Racing to rebuild GM
By Chris Sorenson - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 4 Comments
Sales are coming back, as is the swagger. Is this rebound for real?
The idea was for Bob Lutz, the vice-chairman of General Motors, to challenge doubters of the beleaguered automaker to race him on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. He would drive Cadillac’s muscular, 556-horsepower CTS-V luxury sedan while challengers would have their choice of rival production models. And, with any luck, Lutz would win and a brilliant marketing campaign would be launched.
But the ad agency’s concept apparently wasn’t bold enough for the former Marine, who, incidentally, flies fighter jets in his spare time. He pushed for having the throwdown on an actual racetrack, where the chance of damage to GM’s battered brand would rise with each twist and turn. “I said, ‘Hey, that’s an interesting idea, but let’s not use the salt flats, because going fast in a straight line isn’t proving anything to anybody,’ ” Lutz said in an interview with Maclean’s. “The world has always known that Americans can build cars that go fast in a straight line.” Continue…
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The decline of the North American car
By Colin Campbell - Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 8:00 AM - 36 Comments
As GM files bankruptcy, a look at who’s to blame and what’s next for the U.S. auto industry
UPDATE (June 1, 2009): General Motors, the once proud icon of U.S. capitalism, filed for bankruptcy Monday. In the following piece, published last November in Maclean’s, Colin Campbell navigates through the rise and fall of the U.S. auto industry. In doing so, he identifies what went wrong at GM and explains whether the car company is even worth saving.
In hall No. 5, tucked far away from the main action at the high-profile Paris Motor Show last month, visitors who looked hard enough would have found the booth belonging to General Motors Corp. Those who went to the trouble—and not many did—were disappointed with what they found.
Paris was the place GM had decided to raise the curtain on a critical piece of its future in a world increasingly focused on efficiency and economy—the Chevy Cruze. The Detroit company is pinning its hopes on the lightweight Cruze to lure car buyers in Asia, Europe and North America away from bestsellers like the Honda Civic. Yet there were none of the usual showbiz trappings at its unveiling: no models leaning against the hood, no rock-concert special effects to usher in the age of the Cruze. Just a plain white stage and the car itself: a conventional, even understated, four-door family sedan. It “had all the pomp and circumstance of a Tuesday,” noted one auto critic. Perhaps it was just as well then that few journalists bothered to show up.
Most automakers look to the Paris show to highlight their next small, fuel-efficient wonders. It’s a science fair disguised as a car show. Mercedes-Benz and BMW were unveiling their first hybrids. Nissan snagged attention with its tiny Nuvu. Hyundai brought along its new mini-car, the i20. But at GM’s second-floor exhibit, visitors were confronted by a collection of massive Hummers and a hulking Cadillac Escalade. “This was emblematic of GM,” says Maryann Keller, an independent auto analyst who has covered the industry since the 1970s. “Here’s this show dedicated to small cars, new technologies, electric vehicles. Why, to Paris, would you bring Hummers, the Escalade and a Camaro? What planet are you on?” Continue…
