GM/Alfa

[Will Owen <nashwill@domain.elided>]

In V7, #1440, Paul Rollins said:

"GM's future seems to be all in the past. How does
such a company add enough value to FIAT's brands to
make them successsful in NA?"

Actually, the various GM fiascos (fiaschi?) noted by
Sr. Rollins in his letter were very much in the past -
mostly in the '70s and '80s. They're off the
badge-engineering kick that gave us Cavaliers
pretending to be Caddies, and are now producing some
genuinely good automobiles - none to my taste,
exactly, but worth buying if that's what you like. I
would not fuss if someone asked me to drive a
late-model Seville STS across the country, as long as
HE was buying the gas...

Aside from that, GM has also shown a knack for picking
the right brains within its empire to solve problems
in other fiefdoms. Remember that pretty Isuzu coupe,
the Giugiaro design that rode and handled like a
donkey cart? GM put Lotus Engineering on the job, and
they massaged it into acceptability for the last year
or so they made it. The injection of Opel genes into
the SAAB line hasn't hurt anyone, either. 

It's easy to pick on the big guys, and to assume that
any association between the little company we adore
and the big crass megamonster we despise will
inevitably lead to the rape and subsequent decay of
the former. But there's no pure virgin anywhere in
this story, nor any big bad wolf. It's just a bunch of
folks making cars (or, more to the point, SELLING
cars), and they all do a pretty good job of it.

Of course, it's also easy for me to take the
disinterested view, since I almost certainly won't buy
any offspring of this alliance until it's at least
five years old. Even if I could afford it, the only
vehicles I've ever bought new were a couple of
bicycles, and I don't know if I could break a 40+ year
habit that easily!


Will Owen
Nashville, TN
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