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Bought our first GM vehicle


F250

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Yep, cheap as in very cheap assembly cost.

 

Were the individual parts expensive? Yes, but so was the car.

 

Did Ford spend a fortune prepping a plant to assemble the GT in volume? They did not.

 

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And let's talk 'revisionist history':

 

Where was Ford five years after they launched the GT?

 

And where was GM five years after the Kappas? Heck, what happened to PONTIAC and SATURN?

 

Ford launched the GT AND fixed their NA vehicle ops.

 

GM launched the Kappas instead of fixing their NA ops. That's the difference.

 

It's perfect that you deleted the critical comments I made about Ford when you quoted me.

That pretty much is what I'm talking about here, the point is Ford, GM and Chrysler ALL lost their way and each paid the price for their shortsightedness. Ford fortunately got the turn around started just early enough to avoid bankruptcy. Wake-up call? New leadership just in time? ...Or just lucky?

 

What happened to Saturn you ask? The same thing that happened to Mercury.

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Would GM have kept Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer if it could have gotten its way with the government?

I think it would have...those companies were only culled to make the government and taxpayers think

that they had achieved meaningful and lasting reforms within GM.

Edited by jpd80
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It's a used 2008 Saturn Sky.

Stop laughing its a good looking fun car.

Just an addition to the fleet it was a good deal, low mileage great condition find.

This Kappa platform handles good! Too bad it was cut short. To me its sort of what the original 1953 Corvette was before performance went nuts. Just a fun 2 seat roadster.

 

Congratulations! The Sky and Solstice were kind of cool. If they are like the Miata I couldn't even fit in one.

 

I checked around to see what they are charging for these up here in Canada and it's roughly between $16k to $18k.

 

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Would GM have kept Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer if it could have gotten its way with the government?

I think it would have...those companies were only culled to make the government and taxpayers think

that they had achieved meaningful and lasting reforms within GM.

I'd imagine what could had been done to avoid BK then (2000-05). I'd would killed Saturn and rolled it's products to Olds and Pontiac, niche Pontiac to performance and Hummer would had been part of GMC as originally planned.

 

I'd also would pull a Ford and mortgage everything while shearing some factories and a few non-automotive businesses.

Edited by Fgts
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That pretty much is what I'm talking about here, the point is Ford, GM and Chrysler ALL lost their way and each paid the price for their shortsightedness. Ford fortunately got the turn around started just early enough to avoid bankruptcy. Wake-up call? New leadership just in time? ...Or just lucky?

 

What happened to Saturn you ask? The same thing that happened to Mercury.

 

Nobody is arguing that. We said the Kappas were a terrible business decision at the time and you tried to counter with the GT in the same category and it's not for all the reasons we've stated over and over. If you don't want to believe it, fine.

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Of the three publicly traded companies Ford is unique in that the Family remains in control, that could have made the difference.

 

If I'd been in charge of GM I'd have kept only Chevrolet, Saturn and Caddilac and dumped the rest. keeping select products from each terminated brand to make the best lines possible for the three.

Edited by F250
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I think we need a "catch-all" dump-on GM thread. I keep waiting to see more pictures of OP's car and instead I'm seeing the same posts / arguments that are in every other GM thread.

 

:headspin:

Edited by Intrepidatious
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I think we need a "catch-all" dump-on GM thread. I keep waiting to see more pictures of OP's car and instead I'm seeing the same posts / arguments that are in every other GM thread.

 

:headspin:

 

Good point. Though to be fair the OP was a main instigator.

 

So let's stop it here and get back to the new vehicle purchase.

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Actually, I'm the one who called the production of the cars 'criminally negligent'.

 

And then I pointed out that I'd like to have a Merkur, in no small part because they were just so dang weird looking.

 

Now that I think about it, there's one thing both of those cars have in common: Bob Lutz.

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Nobody is arguing that. We said the Kappas were a terrible business decision at the time and you tried to counter with the GT in the same category and it's not for all the reasons we've stated over and over. If you don't want to believe it, fine.

 

I'll say this and then let it go (maybe). You and Richard are Ford Fanboys, I get it. Ford can do no wrong and GM is the devil. It's like the Ford vs Chevy kids in high school all grown up. But at least a high school gearhead talks about the CARS you know, style, performance etc and not the "business case." Well I got some news for you fellas Ford lost money on every 289 & 427 Cobra that they built in the 1960's but those (and many others) were legendary to us "car guys" and on paper dismal failures to you "business guys." By the way I am disappointed that you business guys have not proven your claim that the GT supercar was dirt cheap to design and build, I would have expected numbers and links to prove your case but the reality is you have none.

 

I expected some backlash posting that I bought a GM vehicle on a Ford forum but was surprised by all the positive responses, thanks fellas. I'm a Ford enthusiast first that's why I've been hanging around this forum stirring things up so long. But my hang-up is that I like American cars Ford, GM, Chrysler the old AMC I even owned an International Harvester Scout II built in Indiana. But I care for very few foreign cars with the possible exception of a few British roadsters...

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I think we need a "catch-all" dump-on GM thread. I keep waiting to see more pictures of OP's car and instead I'm seeing the same posts / arguments that are in every other GM thread.

 

:headspin:

 

We've only owned it a few days but if I can get my wife out of the Sky I can take a few more pictures. She's been in a Jeep so long she has now rediscovered the fun of a great handling car on a winding country road.

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The difference is we tend to look at things from a business standpoint rather than a consumer standpoint. GM deserves every bit of criticism for their business decisions the last 10 years. Ford has made mistakes, too, in the last 10 years but not as many and not as severe and they don't continue repeating their mistakes over and over again like GM.

