long Compost article about banality and stupidity of GM

TV's nooobody wrote:
> MC Pee Pants wrote:
>
>>> By the 1970s, new forces -- rising gasoline prices and competition
>>> from Japan -- were beginning to assault the company and Sloan's
>>> world was passing. GM responded to cheap Japanese imports by cutting
>>> quality. One Chevy model actually left out the back seat to cut
>>> costs.
>>
>> Cite?
>
> Chevette Scooter

Thanks.

--

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
- Maynard James Keenan

TV's Steve Magee wrote:
> "Daniel J. Stern" > wrote in message
> .umich.edu...
>> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, MC Pee Pants wrote:
>>
> To paraphrase someone (don't remember who) - "it's about the cars,
> stupid!"
> (No, not you, Daniel). Build cars people want and they will buy them. If I
> may point to a GM division which has been overlooked in this discussion -
> Holden? Top selling car in Australia is the Holden Commodore, by a long
> chalk. Large, rear wheel drive, goes, stops, handles etc. (Oddly enough
> the
> second biggest selling car is the Ford Falcon - for description, look
> under
> Holden Commodore above).

Chrysler is moving back to RWD in masse. I expect for Ford and GM
(especially Ford) to start offering large modern RWD cars with independent
suspension and large V8's in the near future. The Aussie cars would make an
excellent platform to build these cars on.

> It's been interesting to see the comments about the
> Pontiac GTO (Holden Monaro). Biggest complaint is it doesnt look like a
> GTO.
> But I havent seen a critical review yet about build quality, handling,
> performance, etc. And remember the Monaro is just a 2-door Commodore, with
> a
> very small market locally.

I've said this before. Those who claim the GTO looks like a Grand Prix
should take a look at a picture of a 1964 GTO and a 1964 Tempest. The
1964-1972 GTO's were beautiful cars but were very similar to far more
pedestrian cars. (The 73 LeMans based GTO is a neat anomaly, and the 74
Ventura based GTO is just plain weird.)

> How many largish, rwd cars are made and sold in the US by GM - Cadillac
> excepted - may one ask?

How many RWD cars are sold by GM period? The GTO (not built in the US), the
SSR, the 'vette, and the Caddys. Am I missing any?

Ford has the Mustang, the mid-engined GT, and the 1979-vintage Crown
Vic/Marquis.

> Methinks the buck stops with management. You know what worries me? That
> Holdens new(ish) CEO, Denny Mooney is a product of Detroit philosophy and
> breeding. Holdens last two CEOs were - chronologically - Australian and
> German. From outside the square. So, look for all the reasons you want to
> discover the failing of GM. I'm thinking I can see why...

I don't think GM's woes are because of bad product, I think they're largely
caused by bad management.

--

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
- Maynard James Keenan

TV's Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, MC Pee Pants wrote:
>
>> The 1970's, when all US automakers lost their touch. When the
>> government basically crippled the cars by adopting safety and emission
>> standards that were beyond the technology available at a reasonable
>> price at the time. Thus you had heavy cars with anemic 400+ cubic inch
>> engines that put out <200 horsepower, and got 10 MPG if you were lucky.
>
> Pfft. The technology was there. It wasn't as polished as it is now, but it
> most certainly was there.

The US automakers had to retrofit 70's emissions equipment onto engines
mostly designed in the 50's. For whatever reason, whether it was financial
or a lack of engineers with this sort of experience, the cars suffered
greatly.

> When strict emission control laws took effect
> nationwide in '72-'73, foreign automakers equipped their cars with fuel
> injected engines rather than carbureted ones. When even stricter laws took
> effect in the late '70s and early '80s, foreign makers added feedback
> control to their fuel injection systems.

Older fuel injection systems were often unreliable. For example, the
Rochester mechanical fuel injection that was optional on the 1957 Chevrolet
was primitive. The Volkswagen Type 3 of the early 70's used fuel injection,
and it was so unreliable that most of the Type 3's were converted to
carburetion, using Beetle intake manifolds and carburetors. The '73 VW
Fastback that I learned to drive in had been converted. The carburetor
stuck through the top of the engine compartment, so when the conversion was
done on Squarebacks a box was often constructed to cover the carburetor.

