Those who collect GM products are among the company’s biggest supporters. Collectors of vintage Pontiacs, Chevrolets, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, Opels, Buicks, Hummers, and Saturns champion America’s largest manufacturer every time they back their baby out of the driveway. 

A fabulous '61 Pontiac Bonneville at Sunday's car show near Detroit.

Classic cars are rolling testament to their manufacturer. 

So naturally, many of Motorpool’s enthusiasts have written me to say what a sad day it is to see GM taken off the New York Stock Exchange. Still, most collectors take the long view. Log onto Motorpool and you’ll see our database of classic and collector cars. That database (the world’s largest) was laboriously compiled, model by model, and includes many a bankrupt brand. In fact, there are over 6,000 makes and models on Motorpool–90 percent of which no longer exist. 

Packard, Peerless, Pierce Arrow, Hupmobile, Sears, Alvis, and others–they’re long gone but still celebrated by colletors. The country didn’t fall to shambles with Duesenberg stopped production. The economy didn’t collapse when Tucker left the scene. America didn’t forget manufacturing when Kaiser took a dive.

Simply put: the auto business is a rough and competitive industry. Brands come and go. Only companies with superior products, skilled manufacturing, strong marketers, savvy competitors, dynamic dealers, dedicated employees, shrewd politicians, and willful industrialists survive. Today, as in days gone by, you can’t just be good at one or two of those–a company must excel at them all.

My guess: bankruptcy will give GM a good shot at restructuring into a company that can survive in today’s climate. I’m pulling for them to make the right choices to turn the company around.

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Tags: Michigan

This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 8:57 am and is filed under Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.