One wonders how many people read the stunningly inaccurate post about a recent investigation that had actually been closed 2 1/2 years earlier, and made the assumption that the poster knew what he was talking about! and that it was a recent phenomenon.
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I assume it was what you say. I would hope the audience would at least check out the details but assume some do not.
However, my posts are pretty much current. I hope you understand I want GM to succeed but I will never let them forget the past mistakes. Some of them still exist as they work to improve.
My advice on the Impala ordeal would be to contact owners for a service call to see if the problem exists. Costly to fix? Yes. To me, an investment in true customer service. Not Lip Service!
I'm wondering if the car makers aren't really looking to try and get people used to smaller lux type cars to meet the upcoming big jump in CAFE and that is a task for Verano?
On the first I would agree. When you see all the options available in a Civic or Focus you're starting to see heavily contented small cars. Started with MINI and BMW when you get down to it: proved people will pay for a premium car that isn't necessarily big. Now you're seeing C-segment cars segment some, with the higher trims going REALLY high in content (leather, nav, heated seats, automated parallel parking???).
I don't think this is a job for Buick though, and definitely not the Verano. The engine they chose is a far cry from the magic 40 MPG mark, so they're not going after the typical Buick buyer who wants better MPGs: the LaCrosse's mild hybrid setup does a lot better. I'm honestly not sure what they're aiming for.
The Cimmaron didn't even bother to disguise the fact it was a Cavalier underneath.
What about Catera? What about Alante? Didn't GM introduce a Cadillac small car in Europe with a small (4 cyl) engine in the last few years? Maybe they will import a version of it here.
The Allante had a unique body built by Pininfarina in Italy. It shared its platform with no other GM car. The Catera was based on the Opel Omega - a much better starting point than the lowly Cavalier J-body. I think that small European car is called the BLS. Heck, if BMW can have a tiny 1-Series, why can't Cadillac have a similar car? I doubt somebody like me is the target market for this car anyway.
if BMW can have a tiny 1-Series, why can't Cadillac have a similar car? I doubt somebody like me is the target market for this car anyway.
Well, maybe GM is getting all of us ready for small compact cars as the norm. The Volt, Buick near luxury(?) Verano. Think that the MPG fleet average will go to over 50 by 2025. Maybe a Verano or BLS will be considered full size in 14 years to cut weight and achieve that MPG goal.
I remember when the Catera first came out. My dad, who was a DeVille man, commented that he wouldn't take it of they gave it to him for free. Oh, well.
Wonder what he'd have thought of the current CTS?
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
It's hard to compare German highline brands in the homeland to how they operate here - they aren't seen as so special and exotic there. Many of the models don't really have any prestige there, whereas here the marketers try to raise them all up a level. In Germany, a 1er is just a small car more expensive than mainstream, but with no special pretensions - and a MB A-class or Audi A1 is even a notch cheaper, I think.
It would be interesting to see if Caddy could pull off such a scheme, but I don't know if it is possible in this market where brands are viewed differently.
FWIW my Indiana made cars have been flawless. Thumbs up, Hoosiers!
My favorite cars of all were made in Indiana..Studebaker! How I wish I could go back and pick up a new '64 model of each car line (three), and also a pickup truck and a big truck. Sigh.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
What about Catera? What about Alante? Didn't GM introduce a Cadillac small car in Europe with a small (4 cyl) engine in the last few years? Maybe they will import a version of it here.
All failures. The European car was the BLS. Looked like a tiny CTS but apparently did not sell well. Now the ATS coming.
The government held off when it first could sell GM stock, gambling that it would go up. Instead, it went down. They feel the downside risk is greater than upside risk, so dump it now and take the loss:
One salesman told me he wouldn't even waste my time showing me that car.
Perhaps the dealership manager should have taken it a step further, and not purchased any Cimmarons for resale to the public at all. If all GM dealerships had boycotted GM's Cimmaron, GM would have been forced to ship them all to Mexico or dump them in the Bermuda Triangle.
It would have spared the public from the embarrassment.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
That pro-bailout mindset has a negative 16 BILLION dollar impact if GM shares were all sold at today's prices, and that's highly unlikely. Because if the Gov't suddenly dumped all their shares, the price would plumment and the losses might eclipse 20 BILLION when all is said and done.
I love it when a loss of nearly 20 billion is spun into a positive light.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Costly to fix? Yes. To me, an investment in true customer service. Not Lip Service!