> Meanwhile, Detroit was still farting around with idiotically complex,
> ultra-lean carburetors and highly restrictive intake and exhaust systems
> (GM pellet-type catalytic converters, anyone?) that caused cars to run
> like poo and get garbageful gas mileage.

Don't forget about the Ford Variable Venturi carburetors that came on early
80's 302 V8's. It's sad that Ford saddled a great engine like the Windsor
V8 with such a pile of junk as the VV carburetor. At least they redeemed
themselves with the EFI systems on the post-1989 Mustang GT.

>>> Chevy model actually left out the back seat to cut costs.
>>
>> Cite?
>
> Yeah, I'm really curious about this one, too, since it's made up.

Some early AMC Gremlins were made without a back seat, but I don't recall
any 70's Chevy with no back seat except for the Corvette. In the 50's,
Chevrolet (and other US manufacturers) made a business coupe, which was a
stripper 2 door sedan with no back seat.

>> What Caddy was "only" a Chevy? The only Cadillac that I can think of
>> that was a Chevy clone was the J-body Cimmaron
>
> Y'sure about that? The B-body Cadillac was nothing but a gussied-up
> Caprice Classic after '81. Don't know GM FWD body nomenclature, but most
> Cadillacs of the '80s were nothing more than facelifted Oldsmobuicks.

Not sure about the chassis, but didn't these Caddys use a Cadillac-specific
V8 (425 CID)? I know some Cadillacs used a 350 V8 and some even had 3.8L
(Buick) V6's in them. The 80's FWD Cadillacs had V8's in them, something no
other FWD GM car had at the time. And the 1975 Seville was related to the
Nova/Omega/Ventura/Apollo.

There were many shared components, but the Caddys had a lot more unique
parts than the BOP and Chevy cars did.

>> Cadillac has their own engines that are not available in any other GM
>> make.
>
> Sure they do, now, and now they're decent-to-good. But it hasn't always
> been so on either count. Those J-body cars used the pukeworthy 2.8 V6. And
> the B-bodies in their final twelve years used nothin' but Chevrolet 305s.

The 1990-1996 models had 350s.

>> You tell me one full-sized Japanese truck that outsells F-150s,
>> Silverados,
>> and Rams.
>
> The Honda Ridgeline, by about 20 months from now. Mark my words.

Are you kidding? The Ridgeline looks like a nice enough vehicle (the
locking trunk/cooler is ingenious), but it's not a "real" truck. It will
sell well to soccer moms and the like, but I don't see very many businesses
using it as a work vehicle. It's a freakin' unibody fer Gawd sake! And it
comes with a V6 only, and in only one configuration. If the Nissan Titan
and the Toyota Tundra ("real" trucks, available with V8's) only put a small
dent in full size truck market, then I don't expect much more out of the
Ridgeline.

And since when is a crew-cab truck with a 122" wheelbase (4" shorter than a
regular cab short bed F-150) a full-sized truck?

--

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
- Maynard James Keenan

Steve Magee wrote:

>
> To paraphrase someone (don't remember who) - "it's about the cars, stupid!"
> (No, not you, Daniel). Build cars people want and they will buy them. If I
> may point to a GM division which has been overlooked in this discussion -
> Holden? Top selling car in Australia is the Holden Commodore, by a long
> chalk. Large, rear wheel drive, goes, stops, handles etc. (Oddly enough the
> second biggest selling car is the Ford Falcon - for description, look under
> Holden Commodore above). It's been interesting to see the comments about the
> Pontiac GTO (Holden Monaro). Biggest complaint is it doesnt look like a GTO.
> But I havent seen a critical review yet about build quality, handling,
> performance, etc. And remember the Monaro is just a 2-door Commodore, with a
> very small market locally.

From all I've heard the GTO is a very nice car indeed. It just has
typical Pontiac tack-on-some-plastic-****e styling and is about 10K more
expensive than the Mustang; which I imagine is the real problem.
Doesn't hurt that the new Mustang is actually quite stunning; on looks
alone, it kicks the GTO's ass, never mind that it's less expensive too.