 

Just because we're Ford fans doesn't mean we're wrong. The numbers don't lie.

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We've only owned it a few days but if I can get my wife out of the Sky I can take a few more pictures. She's been in a Jeep so long she has now rediscovered the fun of a great handling car on a winding country road.

 

Why does your wife have to be out of the car for you to take pictures? :)

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I am disappointed that you business guys have not proven your claim that the GT supercar was dirt cheap to design and build, I would have expected numbers and links to prove your case but the reality is you have none.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/02/03/gt_over/

 

While far from a big seller, the GT has been profitable for Ford, spokesman John Harmon said. The company sold about 1,300 GTs last year.

 

 

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And as far as being a "Ford fanboy" is concerned, I'll have good words to say for GM's management when they get their act together. Right now they can't manage Chevrolet, they can't manage Buick, they can't manage Cadillac. The only brand they haven't horsed up is GMC. You can mark my words: That company is headed right back to bankruptcy. They are robbing R&D money from Chevrolet to dump into Cadillac, and you will see the results as Chevy products continue to lag Ford, Honda and Toyota products.

 

Finally, there's about one well run auto manufacturer on each continent: Ford, Honda and BMW. VAG has delusions of grandeur, Daimler doesn't know what it is and their most competitive products are their heavy trucks, Renault/Nissan is a mess, FCA is mismanaged and Sergio's desperately trying to find more money for Fiat because his ludicrous sales strategy for Chrysler is bleeding their margins which means less profits for him to skim over for his basket-case Italian operations. Peugeot/Citroen and Mazda are probably too small to survive as independents, Toyota is undergoing the same slow rot from within that afflicted GM. Hyundai/Kia don't have a reasonable perspective on the NA market even if their practical ownership of the Korean market guarantees them plenty of cash flow with which to make mistakes.

 

And of those three: Ford, Honda and BMW, BMW is at pretty high risk of building a bridge too far one of these days.

 

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You can talk all you want about how Ford screwed up this or that, and you'd be absolutely right. But you know what the difference among all those three companies is? Only one of those companies had management perspicacious enough to REALIZE how badly they'd screwed up. At Chrysler it was blame the Germans, then blame Cerberus, and soon it will be blame the Italians. For GM, it was blame the Japanese, blame the unions, blame the credit crunch, blame the customers.

 

You find me one executive at either of those other two companies that not only accepted responsibility for things that were within the control of their company but also DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

 

You can call me a Ford fanboy, but it's not going to change the clear, simple, unalterable, undeniable facts in this case: Bankruptcy handed both GM and Chrysler a much cleaner slate than Ford, and Ford is still significantly more profitable than both companies per unit--and most years, more profitable than GM overall.

 

Feel free to go back into past mistakes. Why stop with the Firestone snafu fifteen years ago? Why not go back to Merkur, to the Pinto, to the Edsel, to "any color as long as it's black", to the Peace Ship, or to the failure of the Henry Ford Company? Past a certain point, F250, none of that matters. What matters is what's being done to day and how each of these companies views the consequences of their actions.

 

If you think handing $12B to a delusional maniac is a sound business strategy for a Fortune 10 company that has a million retirees depending on it, well I don't know what on earth to tell you. I guess observing the numerous flaws in such a patently irresponsible strategy just makes me another "Ford fanboy"

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The Kappa did nothing to stop GM going belly up and getting bailed out. Bob Lutz expected car fans to come in to look at the 2 seaters, and buy G6's, G8's, and Saturns for full sticker. But, none of that happened.

 

Anyway, buyer like their used 2008 Saturn, enjoy it!

 

"...what the original 1953 Corvette was..."

 

BTW: The first Corvette was a flop, and if not for Duntov, and V8, would have been cancelled. Which Vettes sell for huge $$ at Collector Auctions? Not the 53's.

Edited by 630land
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I think you need a drink Richard.

 

Or a fun top down drive in the country...want to borrow the Sky?

 

Look, when a discussion's over, it's over, but I do not particularly care for your earlier comments. You want to criticize our logic, our arguments, our conclusions, fine.

 

But calling us a bunch of Ford fan boys because we're not going to buy into your worldview? That's a bunch of crap, F250. Calling us 'fan boys' because we're not going to play your game of false equivalence? That's crap.

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Fanboy should be reserved for someone who continues to support a favorable position even when faced with irrefutable facts or logic to the contrary.

 

A negatard is someone who continues to support a negative position even when faced with irrefutable facts or logic to the contrary.

 

Kappa lost money, was cancelled and GM went bankrupt.

 

GT made money for a predetermined limited run and Ford never went bankrupt.

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Found this gem about the Kappas from current GM President Mark Ruess:

 

"...Sounds like we’re talking about, oh, say, Bob Lutz. “I look at the [Pontiac] Solstice and [saturn] Sky, and some of those cars—and I owned a Solstice, so I’m not talking out of school—but the car was okay. It was very pretty, it was very nice. But those are not moneymaking cars for us. And by the way we didn’t sell that many. I think gone are the days of someone in my position pushing product on people and trying to sell and rally support on them. We’ve got to be customer-focused.” ..."

 

 

Source: http://blog.caranddriver.com/gms-mark-reuss-cadillac-isnt-ready-for-a-sports-car-chevy-code-is-dead-small-block-v-8-isnt-in-danger/

 

Good to see some candor from GM boss. And the reality: "...those are not moneymaking cars..."

Edited by 630land
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