I agree. Honda not stepping up to the plate and fixing my transmission free of charge after the warranty period free of charge may have been enough to make me ANTI Honda for life. However, they did step up, and basically without stating it said, we don't accept our transmission lasting only as long as a BIG 3 tranny, so were replacing it free of charge.
Because they did what they did, I'm still PRO HONDA (though they don't make anything I'd buy right now - though the CRV is good and the S2000 was hot.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
In the same light as those who say I'm in the minority when I report that GM did big post-warranty work for me free at five years and 79K miles, I suggest you check out the Honda Odyssey forums for folks' reports about Honda's lack of action there.
I know one person with an Odyssey..an '05. When my Uplander had a pressure control solenoid replaced for free at 79K, his Odyssey with 70K miles had a complete tranny failure and Honda's goodwill gesture was that he had to pay $1,800. My friend, younger than me and a tech-savvy guy, is anti-Honda for life now.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
Agreed! I alos know one person who was hosed by GM....ME!!
Because an air bag sensor went bad on my Yukon and it was out of warranty, the dealer made me pay. I am anti-GM for LIFE!
Let alone power steering failure and the infamous MAP sensor that almost caused a few accidents (A/C Compressor, shock absorber,water pump failed as well). Did I mention the front transfer case was noisy when I traded it for the Optima SX?
I guess the difference between me and certain other posters here, is I don't deny GM had problems. There, I said it. Other manufacturers' issues are completely glossed over. That's what I dislike. Plus, I find it extremely odd that folks who hate GM post for months on end to a GM forum. Some post completely erroneous or ridiculously slanted information...I'm not talking opinions, I'm talking factually incorrect things. I dislike Toyotas, but don't even visit that forum yet alone post all the time.
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Never has there been a poster on Edmunds who spends more time worrying about what other posters write than the actual topic at hand... sheesh. :sick:
Btw, if you want fairies and pixie dust sprinkled all over a GM thread, there is another one for "GM fans", it sounds like you already have the rose colored glasses needed to join.
This from a guy who posts wrong stuff and posts the same pic of an SRX fire four or five times--recall of 3,996 vehicles--but posts absolutely nothing about huge recalls of other manufacturers. I think once something gets posted that is factually wrong, it becomes 'fact' sadly, so it makes sense to post facts, and identify opinions as opinions. This is common-sense stuff.
Reflecting on Pearl Harbor Day today and the losses incurred there and in the next four years. Hope it's not politically incorrect to say.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
God bless all the men and women of the armed services who served our country and those who serve today! Both my Grandpop and my wife's father were WWII veterans. My Grandpop was in the Army and served in the European theatre and my wife's father was in the Navy and served in the Pacific theatre. They truly were the Greatest Generation, though they had too much modesty and class to claim that title.
Anger and resentment? There's plenty to go around on this board.
I merely remember. Our local paper has an article about a guy alive today who was there.
This isn't ancient history. There are people alive on all sides who participated.
And that is the last thing I will say about it. Fire away. I'm back to discussing GM products in a balanced way when also mentioning the competition...be it good, be it bad.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
That pro-bailout mindset has a negative 16 BILLION dollar impact if GM shares were all sold at today's prices, and that's highly unlikely. Because if the Gov't suddenly dumped all their shares, the price would plumment and the losses might eclipse 20 BILLION when all is said and done.
Fair criticism, but I still think it was "less bad" than the alternative of letting GM disintegrate when the crisis was mostly caused by the big banks.
Also, we're looking at GM shares with 13M sales/year, what will it be worth when sales hit 15 or 16M? 17 even? Your outlook is glass-half-empty.
Korea bailed out Hyundai and the stock has had a TENFOLD increase from 2009 to 2011, so they look like geniuses. 1000% returns.
That sort of gain is unlikely with a much bigger company like GM, but let's see their stock values when the market bounces back to a more normalized sales level.
To add to your criticism, it's wrong to brag about profits when the government basically ate a huge loss to absorb huge amounts of their liabilities. Even going back a bit further, they had to sell off brands they owned to make the numbers look good.
Still, new products like the Cruze and Sonic show a fresh outlook from GM designers, so they're better positioned for when the economy bounces back.
I guess the difference between me and certain other posters here, is I don't deny GM had problems.
At least you finally find some agreement with those certain other posters. I will admit GM products are greatly improved. There, I said it!
I mostly bought GM's in the past so I could care less about other manufacturer's problems, just my ownership experience with many GM issues. That's why I post here.
My family purchased GM's predominately for over 50 years.