Personally, I actually *like* the GTO - since it looks like a tarted-up
Grand Prix it's practically invisible on the road, despite all its
plastic geehaws. IMHO that's a Good Thing but some people would rather
be noticed. But I'm not going to buy one because it's way out of my
price range; I probably could afford a new Mustang though if I decided I
needed a new car.

>
> How many largish, rwd cars are made and sold in the US by GM - Cadillac
> excepted - may one ask?

Cadillac and... um... yeah.

>
> And the blistering attacks on GM's unionised workforce! GMAFB! Holdens
> workforce is even more unionised, and they recently received a pay rise,
> based on - wait for it - productivity by the company. They were rewarded for
> performance. Gee, how unusual.
>
> Methinks the buck stops with management. You know what worries me? That
> Holdens new(ish) CEO, Denny Mooney is a product of Detroit philosophy and
> breeding. Holdens last two CEOs were - chronologically - Australian and
> German. From outside the square. So, look for all the reasons you want to
> discover the failing of GM. I'm thinking I can see why...

It's a fact that GM has higher costs per unit than their foreign
competition due to pension, healthcare etc. I don't know how Holden
compares to GM in the US. I do know that GM has a large product line
most of which makes me yawn. (and the cars that do interest me
apparently make the general public yawn)

nate


--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

"MC Pee Pants" > wrote in message
...
> How many RWD cars are sold by GM period? The GTO (not built in the US),
> the SSR, the 'vette, and the Caddys. Am I missing any?

The not-yet-available Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice will be rwd.

-=- Tom

> It's a fact that GM has higher costs per unit than
> their foreign competition due to pension,
> healthcare etc.

All I know about pension obligations and corporate management or
mismanagement of them is that even attempting to get at the truth of
what's in there amounts to a full employment program and an artesian
well of frequent-flyer miles for bored MBAs looking for a consulting
gig on the side, so I'll let that one alone.

I suspect that GM's much talked about healthcare costs are

(a) true of other large American manufacturers similarly affected by
demographics; and
(b) a symptom of an approach to healthcare that is pretty
comprehensively broken.

That latter aspect is interesting because it makes comparison to
foreign competition complicated if not outright absurd.

You have to look at all the holdings of all the foreign and
multinational competitors and figure out which parts have more or less
full-ride socialized healthcare systems (most of the First World ones
beyond the US, for sure), and which offer next to nothing except on a
fee-for-service basis to the wealthy, and which are somewhere in
between; and what if anything the competitor does to supplement this in
each case.

Then to be fair you have to do the same thing for the foreign plants,
joint ventures, and offshored vendors of the American corporation.

Then, after a great deal of legwork maybe you're *only* comparing
apples to oranges.

Oh, yes, and start with getting both sides and a third-party analysis
on every number provided by anybody with a vested interest.

Cheers,
--Joe

In article .com>,
says...

>In a Detroit suburb in the late 1980s, General Motors established a
>large technical facility it called the Mona Lisa center, where its
>engineers disassembled Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys in a desperate
>search for the secret of their Japanese competitors' success. They
>analyzed the smallest pieces trying to figure out the best attributes
>to include in future GM models.
>
>The reasons for GM's decline could have been found there on the floor
>of the Mona Lisa center, but not among the parts. It was the whole
>approach. Taking apart existing cars is a backward-looking exercise; it
>doesn't tell you what's going to sell four or five years down the road.
>So while GM was staring in its rearview mirror, its competitors were
>zipping ahead.

What a stupid statement! If GM was clueless as to what made the good cars
so good, they aren't going to find it by blindly forging ahead. I'm sure
that GM learned a lot by taking apart the cars. What do you think the japanese
did when they first started to make cars?
----------------
Alex

