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Originally Posted by t-rex
Well in Europe at least!
India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Tanzania are all RHD countries.
I too wonder why SierraGS worries so much about the existence of separate Opel and Vauxhall brands. It's for all intents and purposes one brand, just with those going to the UK wearing Vauxhall badges.
In theory, you could brand your products by dozens of different names at only a nominal cost. Vauxhall and Holden are entrenched names in their respective markets, and getting rid of them could potentially be disastrous for GM. Selling Opels as Vauxhalls in the UK costs GM nothing more than the cost of the "Vauxhall" emblem, and maybe office letterhead, and helps keep market share up through use of an established brand name.
BTW, Opels are Opels in Ireland, not Vauxhalls!
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You are correct that it is a minor cost to sell Vauxhall's in the UK opposed to Opels and GM avoids buyer backlash in a strong market for GM.
My reason for holding Opel and Vauxhall/Holden separate other than they are strong brands in their home markets is that I think GM should sell and manufacture Vauxhall's in India and make Vauxhall the mid-level brand there. Vauxhall is a RHD brand that is going to be established as mid-level along with Opel in Europe so it is logical to expand this to the India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand markets and since the old Opel models seem to do better than the GMDAT ones in Australia they will be sold as Holdens in Australia/New Zealand.
This plan would be duplicated in South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Tanzania using either the Holden or Vauxhall name.
I am also toying with the idea of selling a expanded line (from just the VXR) of RWD Vauxhalls with (LHD) in Europe along side Opels similar to what should be Pontiac/Saturn dealers here.
With a expanded Hummer line of smaller more "Jeep" focused models, Hummer would be sold along with Vauxhall in Vauxhall/Hummer dealers and GM can re-enter the Japanese market with Holden/Hummer and since GM will never get a large part of the Japanese market it should focus on Holden/Hummer and Saab/Cadillac only to maximize margins.
Note that all of these markets (except Australia/New Zealand and Japan) will have Chevrolet under Holden/Vauxhall and Saab/Cadillac above them.
One last point I would not even limit names to Holden or Vauxhall in these new RHD markets, if Buick, Daewoo, Pontiac, GMC or Saturn "click" better with the market then use them. As you say there is not much cost involved in marketing a separate brand for a entire country and what many has missed here is GM has to have a marketing campaign focused on each of these markets anyway so use the Brands and Model names that work best.