Too bad GM went down in flames because their business model was flawed which allowed the "other manufactures" to make huge gains as their products stagnated. The competition's products are far from perfect just were better than GM products during the dark years until the bankruptcy and bailout.
If they would have moved the G8 to Chevy, I would have purchased the Impala SS which perhaps it would have become. Still want a 'Vette.
I have seen one new "Caprice" (G8) in our town police patrol in the past few weeks. I wish I could get a good look at it and/or talk to a cop about it. I wish Chevy would introduce it to civilians...and build it here (sigh).
I think they're afraid of the CAFE if they do sell it.
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I know one person with an Odyssey..an '05. When my Uplander had a pressure control solenoid replaced for free at 79K, his Odyssey with 70K miles had a complete tranny failure and Honda's goodwill gesture was that he had to pay $1,800. My friend, younger than me and a tech-savvy guy, is anti-Honda for life now.
The good thing about that is that if enough people have those kind of issues with Honda (or Toyota, or anybody), then enough defectors to other brands will cause loss of market share for Honda. Even though there are still people who might love Honda. This is what happened to the D3 in the 70's-00's - there are enough people with negative experiences that drove them elsewhere, and the large loss of market share was inevitable. People tend to be loyal to brands unless something happens to drive them away.
The way GM and the rest of the D3 can be successful is to have competitive products and treat their customers right. Having missteps on the side of the competitors is also the kind of luck they need, so that former loyalists to other brands will be tempted to try the newly competitive GM products.
That sort of gain is unlikely with a much bigger company like GM, but let's see their stock values when the market bounces back to a more normalized sales level.
A bit of an assumption that today is not the "normal sales level" - today could be the new normal. Perhaps the boom years were the "bubble sales level".
You could be right, but that would be tragic for the whole auto industry. We'll see a few more weaker brands go out of business if that's the case.
Sales still are increasing. Looking back to the early 80's recession, sales dropped from 14-15m in the late 70's to 10.5m in '82. Sales didn't return back to 15m units until '85. Considering Ford and GM are comfortably profitable, they should be fine going forward.
But '81 and '82 were both horrible years at 10.7 and 10.5. Didn't Chrysler get government loans in 79? Strange that they were in that bad of shape when sales were pretty good in '78. Though they did drop by 1.3m in '79. The bottom didn't fall out until 1980.
Plus in the late 90's through the '00's it seemed a lot more people leased and turned in their cars for a new one every 2-3 years. I don't know nearly as many today that lease than back then. I think people are more content to keep cars longer, so it will be harder for the industry to get back to 17m units. That was likely a bubble too.
I wish we could get a civilian version of this car too! Screw CAFE! They should let the market determine what to sell, not a bunch of eco-weenie, Birkenstock-wearing, irrelevant ex-hippies!
Strange that they were in that bad of shape when sales were pretty good in '78. Though they did drop by 1.3m in '79. The bottom didn't fall out until 1980.
1977-79 was a great time for the American auto industry, if you were General Motors. Not so great if you were Ford, or especially Chrysler.
In 1977, for example, car sales were something like this (now this is just cars, not trucks, vans, SUVs, etc, which were counted separate in those days, and numbers aren't as readily available)
By 1979, the production looked like this: 1. GM: 5.370M 2. Ford: 2.694M 3. Chrysler: 1.126M 4. AMC: 168K.
And in 1980, when things started crashing: 1. GM : 5.054M 2. Ford: 1.585M 3. Chrysler: 764K 4. AMC 200K.
Chrysler had always depended more on sales of compact cars than Ford or GM did, and from 1974 onward they depended even more on them. In 1975 the only "big" car that was popular in the whole Mopar lineup was the Cordoba, an intermediate personal luxury coupe, that sold about 150,000 units. Traditional favorites like the Newport, New Yorker, Gran Fury, and even midsized cars like the Coronet, Charger and Satellite ("the new small Fury" for 1975) never really recovered from the fuel crunch.
So, they just didn't have all the profit from big cars coming in that Ford and GM did. They also waited too long in replacing the Dart and Valiant. Those two were still wildly popular in 1974, but in 1975, Ford scored a smash hit with the Granada, a compact that lured in buyers with promises of a compact car that gave you big car luxury (and also big car handling and fuel economy, but they didn't mention that in the ads. ) And the "European" Nova was fairly popular as well, so the Dart/Valiant started to fade away. And by the time the Aspen/Volare replaced them, it fell far short of expectation in sales.