Alex Rodriguez wrote:
> In article .com>,
> says...
>
> >In a Detroit suburb in the late 1980s, General Motors established a
> >large technical facility it called the Mona Lisa center, where its
> >engineers disassembled Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys in a desperate
> >search for the secret of their Japanese competitors' success. They
> >analyzed the smallest pieces trying to figure out the best attributes
> >to include in future GM models.
> >
> >The reasons for GM's decline could have been found there on the floor
> >of the Mona Lisa center, but not among the parts. It was the whole
> >approach. Taking apart existing cars is a backward-looking exercise; it
> >doesn't tell you what's going to sell four or five years down the road.
> >So while GM was staring in its rearview mirror, its competitors were
> >zipping ahead.
>
> What a stupid statement! If GM was clueless as to what made the good cars
> so good, they aren't going to find it by blindly forging ahead. I'm sure
> that GM learned a lot by taking apart the cars. What do you think the japanese
> did when they first started to make cars?
> ----------------
> Alex

I think that his point is somewhat valid. Yes, there's gains to be had
from tearing down competitors' vehicles and finding out what makes them
tick... you might see a neat idea that could save some $$ on a
subassembly or something.

What I think he was trying to imply, however, that this was taken to a
bit of an extreme - that is, that GM finds itself in the position of
playing "catch-up" to its competitors and may even think that if they
can figure out how to build cars "as good as" their competitors
suddenly everything will be OK. (e.g. Saturn. It's just as good as a
Toyota! Honest! Really!) GM ironically enough finds itself in the
same position that the Japanese were in in the 70s... and as the
Japanese learned, simply trying to copy American designs or be "just as
good as" American cars didn't get them to the top, but figuring out
what people wanted (reasonably priced, reliable cars with a minimum of
BS) and making a *superior* product (I don't particularly like Japanese
cars, but even I have to admit that for sheer drive-and-forget
reliability they have it all over 80+ percent of American cars
currently made) eventually did.

nate

TV's Nate Nagel wrote:

> From all I've heard the GTO is a very nice car indeed. It just has
> typical Pontiac tack-on-some-plastic-****e styling and is about 10K more
> expensive than the Mustang; which I imagine is the real problem.
> Doesn't hurt that the new Mustang is actually quite stunning; on looks
> alone, it kicks the GTO's ass, never mind that it's less expensive too.

The new Mustang's front end is butt-ugly. The beady-looking headlights and
the wrap-around park lights ruin the entire car for me.

> Personally, I actually *like* the GTO - since it looks like a tarted-up
> Grand Prix it's practically invisible on the road, despite all its
> plastic geehaws. IMHO that's a Good Thing but some people would rather
> be noticed. But I'm not going to buy one because it's way out of my
> price range; I probably could afford a new Mustang though if I decided I
> needed a new car.

The sleeper factor is one of the big plusses for the GTO.

--

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
- Maynard James Keenan

"MC Pee Pants" > wrote in message
...
> TV's Nate Nagel wrote:
>
>> From all I've heard the GTO is a very nice car indeed. It just has
>> typical Pontiac tack-on-some-plastic-****e styling and is about 10K more
>> expensive than the Mustang; which I imagine is the real problem.
>> Doesn't hurt that the new Mustang is actually quite stunning; on looks
>> alone, it kicks the GTO's ass, never mind that it's less expensive too.
>
> The new Mustang's front end is butt-ugly. The beady-looking headlights
> and the wrap-around park lights ruin the entire car for me.

I strongly disagree. The front end is nearly perfect in design...it screams
"I'm a Mustang". It is unmistakeable in it's heritage by the design they
used.

>
>> Personally, I actually *like* the GTO - since it looks like a tarted-up
>> Grand Prix it's practically invisible on the road, despite all its
>> plastic geehaws. IMHO that's a Good Thing but some people would rather
>> be noticed. But I'm not going to buy one because it's way out of my
>> price range; I probably could afford a new Mustang though if I decided I
>> needed a new car.
>
> The sleeper factor is one of the big plusses for the GTO.

Hardly. If it were, it would at least outsell the Aztek (and it is not
doing so). As a former 1967 GTO owner...there are few plusses to the
current GTO...except perhaps it's performance numbers. I'd buy the current
Mustang over the current GTO in a heartbeat...even IF the GTO was the same
price. Heck, I'd take the new Dodge Charger over the GTO...and I don't
think the Charger is particularly a thing of beauty either.

>
> --
>
> Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
> A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
> - Maynard James Keenan
>