbered by outdated production facilities, warring management, befuddled marketing, over-priced labor, restrictive union work rules, astronomical pensions and onerous health care obligations. Chevillac rises from the ashes to steal share from both mainstream and luxury brands, repay its debts and thumb its nose at Bailout Nation's critics. But here's the thing: good GM is "saving" the wrong brands.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 245: Core Competency
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 83 comments
By Robert Farago
April 16, 2009
As TTAC's Bailout Watch series heads for the initially improbable half century mark, it looks like the GM C11 nay-sayers are just about all nayed out. In his column,
Detroit News Auto Editor Manny Lopez finally admits that a Chrysler/GM bankruptcy is. . . an option. Meanwhile, the self-styled AutoExtremist has thrown in the towel. In fact, Peter DeLorenzo now reckons GM is damaged beyond repair. A PR/marketing guy to the end, DeLorenzo has a solution: change GM's name. "
One hundred years of accomplishment and historic value to the American industrial fabric has been decimated in a matter of months. Once one of America’s corporate icons, GM has now been reduced to being a punchline for a running national joke, and this new car company will have to be unburdened of the GM name, pronto." A matter of months? Clearly, DeLorenzo hasn't been paying attention for the last decade or three.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 244: Let There Be Light
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 40 comments
By Robert Farago
April 14, 2009
The New York Times reports that hecklers are verbally assaulting GM's booth babes at the New York Auto Show. Worse, the glamor girls are wearing last year's dresses. Literally. This is not what you'd call death with dignity. This is GM on federal life support, drooling and soiling itself uncontrollably as it waits and waits and waits for someone somewhere to pull the damn plug, already. As I've asserted in the past few episodes of this series, I no longer believe GM can be revived. The company is brain dead. No matter what cancerous parts of The General's terminally ill body Uncle Sam's surgeons separate from the corporate body, GM can't function as an independent entity. Chevrolet and Cadillac? Building what? For whom? At what profit? Both of those brands are money losers losing market share
right now. They may have volume, but they ain't got game. Of course, that's not going to stop the feds from trying to revive GM. And boy, are they---I mean "we" going to piss away a LOT of money.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 243: What’s Old is New
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 74 comments
By Robert Farago
April 6, 2009
GM's new CEO took to the airwaves on Sunday. If industry watchers had any doubts that Fritz Henderson is cut from the same cloth as his discredited, defenestrated predecessor, Henderson's appearance on Meet The Press removed them. Like Rick Wagoner before him, Henderson's facile, vague and evasive responses---re: the epic train wreck known as General Motors---revealed the full genius of the Talking Heads' lyricists. "You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything," David Gregory forgot to interject. Alternatively, we could make this Churchillian: Never have so few said so little about so much. Even so, OMG.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 242: The Straw Man Speaks
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 51 comments
By Robert Farago
April 3, 2009
I view the government's intervention in GM's business (or lack thereof) as automotive ebola. But we can all agree on one thing: the president's decision to fire GM CEO Rick Wagoner was a no-brainer. Giving the Harvard MBA and GM lifer millions of dollars to guide GM to viability was like letting Al Qaeda run a liberal arts university. Now that Wagoner's gone, his supporters are notable by their absence. That's because deep-sixing Red Ink Rick was the right thing to do. It was also the
easy thing to do. While the MSM is lionizing Steve Rattner, the head of the presidential quango that defenestrated the GM CEO, the Obama administration's wallow in the GM quagmire is just beginning.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 241: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 35 comments
By Robert Farago
March 31, 2009
Most auto industry observers have lauded President Obama's decision to defenestrate GM CEO Rick Wagoner and his Board of Bystanders. Their logic is as simple as one, two, three. One: U.S. taxpayers have "loaned" The General billions of dollars. Two: GM's management failed to provide a viable viability plan to return the money. Three: the presidential putsch protects America's "investment" in General Motors. Yes, well, protect THIS. When GM files for bankruptcy 59 days hence, $17.4b to $19.5b worth of taxpayer money will disappear down a rathole, never to return. That's a conservative estimate of the total amount of federal "loans" and grants and God knows what that will be wiped out the moment the judge signs GM's C11 papers. Oh, and after we kiss
that cash goodbye, U.S. taxpayers will provide the cratered carmaker with debtor-in-possession financing. In other words,
more money. And who's to say
that money will ever be repaid? What's the end game? Is there one?
General Motors Death Watch 240: 59 Days to C11
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 83 comments
By Robert Farago
March 29, 2009
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner is set to resign his position tomorrow. The timing of Wagoner's departure is clearly symbolic. It's meant to signal the nation that it's OK throw bailout billions GM's way because it's a new day. Well, there's a new guy at the top, anyway. Which may or may not be true, depending on whether or not Wagoner's hand-picked successor and virtual clone Fritz Henderson inherits the job. If Henderson gets the nod, the symbolism of Wagoner's defenestration will be far richer than its architects intended. For it will confirm the growing suspicion that the president's mantra of hope and change is heavy on the hope and light on the change. And while that plays out, Wagoner's resignation will eventually be seen as a way point on a journey of self-destruction, rather than a turning point on a bridge to... nowhere.
Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 239: Rick Wagoner’s Resignation
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 111 comments
By Charles Dagastino
March 26, 2009
You knew this would happen. Whenever things go wrong or come to an end we can't help but look back and try to figure out why. To look for that one pivotal event that changed the course of events forever. So what did it for GM? When did it happen? After careful analysis I pinpoint their demise to the 3.8L V6 (a.k.a the 231) of the 1970s.
General Motors Death Watch 238: No, No, Nadir
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Posted in Editorials | GM Death Watch | 107 comments
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