By 1979, Chrysler really only had two "midsized" cars...the Cordoba and Magnum, both coupes. The Dodge sold around 30K, while the Cordoba might have sold around 80-85K. They also only had three full-sized cars: the Dodge St. Regis, Chrysler Newport, and New Yorker, all sedans. They sold about 77K Newports, 54K New Yorkers (including 15K 5th Ave editions), and about 34K St. Regises, although about half of those were police cars. Everything else was marketed as a compact or smaller.
So, Chrysler had very little to offer in the more profitable car classes. Most of their sales by then were from the Omni/Horizon or Aspen/Volare, although the more upscale Diplomat/LeBaron sold somewhat well. There were also a lot of Mitsubishi-badged "Captive Imports", such as the Dodge Colt, Challenger, Plymouth Arrow. Sales of those aren't included in the totals above.
GM did a lot of war work, including making machine guns. (Statesman.com).
A lot of lives were lost in WWII. I'm sure some of those lost lives were to blame on GM and their unreliable parts, undependable engineering and such, with perhaps locked up machine guns/jammed/inoperable when you need them most.
I wouldn't bet my life going into battle on a GM Product, sorry!
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
I'm sure some of those lost lives were to blame on GM and their unreliable parts, undependable engineering and such, with perhaps locked up machine guns/jammed/inoperable when you need them most.
Yes, we won the war. I suppose the parts weren't so horrible that it made us lose.
Though I think people are missing the point. That perhaps less lives would have been lost if our military equipment had been more reliable and higher tech.
WWII had a big cost, not only in dollars but lives, I'm sure you can agree with that.
I'm not a gun person, so I have no idea who makes the best most reliable weaponry, but I'm saying, personally, I wouldn't feel comfortable joining the military if I knew Gov't Motors was in charge of my equipment.
thinking of a favorite video game, the Steyr Aug is one of my favorite assault rifles.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Comments
Regards,
OW
However, my posts are pretty much current. I hope you understand I want GM to succeed but I will never let them forget the past mistakes. Some of them still exist as they work to improve.
My advice on the Impala ordeal would be to contact owners for a service call to see if the problem exists. Costly to fix? Yes. To me, an investment in true customer service. Not Lip Service!
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
On the first I would agree. When you see all the options available in a Civic or Focus you're starting to see heavily contented small cars. Started with MINI and BMW when you get down to it: proved people will pay for a premium car that isn't necessarily big. Now you're seeing C-segment cars segment some, with the higher trims going REALLY high in content (leather, nav, heated seats, automated parallel parking???).
I don't think this is a job for Buick though, and definitely not the Verano. The engine they chose is a far cry from the magic 40 MPG mark, so they're not going after the typical Buick buyer who wants better MPGs: the LaCrosse's mild hybrid setup does a lot better. I'm honestly not sure what they're aiming for.
What about Catera? What about Alante? Didn't GM introduce a Cadillac small car in Europe with a small (4 cyl) engine in the last few years? Maybe they will import a version of it here.
Well, maybe GM is getting all of us ready for small compact cars as the norm. The Volt, Buick near luxury(?) Verano. Think that the MPG fleet average will go to over 50 by 2025. Maybe a Verano or BLS will be considered full size in 14 years to cut weight and achieve that MPG goal.
Wonder what he'd have thought of the current CTS?
It would be interesting to see if Caddy could pull off such a scheme, but I don't know if it is possible in this market where brands are viewed differently.
My favorite cars of all were made in Indiana..Studebaker! How I wish I could go back and pick up a new '64 model of each car line (three), and also a pickup truck and a big truck. Sigh.
All failures. The European car was the BLS. Looked like a tiny CTS but apparently did not sell well. Now the ATS coming.
Let's Divest of GM Yesterday
Perhaps the dealership manager should have taken it a step further, and not purchased any Cimmarons for resale to the public at all. If all GM dealerships had boycotted GM's Cimmaron, GM would have been forced to ship them all to Mexico or dump them in the Bermuda Triangle.
It would have spared the public from the embarrassment.
I love it when a loss of nearly 20 billion is spun into a positive light.
I agree. Honda not stepping up to the plate and fixing my transmission free of charge after the warranty period free of charge may have been enough to make me ANTI Honda for life. However, they did step up, and basically without stating it said, we don't accept our transmission lasting only as long as a BIG 3 tranny, so were replacing it free of charge.
Because they did what they did, I'm still PRO HONDA (though they don't make anything I'd buy right now - though the CRV is good and the S2000 was hot.
