The performance of his company hasn't been all that great.
Posted on 06/07/2009 8:41:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’d buy a Penske car before I’d ever buy a government car.
Will Saturn become Uranus?
That was my thought. He will keep the dealer network, but the cars will be made in China or Korea—not the US. It will be the equivalent of buying a foreign made TV that still sports an “American” brand name.
Maybe he’ll team with a foreign maker with a US manufacturing facility. Non UAW of course.
best of luck to Penske in trying to revive Saturn which has always struggled. I had also heard, though I can’t confirm, that GM was loaning Penske a few billion to help int he purchase.
Unless Penske is looking to totally change the direction of the company, wipe the slate clean with newly designed and engineered cars, I don’t see this ending well.
~~Yay for capitalism........... PING!
If this comes to pass, I’ll be driving nothing but Fords or Saturns in the future.
Buying either a Ford or Saturn will be a vote for free capitalism.
Buying GM will be a vote for socialism.
The performance of his company hasn't been all that great.
How is he going to deal with CAFE regulations?
I realize Saturns tend to be smaller cars, but I think the ONE has a huge weapon to put any rivals out of business. Either you force your customers to buy cars they don’t want, or we will shut you down.
A company with a larger product line can be profitable making only a few luxury cars per year, and letting the price (and profits) soar to whatever the market will bear, while selling lots of little tiny cars under a different badge.
Smaller companies get frozen out of this scheme, it just isn’t feasible to make only a few thousand of a high end car.
"Our success has been with handling the business that is closest to the customer,“ Penske stated.
Penske will demand that Saturns will be well built, then his organization will take care of them and the customer.
A win - win brand of car to buy.
that's gonna make a whole lot of FReepers and Pravda loook pretty dim.
Saturn now on my buy list, beside Ford
Currently:
Vue: Mexico
Aura: Kansas
Astra: Belgium
Outlook: Michigan
Sky: Delaware
Unless Penske is looking to totally change the direction of the company, wipe the slate clean with newly designed and engineered cars, I don’t see this ending well.
If he keeps the Saturn model I think you're right. However, Penske is too smart to do that. I think he'll have his people, or some outside contractor, design one fine line of automobiles,and he has a huge dealer network already in place to support it.
Heh.
During the same time frame you cited, GM went from 50 dollars to 86 cents.
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