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To: Gay State Conservative; BlackElk
Until a few years ago,I saw far more Oldsmobiles in my neck of the woods than Pontiacs.....and far,far,far more than Saturns.

I think they chose the wrong division to kill off.


Killing Olds was a bad idea. Killing Saturn might be worse. You're in Massachusetts, I am in northwest Illinois, but lived most my life in Connecticut. Back east small car buyers typically buy Hondas and Toyotas. Here in the rust belt, you see a lot more Chevy Cavaliers and Dodge Neons.

What's more important is the fact that different car lines fare better in different economic climates. With high gas prices, Hummer sales go down, Saturn sales go up.

During the Depression, the top selling margue in the mid-30's was the value-priced Plymouths. Once a car line is killed off, so is the opportunity to take advantage of such a change in climate. What's more, in the case of Plymouth, Daimler-Chrysler had to put the economy-priced Voyager and Neon under the Chrysler banner, forever killing the the Chrysler brand image as an "elite" upscale car. (Of course this started in the '80's with the Lebaron and 4-cyl New Yorker.)
47 posted on 11/20/2005 4:58:49 PM PST by sittnick (There's no salvation in politics.)
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To: sittnick
forever killing the the Chrysler brand image as an "elite" upscale car.

LOL!! Ever hear of the "K-Car?"

52 posted on 11/20/2005 5:23:05 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: sittnick
During the Depression, the top selling margue in the mid-30's was the value-priced Plymouths.
No. While Plymouth was the best selling Chrysler product of the 1930s it was never the best selling automobile. Nevertheless, your point remains in that the Plymouth was a new invention of the late 1920s that importantly served to bolster the overall position of Chrysler. The 1930s were marked by such branding schemes, some of which worked and others that flopped.

Above all, it was politics that killed off competition in the 1930s and not the business environment. Taxes, price controls and the NRA and its successor, the Wagner Act, bolstered the strong and killed off the weak, who might have had a chance, otherwise.

The sad irony of the GM story is that the company profited from the Government's 1930s/40s/early 50s interventions that hindered competition, but at the same time set the foundation in these labor agreements for today's mess.

53 posted on 11/20/2005 5:29:33 PM PST by nicollo (All economics are politics)
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