RLSH700

Well, the problem is distinguishing what people like and what they will buy. Tons of enthusiants were excited over the G8 replacing the Grand Prix, yet sales are far fewer than the long running Grand Prix. The other issue is GM has finally managed to match much of their competition and in some cases set the benchmark. The new Malibu is the most fuel efficient of the non-hybrid segment of the enormous mid-sized car segment, finally has a desirable design on the interior and is no uglier on the exterior than the top players, the issue is after 11 years of having one of the worst offerings in that segment, people are not about to pass up on a Japanese model that they have grown to trust for something that appears that it might be a bit better out of fear of being burned again. That is what GM has to overcome and it is going to take time. They have to put an effort like what they put into the Malibu into all models before people begin to think of GM in a more positive light.

Another thing is GM left some of these segments because they were unprofitable and were hurting other model sales. The Camaro & Firebird sales combined were less than half of the sales of the Mustang, and the Camaro was damaging the sales of the Corvette as they featured the same engine with the same output despite their attempts to try to cover that up. Now what GM should have done instead of completely dropping the car is they should have looked at the Camaro and discovered why people were buying the slower & less of a good deal Mustang over the Camaro. The issue I believe was the factor was that the cars were very dated in comfort, ride quality, and interior technology. After reading reviews and looking at photos, the F-cars looked very generic compared to the Mustang. The seats looked like they hadn't changed since the 80s. The dash looked uninspiring. The colors & tones of certain things such as the radio buttons were a better fit for Buick than for a sporty car. The gauge cluster was unspiring, lacked a performance image, and was just plain dull. The exterior hadn't changed in forever and needed to be changed. The ride quality was generally an area that was criticized as well. These things might sound petty and "why would a muscle car enthusiast care about any of this all that matters is performance" is a normal response. The truth is the people who bought the Camaro & Firebird were the type of people who didn't care about these things and were GM fans, but the people who bought the Mustang were the people who cared about these elements. What GM should have done instead of dropping both cars is they should have dropped the Camaro as it was the one threatening the Corvette and kept the Firebird going. This would have been a halo car for Pontiac and being that not all Pontiac dealers are Chevrolet dealers and not all Chevrolet dealers are Pontiac dealers would have helped to prevent cannibalizing sales of the Vette. This way all their marketing and R&D would go into one car where they could try to take on Fords only offering. Although it is true that they would loose some sales of Camaro fans, most would transfer over, and frankly Pontiac needed the Firebird more than Chevrolet needed the Camaro.

Another thing we must remember is the one model cannot make a manufacturer succeed. Ford has had their Mustang and F-series for years and they are not doing all that well. It takes a the whole fleet to make it work.