NationStates Jolt Archive

The Automotive Universe is huge and truly a massive place. So big in fact, it requires to be capitalized; ignore that it's a proper noun. It requires many years to understand it completely. I have undergone rigorous training to become a true master of it. Luckily for you people (too busy doing worthwhile things) I am volunteering my time and energy into writing this crash course of "The Automotive Universe".

General Motors
Location: Detroit, USA (For some ungodly reason)
More commonly known as GM, General Motors is one of the most massive corporations on the planet. The company produces more cars than all the others, but it doesn't technically make cars. "How could this be?" you may ask. Well, GM owns 'subsidiaries' that actually do all the work. GM plays with these subsidiaries like chess pieces (GM being the king), and sacrifices some pieces when necessary (when it needs to cover up its own incompetence) so it can survive into the next turn. Since there is nothing further to discuss about GM besides its recent crippling losses, let's move onto its subsidiaries.

Buick
Location: USA
Buick is a 'Luxury-esque' kind of car which essentially means, "We market to old people". In general Buick models hold a "We're Related" kind of design which is unfortunate given they all look a little ugly. The company use to be a brother marquee to Oldsmobile under GM until Oldsmobile died of old age.

Cadillac
Location: USA
Cadillac is a full-fledged Luxury car. A true 'car' of champions (champions meaning rich people and their children/gang members). The company's actual motto is: "Cadillac: The Cadillac of Cars". Cadillac use to be known for its gigantic vehicles that could cross a railroad crossing while a train was passing, but since the turn of the millennium Cadillac has been known for cars that could cut open your finger if you touched its razorblade-edges. This is actually a clever design feature, because you can actually shave your face with it.

Chevrolet
Location: USA
French for "An ugly piece of shit" Chevrolet has stayed true to itself since its beginning nearly a hundred years ago. Though its models are very popular in the United States and Canada the rest of the world is somehow uninterested in buying a car with shapeless designs, bad fuel economy, and horrible engineering. Due to this all Chevrolet's outside the US and Canada are rebadged Holdens, Vauxhalls, Daewoos, and Opels. If you don't know what those weird words are, don't worry, we will cover them soon.

Daewoo
Location: Korea
GM bought half of Daewoo in 2001 and briefly sold cars under the Daewoo badge. Daewoos were selling like... well they weren't selling at all. So GM came up with a clever and overwhelmingly simple idea: Don't call them Daewoos. They tried this first in Israel, where it worked beyond imagination. GM's imagineers imagineered up new names for Daewoo's cars giving them new names like Aveo and other fancy names. This concept that Daewoo just wasn't a good name, combined with a faltering electronics sector, and the CEO fleeing to France, resulted in Daewoo's fall. GM still makes Daewoos in Korea, but these are just rebadged Chevys.

GMC
Location: USA. Wait, Canada? Is Wikipedia sure about that?
GMC was founded over a hundred years ago and made gigantic work trucks that made the people of the 1900's and 1910's shit their pants with fear and awe. During WWII GMC made trucks for the American Army. The Army used the trucks' intimidation to make the Japanese shit their pants, though this was mainly because these trucks were dumping TNT into their caves. GMC trucks are still used for working at construction sites like their ancestors, though many are used to transport spoiled upper-middle class children to soccer games, and then to Dairy Queen.

Holden
Location: Australia
The Holden is an Australian car company that makes cars from supercars up to minivans. Or down to. You figure it out. Though GM enjoys rebadging them as Chevys in Africa and the Mid East, Holdens are sold to Brazilian and Hawai'ians apparently. A Holden managed to make it to America under the Pontiac marquee, but GM doesn't want too much of the American market Australia-fied, because who'd take an American guy to the Prom when you could take the hunky Australian exchange-student with the cute accent?

Hummer
Location: USA
Originally a massive army truck, the Hummer now is a massive passenger truck. While the H1 was a feat of engineering in that it could move quickly in a war zone while safely transporting soldiers, the H2 was a feat of engineering in that it could move. This huge box of steel, leather, and televisions costs $50,000, making it a real rich man-child's toy. Thanks to this car's inability to hold any gas whatsoever, the rest of us have to pay more for fuel because of these Hummer driver cocks' "demand".

