De-Tuning America

On monday it was announced that General Motors is in the "last ditch attempt" phase to stay afloat. Topping the list of current drastic measures is a relatively fast phase out of the Pontiac division (by 2010) and dropping roughly half of it's 6246 dealerships. In addition, GM will offer stock to debt holders in order to meet obligations on government loans. 

According to CEO Fritz Henderson, who took over from the ousted Rick Wagoner, "The objective here is not to survive; the objective is to develop an operating plan that allows us to win." Unfortunately, that may be a tad over optimistic considering that the future of the company rest heavily on whether or not a sufficient number of debt holders accept the stock offer by the government's drop-dead date June 1. Several analysts say the plan has no chance.

So while the future for GM is still unsettled, the pieces are beginning to fall into place. The GM of the future will be smaller, with fewer models, and owned (to a maximum of 89% by the US Government and United Auto Workers). Pontiac will be a memory, Saab, Saturn and Hummer will (hopefully) be operating under new ownership.

There are many interesting twists and possible outcomes to what is happening at GM, and you can bet that with a bean-counter in charge, those of us who enjoy driving will be the big losers.

Pontiac has always been known as GM's young-at-heart performance division. The Pontiac GTO was, for all practical purposes, the very "Muscle-car." Though other models, such as the Bonneville and Firebird, Pontiac proved that it had the know-how to get the power to the pavement is a big way. Even now, when many still dis the quality of American made vehicles, the Pontiac Solstice is a world leader in fun and bang for the buck. The Solstice shares many components with the Saturn Sky and if GM finds a buyer for Saturn, these cool 2-seaters will both be gone.

So the performance division is the first to go, and without Pontiac, what else does GM have for the auto enthusiast. Sadly, I predict that very soon we'll hear the disturbing announcement that the Corvette will either be phased out, or possibly be built on the current Solstice/Sky chassis. While that would still GM a sporty vehicle offering, it would totally devalue the Corvette name as well as it's current, hard-fought standing as the world's best sports car value - even when compared to Ferrari and Porsche. The only other hope is the new Camaro, but it's future too may come to play with the big hand of the fed on the wheel.

So the fact of the matter is, that with the government running GM, we'll not only have fewer vehicle choices (okay, there were too many anyway) but what will be offered may not be anything that we want to drive. the same will probably happen with Chrysler. The only hope left for those of us who want to buy American may be Ford, if they are, in fact, able to weather the storm. Let's hope they can.