Quote:
Originally Posted by mgescuro
Pontiac's thousands of dealers to Saturns hundreds of dealers says you're wrong.
Pontiac as a sporty division works fine. But we cannot trust GM to keep on that track. Pontiac has exactly 2 cars that fit that persona -- G8 and Solstice. The rest is trash. What is the use of a G5? Or a Pontiac Wave/G4(3)? Performance?
We're not talking long run here. In the long run, if GM doesn't make the decisions now, GM will be dead or completely divested.
There is NO point in Pontiac at this stage of the game.
I don't want to see Pontiac as a rebadge brand, losing its identity.
What you want are sales. GM wants sales. But the customer wants to be proud of a car they just bought. And the #1 complaint about GM is that they don't understand the customer. GM builds a mish mash of crap. And Pontiac's goal has been lost.
People want Pontiac to become Holden? Have you checked out the Holden lineup lately? A few Aussie cars with a few Opels. I don't want to see a Pontiac Captiva!! And a G8 family is not enough to support Pontiac.
Without Pontiac in the way, this can clear the path for Chevrolet to revamp its image. it can be a sophisticated American car. It doesn't have to cling to its trashy reputation and image.
Instead of GM whining about losing brands, GM can build us a better Chevy.
|
I just find Pontiac to be a more valuable brand than others. You answered nothing about how Saturn isn't pointless once GM's image in general is repared?? Saturn was a bad idea in the first place. It was the idea of one of the worse sets of management gm has ever had. They said, we can't fix the brands we do have so lets try a new one rather than building better cars to fix the brands that are currently here.
They now realize they need better products to fix GM's image and are bringing them out. To me that is a sign saturn has no point now.
But back on Pontiac, I think triming them down to just the G8, Solstice, and G6 would be fine. Maybe even keep the G5 if you promise to make it a unique car eventually. Basically Pontiac to me with 3 good sedans and 2 or three good coupes and roadster would make way more sense than keeping Saturn. Really if you replace the G6 with a EpII version with AWD only or better yet Alpha you are 90% of the way to fixing Pontiac. A new version of the G5 wouldn't hurt either. I am not a fan of having a G3 at all though unless it's more of a Mini Cooper type car rather than true econobox.
Saturn you are saying needs more dealers, but I am not buying that. In parts of the country I grew up, you can get saturns from other GM dealers if you really want them, but no one there is even asking for them, even though they know about them. They would rather have a Pontiac or Chevy. And Saturn is just extra dealers selling rebadged Chevy's anyhow now. The malibu is nicer all around than the Aura, the Vue could be handed straight over to Chevy to replace the Equinox and maybe even drop the Equinox name for the Vue name. The Astra is pointless so far even though a decent car. Outlook should have been the Traverse in the first place.