I know one person with an Odyssey..an '05. When my Uplander had a pressure control solenoid replaced for free at 79K, his Odyssey with 70K miles had a complete tranny failure and Honda's goodwill gesture was that he had to pay $1,800. My friend, younger than me and a tech-savvy guy, is anti-Honda for life now.
Because an air bag sensor went bad on my Yukon and it was out of warranty, the dealer made me pay. I am anti-GM for LIFE!
Let alone power steering failure and the infamous MAP sensor that almost caused a few accidents (A/C Compressor, shock absorber,water pump failed as well). Did I mention the front transfer case was noisy when I traded it for the Optima SX?
Regards,
OW
Btw, if you want fairies and pixie dust sprinkled all over a GM thread, there is another one for "GM fans", it sounds like you already have the rose colored glasses needed to join.
Reflecting on Pearl Harbor Day today and the losses incurred there and in the next four years. Hope it's not politically incorrect to say.
Do you feel the same anger and resentment about 9-11 when you fill up your gas tank with that foreign sludge?
Because the guy running the station has anything to do with a few ignorant slimeballs who launched an equally horific attack on our Country.
Just like the line worker at a Toyota plant in Texas has anything to do with the pilots who took part in an event that happened 70 years ago...
Edit: My apologies, this has nothing to do with the topic. :sick:
My grandfather was a Navy crewman (god rest his soul) and my grandmother (who is still with us today) was a nurse along with her twin sister.
GM rejects latest Saab proposal, Swedish Automobile to pursue alternatives
All the WWII vets in my family, mostly my mom's brothers, have passed on.
I merely remember. Our local paper has an article about a guy alive today who was there.
This isn't ancient history. There are people alive on all sides who participated.
And that is the last thing I will say about it. Fire away. I'm back to discussing GM products in a balanced way when also mentioning the competition...be it good, be it bad.
It was made of mostly stamped pieces and only cost $15 to make. Today, it is a highly sought-after collectible firearm.
Correct, and it was basically a clone of the Saab 9-3, which were both loosely based on the Aura and G6 platform (Epsilon).
Fair criticism, but I still think it was "less bad" than the alternative of letting GM disintegrate when the crisis was mostly caused by the big banks.
Also, we're looking at GM shares with 13M sales/year, what will it be worth when sales hit 15 or 16M? 17 even? Your outlook is glass-half-empty.
Korea bailed out Hyundai and the stock has had a TENFOLD increase from 2009 to 2011, so they look like geniuses. 1000% returns.
That sort of gain is unlikely with a much bigger company like GM, but let's see their stock values when the market bounces back to a more normalized sales level.
To add to your criticism, it's wrong to brag about profits when the government basically ate a huge loss to absorb huge amounts of their liabilities. Even going back a bit further, they had to sell off brands they owned to make the numbers look good.
Still, new products like the Cruze and Sonic show a fresh outlook from GM designers, so they're better positioned for when the economy bounces back.
Not really, you're just not reading certain threads if you think that.
I dislike Toyotas, but don't even visit that forum
Like I said...
Every issue the imports is discussed at length, believe me.
At least you finally find some agreement with those certain other posters. I will admit GM products are greatly improved. There, I said it!
I mostly bought GM's in the past so I could care less about other manufacturer's problems, just my ownership experience with many GM issues. That's why I post here.
My family purchased GM's predominately for over 50 years.
Too bad GM went down in flames because their business model was flawed which allowed the "other manufactures" to make huge gains as their products stagnated. The competition's products are far from perfect just were better than GM products during the dark years until the bankruptcy and bailout.
If they would have moved the G8 to Chevy, I would have purchased the Impala SS which perhaps it would have become. Still want a 'Vette.
Regards,
OW
Which makes even more striking given the C-11.
Lost an Uncle in the Philippines and my Dad went to Europe but thank God he came home safe.
God Bless Our Troops, Past and Present. :shades:
Regards,
OW
I think they're afraid of the CAFE if they do sell it.
The good thing about that is that if enough people have those kind of issues with Honda (or Toyota, or anybody), then enough defectors to other brands will cause loss of market share for Honda. Even though there are still people who might love Honda. This is what happened to the D3 in the 70's-00's - there are enough people with negative experiences that drove them elsewhere, and the large loss of market share was inevitable. People tend to be loyal to brands unless something happens to drive them away.
The way GM and the rest of the D3 can be successful is to have competitive products and treat their customers right. Having missteps on the side of the competitors is also the kind of luck they need, so that former loyalists to other brands will be tempted to try the newly competitive GM products.