Opel
Location: Germany
Another member of the GM Rebadging Circlejerk; I'm not even going to talk about that, rather I'll talk about the important stuff. Opel is constantly competing with the other GM Europe company, Vauxhall, while at the same time giving them car designs. Why on Earth GM would do this? No one is quite sure, but it certainly doesn't help them beat, ya' know, the actual competition and stuff.

Pontiac
Location: USA
In addition to the powerful sportscars Pontiac produces and steals from Australia, Pontiac also creates extremely ugly SUVs and hatchbacks that only people high on PCP would possibly buy. I mean seriously; the Aztek? What the fuck was that? Seriously. Did you know the Aztek plant now makes that revolting Chevy HHR? Man, GM is fucking screwed if they keep making vomit-inducing cars like that. Dude, fuck Pontiac, let's move on.

Saturn
Location: USA
Saturn was created in order to counter the wave of affordable, reliable Japanese vehicles. Why all of GM didn't try to counter it is to be called into question, but that's for another thread. In essence most of the Saturn models were Opels made out of dent-proof plastic, but recently Saturn has changed its stance to pro-dent and now is making cars with steel bodies.

Saab
Location: Sweden
No, Saab is not a hyper-safe car (not to say it isn't a safe car), you're thinking about Volvo; the other Swedish car. Saab is the company that use to make fighter jets that unfortunately went to waste, because they were making fighter planes for neutral Sweden. They haven't been in a war for 500 years! Saab cars are made for the hellish winters of Sweden so you are probably better off in a Saab than a pickup if your driving around snowy Minnesota seeing how there is absolutely nothing different between Minnesota and Sweden.

Vauxhall
Location: UK
Because GM likes Opel more than Vauxhall, Vauxhall is more or less limited to the United Kingdom, where it is doomed to die. Vauxhall also makes some Opel cars and sends them to Europe. Why? Nobody knows.

TO BE ADDED LATER IF SOMEONE CARES, WHICH I DOUBT:
Toyota Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Renault-Nissan

Volkswagen AG

Daimler-Chrysler

Peugeot Citroën/Honda/Hyundai

Fiat

Suzuki/BMW

My goal in life is to own a 1958 Mark III Continental...easily the most beautiful car I've seen in a long time. The 1950's and 1960's truly were the pinnacle of automotive design in the US.

EDIT: I know that the Continental is made by Ford's Lincoln division. Well, more accurately was made by Lincoln since it was discontinued in 2002.

How complete a guide are you trying to produce? Just current brands (Not Rover, Triumph etc)?

Funny, in the UK Daewoo was relaunched as Chevy, selling the same cars Daewoo sells everywhere else. So in the UK Chevy and Daewoo are the same thing. Makes me laugh when somebody goes on about Chevy making great cars, when really they make these:
http://www.matizclub.com/images/chevrolet_matiz_10_02_05.jpg

And Opel and Vauxhall don't compete, because they don't sell in the same areas.

Funny, in the UK Daewoo was relaunched as Chevy, selling the same cars Daewoo sells everywhere else. So in the UK Chevy and Daewoo are the same thing. Makes me laugh when somebody goes on about Chevy making great cars, when really they make these:
http://www.matizclub.com/images/chevrolet_matiz_10_02_05.jpg

And Opel and Vauxhall don't compete, because they don't sell in the same areas.They compete for survival!

They compete for survival!

GM, and to a lesser extent Ford, are notorious for their endless badge engineering. They don't seem to realize that having two brands sell the exact same car doesn't increase sales, it just causes sales to be split between divisions and increases costs. Plus, offering the same car in multiple badges doesn't really attract people to your company's cars...they just lose money for the company and make it dependent on fleet sales to drive car revenue.

They compete for survival!
Well, they would if the operated in the same markets.

Well, they would if the operated in the same markets.If one falters GM will kill it and replace them with the other. That's what I mean.

