Quote:
Originally Posted by Buick61
We're not talking about better car, per se. We're talking about outright survivability in the marketplace The LX cars have a far wider appeal than any RWD GM car of this decade, and it would be foolish of them to cast it aside. The amount of marketing money it would cost for GM to achieve the same amount of consumer awareness that the 300/300C and Charger enjoy would just not work in this current climate.
This merger, were it to happen, is for corporate survival. They just don't have the funds to do anything but keep the plant's lights on for cars that are already on the books and are already profitable. Even if we're talking about the next product cycle, GM would be wise to capitalize on the LX/LC's success and give Buick a real car, for once, in the same vein as the 300C. Pontiac wishes it had the Challenger. GM can't start from scratch with zeta and do better than what Chrysler has achieved with LX.
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I disagree that GM could not make Zeta work for more volume than the Chrysler LX cars. Zeta is lighter weight and has better handling characteristics, just to start. Zeta is also far more flexible than LX, as you can see in the dramatic differences between G8 and Camaro, vs the Challenger/Charger variants. The only thing that was ever missing was the commitment by GM to produce a line of models to take advantage of the platform.
However, GM would likely keep the LX/LY cars as the R&D money has already been spent on the replacements and upgrades in tooling for those cars, and GM would likely keep the cars on that platform as long as it is viable. LY is also a point of differentiation for Chrysler's brands, so I would not see it going anytime soon in a merger. This is going to take 10+ years to integrate Chrysler into the product plans at GM, if not more.