A bit of an assumption that today is not the "normal sales level" - today could be the new normal. Perhaps the boom years were the "bubble sales level".
You could be right, but that would be tragic for the whole auto industry. We'll see a few more weaker brands go out of business if that's the case.
Sales still are increasing. Looking back to the early 80's recession, sales dropped from 14-15m in the late 70's to 10.5m in '82. Sales didn't return back to 15m units until '85. Considering Ford and GM are comfortably profitable, they should be fine going forward.
But '81 and '82 were both horrible years at 10.7 and 10.5. Didn't Chrysler get government loans in 79? Strange that they were in that bad of shape when sales were pretty good in '78. Though they did drop by 1.3m in '79. The bottom didn't fall out until 1980.
Plus in the late 90's through the '00's it seemed a lot more people leased and turned in their cars for a new one every 2-3 years. I don't know nearly as many today that lease than back then. I think people are more content to keep cars longer, so it will be harder for the industry to get back to 17m units. That was likely a bubble too.
1977-79 was a great time for the American auto industry, if you were General Motors. Not so great if you were Ford, or especially Chrysler.
In 1977, for example, car sales were something like this (now this is just cars, not trucks, vans, SUVs, etc, which were counted separate in those days, and numbers aren't as readily available)
1. GM: 5.766M
2. Ford: 2.554M
3. Chrysler: 1.472M
4. AMC: 182K
By 1979, the production looked like this:
1. GM: 5.370M
2. Ford: 2.694M
3. Chrysler: 1.126M
4. AMC: 168K.
And in 1980, when things started crashing:
1. GM : 5.054M
2. Ford: 1.585M
3. Chrysler: 764K
4. AMC 200K.
Chrysler had always depended more on sales of compact cars than Ford or GM did, and from 1974 onward they depended even more on them. In 1975 the only "big" car that was popular in the whole Mopar lineup was the Cordoba, an intermediate personal luxury coupe, that sold about 150,000 units. Traditional favorites like the Newport, New Yorker, Gran Fury, and even midsized cars like the Coronet, Charger and Satellite ("the new small Fury" for 1975) never really recovered from the fuel crunch.
So, they just didn't have all the profit from big cars coming in that Ford and GM did. They also waited too long in replacing the Dart and Valiant. Those two were still wildly popular in 1974, but in 1975, Ford scored a smash hit with the Granada, a compact that lured in buyers with promises of a compact car that gave you big car luxury (and also big car handling and fuel economy, but they didn't mention that in the ads.
By 1979, Chrysler really only had two "midsized" cars...the Cordoba and Magnum, both coupes. The Dodge sold around 30K, while the Cordoba might have sold around 80-85K. They also only had three full-sized cars: the Dodge St. Regis, Chrysler Newport, and New Yorker, all sedans. They sold about 77K Newports, 54K New Yorkers (including 15K 5th Ave editions), and about 34K St. Regises, although about half of those were police cars. Everything else was marketed as a compact or smaller.
So, Chrysler had very little to offer in the more profitable car classes. Most of their sales by then were from the Omni/Horizon or Aspen/Volare, although the more upscale Diplomat/LeBaron sold somewhat well. There were also a lot of Mitsubishi-badged "Captive Imports", such as the Dodge Colt, Challenger, Plymouth Arrow. Sales of those aren't included in the totals above.
Also, Wards Auto has sales data for both cars and trucks going back almost to 1931
They list '79 car sales at 10,673,000 and trucks at 3,480,000.
'80 8,949,235 and 2,494,378 trucks
'81 8,489,202 and 2,288,778 trucks.
Man do a lot more trucks sell today. Even last year over 6 million trucks were sold. During the peak years it was over 9 million trucks.
A lot of lives were lost in WWII. I'm sure some of those lost lives were to blame on GM and their unreliable parts, undependable engineering and such, with perhaps locked up machine guns/jammed/inoperable when you need them most.
I wouldn't bet my life going into battle on a GM Product, sorry!
Please rethink that comment.
:shades:
Credit where credit is due.
Though I think people are missing the point. That perhaps less lives would have been lost if our military equipment had been more reliable and higher tech.
WWII had a big cost, not only in dollars but lives, I'm sure you can agree with that.
I'm not a gun person, so I have no idea who makes the best most reliable weaponry, but I'm saying, personally, I wouldn't feel comfortable joining the military if I knew Gov't Motors was in charge of my equipment.
thinking of a favorite video game, the Steyr Aug is one of my favorite assault rifles.