GM, and to a lesser extent Ford, are notorious for their endless badge engineering. They don't seem to realize that having two brands sell the exact same car doesn't increase sales, it just causes sales to be split between divisions and increases costs. Plus, offering the same car in multiple badges doesn't really attract people to your company's cars...they just lose money for the company and make it dependent on fleet sales to drive car revenue.

However, what it does do is allow them to define one marque as making, say, sports cars, while another marque makes family cars without investing in whole new cars for each marque; thereby creating a badge association with a market segment and more defining the brand while reducing costs to more or less a minimum.

If one falters GM will kill it and replace them with the other. That's what I mean.
Nah, they won't. Nobody in Europe would know who Vauxhall are, and very few people would know who Opel are. That's why it's easier to keep the two. Same cars, different badge, but customers are more aware and more comfortable with that name and badge, so it works.

If Vauxhall died and was replaced in the UK by Opel, they would take a fair while to convince people that a) Vauxhall hadn't really died, b) Opel were just Vauxhall with a different name, c) that they couldn't possibly have revived Vauxhall, d) that cars would still be built in the UK, and d) that they already knew Opel just under a different name.

Would take a long time, and would be expensive. That's why its easier to keep them seperate; give the customers what they want.

Whatever, this wasn't ment to acurate in the first place.

Whatever, this wasn't ment to acurate in the first place.

Oh, I'm not criticising, you've done a great job. The Vauxhall / Opel thing was pretty much all that I could see that wasn't pretty much spot on. It wasn't even wrong, just not quite right...if you know what I mean?

I'm tempted to later on write the Volkswagen and/or Toyota entries...

Do one on Ford

However, what it does do is allow them to define one marque as making, say, sports cars, while another marque makes family cars without investing in whole new cars for each marque; thereby creating a badge association with a market segment and more defining the brand while reducing costs to more or less a minimum.

Pontiac was performance, Chevy was value, Cadillac was luxury, Buick was near luxury, and Oldsmobile was technology. Sadly, they are losing those distinctions (hell, Olds has been gone since 2003) and are fading in to bland similarity. There are still a few winners, though, especially in Cadillac.

It's true that platform-sharing between cars is a good idea in a multibranded automaker; it enables engineers to refine the platform to various specifications and create unique, attractive, and high-performance vehicles with minimalized cost and design hurdles. However, GM (and to a lesser extent Ford) is making the mistake of slapping a new badge on the exact same car and just tweaking the exterior panels or the taillights with no changes in performance or design that marked the successful platform sharing of years past.

They've got great engineers, workers, and decades of experience but the designers at GM and Ford are being sucked in to blandness by a crop of incompetent executives and union leaders that place some kind of inexplicable desire for mediocrity foremost that is costing them billions in lost revenue and profits. They've lost their desire to take risks, and that's going to hurt; they have some real gems and some real innovation left in their product lines, but they are weighed down by unnecessary baggage cars that just crowd out sales.

Really, the main places where GM and Ford are finally making progress is in quality and productivity. If they rebuild their image, ditch the badge engineering and replace it with platform sharing (like GM is doing with the GMT 900) and take risks with new designs, they could have a real renaissance. Otherwise, they might face the same fate as Studebaker, who went under in the 60's due to high labor costs and uninspiring, outdated designs...which were the product of the corporate executives and union leaders.

Location: Detroit, USA (For some ungodly reason)

What exactly is this supposed to mean?

Anyway, spot on analysis. I wish it weren't so, but it is.

Pontiac was performance, Chevy was value, Cadillac was luxury, Buick was near luxury, and Oldsmobile was technology. Sadly, they are losing those distinctions (hell, Olds has been gone since 2003) and are fading in to bland similarity. There are still a few winners, though, especially in Cadillac.

It's true that platform-sharing between cars is a good idea in a multibranded automaker; it enables engineers to refine the platform to various specifications and create unique, attractive, and high-performance vehicles with minimalized cost and design hurdles. However, GM (and to a lesser extent Ford) is making the mistake of slapping a new badge on the exact same car and just tweaking the exterior panels or the taillights with no changes in performance or design that marked the successful platform sharing of years past.

