I agree with you on that level. OTOH, whilae car shopping with a pal, we noted a Korean-made Buick.
About $32,000 for a Korean-made Buick?! Quite one thing to pay that sorta scratch for a car made by union types, quite another to pay it for something made in Korea.
I’m happy ROK has the know-how to build these. But I’m still not sure how the free trade aspect works well enough...
Especially so when Buick has mostly foreign market rebrands in their US lineup - Daewoo and Opel being the primary offenders.
Would have been interesting if they let Buick be the international near-luxury brand while letting Oldsmobile be the US brand with Cadillac-lite and Buick-rebranded models.
I agree with you on that level. OTOH, whilae car shopping with a pal, we noted a Korean-made Buick.
About $32,000 for a Korean-made Buick?! Quite one thing to pay that sorta scratch for a car made by union types, quite another to pay it for something made in Korea.
I’m happy ROK has the know-how to build these. But I’m still not sure how the free trade aspect works well enough...
^ For some reason, Buick acquired the reputation of being a luxury car in Asia and they sell like hotcakes. Where you see a ton of them is wealthy places in Mainland China like Shanghai and Beijing, believe it or not. (In both Korea and Mainland China they also really like Audis as luxury cars, for some reason—I’ve personally never quite understood how that brand survives and what the attraction is.)
When the economic collapse hit the U.S. in 2008, G.E. was told they had too many lines and they would not be bailed out unless they stopped making some. In the end, they cut Oldsmobile (actually killed off a little earlier), Pontiac and Saturn.
They kept the Buick line, even though sales sucked in the U.S. The reason was its branding as a luxury car in Asia, and GM thought they could still make money on Buicks by concentrating on sales in Asia.