Quote:
Originally Posted by t-rex
With all due respect, SierraGS, I don't think you've spent much time in Britain's former colonies!
Vauxhall haven't been sold in India in decades, which may be to its advantage, but I doubt it'd be an instantly recognisable name to them.
I'm not sure how Aussies view Vauxhall, but the brand hasn't been represented there since the 1960s. Maybe some Aussies can shed light on what 'Vauxhall' means to them.
In New Zealand, where the brand lasted until around 1980ish, it's a very stodgy name and the situation is exacerbated by the last crop of models suffering from dreadful reliability issues.
Reviving Vauxhall in South Africa would be disastrous. While the "big six" Velox and Cresta enjoyed popularity in the 1960s, Afrikaners wouldn't touch anything too "Englishy" sounding, prompting GMSA to rebadge everything as Chevrolets in the early 70s. It's a dead name there that I doubt anyone would want revived.
The Irish gradually Vauxhalls with Opels and the last Vauxhalls were sold there in the early 80s. This was done because of Vauxhall's poor brand image and the perceived German superiority the Opel name held.
The only reason Vauxhall was kept in the UK over Opel was because GM feared losing its lucrative fleet sales. At the time GM was planning to phase out Vauxhall, UK fleet buyers held steadfastly to "British" cars and GM felt Opel would be viewed as "foreign", thus risking losing half of their customers. That, coupled with Britain's Thatcher-era revival of nationalism, and victory in the Falklands, prompted GM to keep its UK brand "British".
Frankly I'm quite surprised GM hasn't phased out Vauxhall in favour of Opel in recent years, and I suspect that GM has contemplated how they could go about doing this. From what I gather from today's Britons, they couldn't care less if the cars were called Opels or Vauxhalls, since UK buyers no longer care if a car is "British" or not.
'Vauxhall' generally conjures images of horribly built, dreadfully unreliable (Canadian Pontiac Firenza anyone?) British cars. It's the LAST name in GM's portfolio that should be marketed anywhere, no less as an upscale brand.
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t-rex, thanks for your usual informative market review of foreign markets and timelines in those markets I sincerely do appreciate them and always learn something from them. My main point is that since Opel/Vauxhall will be around for reasons you outline, that GM should maximize its profit on the unique styling they spent on it for the UK market.
Perhaps you missed my statements
"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."
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."
Or my last point that 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.
If a market (for whatever reason) responds to a Buick VXR or a GMC Astra who cares? We know what vehicles these brands/names were first used on but a new market does not and since GM does not know what name is going to "click" with that market they should (after some research) try whatever makes sense and "see what sticks".
I think we are on the same thought process on the idea that trying to keep brands and model names from one market and dropping them on another does not always work and that GM should focus on taking its best products and aligning them effeciently for each market without trying to keep them duplicates of other markets. GM does this in Brazil where the sell the 4-door sedan Opel Astra as a Chevrolet Vectra.