All these people who say kill off Buick instead obviously did not read the article
“Buick is a hugely popular brand in China and is seen as resurgent in the United States”
I had thought to kill them off too, but China is the fastest growing and largest market in the world, and Buicks sell there! My idea was to kill of Pontiac, GMC, Buick, and Saab. But clearly I was wrong, keep Buick but ditch the rest. Chevy as sporty and trucks, Saturn as value, Buick as what it is now, Cadillac is obvious. Market Chevy around the world as a performance brand, they just sell Korean cars overseas.
If I wanted a fancy version of a Chevy then I would just have it done myself, no need for a whole division dedicated to turning shitty vehicles into nice looking shitty vehicles.
Kill Buick in the US, re-badge Chevrolet’s as Buick’s in China if China is so in love with the Buick name.
From the looks of it they’re basically re-badging something as a Buick in China anyway since GM doesn’t have a full sized rear wheel drive platform to make a RWD Park Avenue.
Buick in China is a re-badged GM-Daewoo or Holden.
EDIT: And what a shock, the cool Buick is China is also based on the same Holden the G8 is based on. Further proof GM needs to save that car when they kill the brand.
THE Holden-sourced Pontiac G8 last month had its best sales result since launch last year, despite the weakness of the US car market.
Pontiac sold 2707 G8s last month – twice as many as January and up 27 per cent on G8’s previous best monthly total of 2126 last April – the first full month of sales.
The monthly average of G8 sales during the last six months of 2008 ran at 1455. In January, Pontiac sold 1331 units.
Pontiac is happy to point out that of the 2707 G8s sold last month, 2695 were sold to private customers.
whats that mean?
Here are the total numbers:
March (of 2008) 777
April 2126
May 1831
June 1536
July 1472
August 1915
September 1651
October 1082
November 1133
December 1479
January (of 2009) 1331
February 2705
March 2939
That’s 21,977 in just over a year, good or bad based on how many they have made…I don’t know.
Pretty much evey vehicle at gm has tanked in sales except the G8.
That park avenue is basically the buick G8 btw so I’m sure if pontiac is axed, we’ll see that over here in that form or as an impala/caprice.
I will miss Pontiac if it is truly gone, what will happen however when people start buying cars again?
I know you haven’t been behind the wheel of a domestic in a while, but I just drove a new G8 GT and was everything but impressed. I was hoping to find a GXP on the lot… but after driving the 360hp (or whatever it is) version of the car… I don’t think an extra 40hp would help it all that much. Not impressed.
Handled nicely compared to my truck… but did not feel quick at all. Auto tranny was bad.
GXP only… and there was only 1 per dealership… and the automatic in the GT sucks.
Buick fucking sucks. For the life of me I cannot understand why they would keep that SHITTY brand.
Pontiac sucks too so I am not sad to see it go but it was better the Buick.
Hopefully GM will come up with a fresh new brand to fill in the hole of the
style/quality segment that it lacks.
Segment is still wide open.
I think one of the big problems is brand reputation / public perception.
GM has old brands that had a weak history of desirability so that drags them down even when they pull out a great car like the G8.
GM needs a fresh start with a brand that will be great from day 1.