They've got great engineers, workers, and decades of experience but the designers at GM and Ford are being sucked in to blandness by a crop of incompetent executives and union leaders that place some kind of inexplicable desire for mediocrity foremost that is costing them billions in lost revenue and profits. They've lost their desire to take risks, and that's going to hurt; they have some real gems and some real innovation left in their product lines, but they are weighed down by unnecessary baggage cars that just crowd out sales.

Really, the main places where GM and Ford are finally making progress is in quality and productivity. If they rebuild their image, ditch the badge engineering and replace it with platform sharing (like GM is doing with the GMT 900) and take risks with new designs, they could have a real renaissance. Otherwise, they might face the same fate as Studebaker, who went under in the 60's due to high labor costs and uninspiring, outdated designs...which were the product of the corporate executives and union leaders.

Well, I don't know about the US, but its not so much the case in Europe that badges are swapped and nothing else.

Take Ford. In Europe they have the following brands:
Ford
Jaguar
Aston Martin
Volvo
Mazda
Land Rover

Beyond maybe some basic platform sharing, and some parts sharing, there's no real badge-engineering, because the range of marques is wide enough that they can't mix and match cars between them.

As for GM, we only get:
Saab
Vauxhall/Opel
Chevrolet

Apart from that Vauxhall and Opel are the same cars, different badges, but sold in different markets (fair enough), there's not really any obvious badge-engineering there either. Sure, they might use the same basic platform, but the cars are very much customised to fit the image of the brand.

And then take Chevrolet. Just took over Daewoo and changed the badges. That's badge-engineering, but its not the same as releasing the same car under a competing division. They just rebranded the division.

Well, I don't know about the US, but its not so much the case in Europe that badges are swapped and nothing else.

Take Ford. In Europe they have the following brands:
Ford
Jaguar
Aston Martin
Volvo
Mazda
Land Rover

Yeah, Ford tends to have less of a problem with it than GM. The bulk of their badge engineering is between Ford, Mercury, and to a lesser extent Lincoln. Sometimes, it branches out to others like Mazda, but overall it is restricted to a few nameplates. Their international brands are perfoming very well, especially in mature markets like Europe and Australia along with their presence in emerging markets.

Beyond maybe some basic platform sharing, and some parts sharing, there's no real badge-engineering, because the range of marques is wide enough that they can't mix and match cars between them.

I also think some of it stems from the various corporate cultures of the companies under Ford; I've always felt that they retained a far greater degree of autonomy and individuality than comparable GM brands which is a likely reason for the far greater diversity in the Ford umbrella of companies

As for GM, we only get:
Saab
Vauxhall/Opel
Chevrolet

Apart from that Vauxhall and Opel are the same cars, different badges, but sold in different markets (fair enough), there's not really any obvious badge-engineering there either. Sure, they might use the same basic platform, but the cars are very much customised to fit the image of the brand.

And then take Chevrolet. Just took over Daewoo and changed the badges. That's badge-engineering, but its not the same as releasing the same car under a competing division. They just rebranded the division.

It's reached a ridiculous level with a few models in particular. For example:

GM's GMT360 mid-sized light truck platform is used in the Chevy Trailblazer, an extended version of the Trailblazer, the Oldsmobile Bravada, the Envoy, the Envoy XL and later the Isuzu Ascender, Buick Rainier, and Saab 9-7X. That's 8 vehicles spanning 7 nameplates, all of which have no significant difference in their platform and no custom engines or modifications despite the various roles of each brand; if you removed the badges, they could hardly be told apart.

This is the company that gave us the Corvette, the Impala, the Eldorado, the Riviera and a host of others...and now they've been reduced to selling rebadged Trailbalzers, bland fleet sedans, and monstrosities like the Aztek. At least the Corvette is still a hallmark of excellence, and there are some great offerings from Cadillac but other than that...it's a barren land, to say the least.

Opel and Vauxhall were both original companies, which GM merely bought later on. That's why they have to keep them both seperate: because the brands are worth something.

Cars make this world smelly and corrupt and corrosive!!! :eek:

We need some treeess!!! :D