GM's Junk Yard

[cool wheels]

In today's (May 29)www.cnn.com under the business section there is an article "GM's Junk Yard." It describes some of GM's spectacular flops including the corvair, the vega, the cimmaron, the aztec etc. The Reatta is not mentioned, even though it sold far fewer than any of the other models cited. This is probably because the author did not consider the Reatta "junk." The Reatta was just another example of GM not carrying through on a good idea.

[Rawja]

Direct Link: HERE

[KDirk]

Obviously, the article is basing "junk" status largely on sales success than actual quality, but consider:

The Reatta was far better made than the four models you mentioned. Vega, well my dad had one when I was a kid and it was junk - I watched it fall apart inside 18 months time, and it was about 5 years old when that happened. I should add that he maintained it meticulously.

The Corvair, (my dad had one of these too) while it had it's followers (and major design and quality faults), was not well received by Ralph Nader [chuckle] and the Aztek was just ugly, in addition to having to remove the windshield to replace a heater core (!!!) among other stupid idiosyncrasies.

As for the Cimmaron, it was pretty poorly made until it's last model year when they finally got the kinks out - mostly. By then it's reputation was already dead and buried. It was still a ridiculously thought out and poorly executed concept - a Chevy Cavalier/Pontiac Skyhawk pimped out? Yeah, that'll fool people.

That J body just couldn't be reskinned enough to hide it's humble lineage. As a footnote, Kohler (the plumbing fixture company) now makes a toilet named the Cimmaron. A fitting tribute to the moniker I guess.

So, from a quality standpoint, there is no contest between these 4 and the Reatta. Pretty much everyone would agree that it was a quality car. It was just a sales flop. If it had been $6000-8000 less expensive, it might have made a decent showing.

Of course, the price was nearly in the stratosphere for the time it was introduced. $30K doesn't seem so outlandish for a decent (not necessarily luxury) car in 2009, but 21 years ago, it was a substantial sum. As well, a high-performance version (planned, but stillborn) would have added some juice to the reputation.

I think the price, more than anything, killed it. Sure, 2 seaters are impractical for most people, but there is a market for them (Lexus has been doing well here with their hard top 'vert). And, based on GM's original planned production numbers, it might have been at least nominally profitable had it sold what they hoped for.

Then again, if the Reatta had been a huge success, it would be ubiquitous now, and we probably wouldn't all be here on this forum trying to keep them on the road with such determination. It seems the lack of success (read: scarcity) for the Reatta project is the driving force behind the desire to preserve them now.

Ah, what might have been.

KDirk

[Reatta1]

Well now, in my lifetime I've had 2 Corvairs, 1 Vega and 2 Cimmarons. One of the Corvairs was a Monza and it was a great little car. It was a fun car and I loved driving it. The Vega was so-so and out of the two Cimmarons, one was an 84 and the other an 86, the 86 was a pretty damn good car. I actually bought it out of a junk yard and it gave me quite a few years of dependable service. Had around 180k on it when I finally sold it to my brother. He drover it a couple more years after that. Course none of them can hold a candle to the Reatta, but, I was more or less happy with them.

[KDirk]

Ok,

I wasn't aiming to step on any toes. I don't doubt that there were some good Vegas, Corvairs and Cimmarons. Even cars with overall poor reputations had some shining examples that somehow got it right. If a product earns a poor reputation (cars or anything else for that matter) it is because a given number of people have tried it and found it to be problematic in some regard. If enough people develop the same opinion, it becomes consensus (but not necessarily fact).

This is especially true with cars. People develop opinions of a car's quality based on their own experience with it. If they've had nothing but trouble, the car was junk. If they had no troubles, then they can't understand why they hear others saying it is a lousy model. This is just how it is.

This is also why so many people who felt burned by the lot of substandard American cars in their darkest days of declining quality, power robbing emission control and badge engineering (late 70's to early 80's) jumped ship for imports.

Those who did and now claim that American cars are still junk are wrong, but they will not admit it. These buyers are probably lost forever because their opinions are solidified based on one or two problem cars they owned 30 years ago. This is a shame, but it is the type of consensus I referred to above.

Really, it is just human nature. One's own opinion frequently trumps fact. This is how marketing and politics work, among other things - they develop and reinforce opinions for their own ends (translation: they are using us to further the success of their product, agenda, etc). And, it isn't going to change because people get too invested in their opinions.

Anyway, getting back on subject, it is possible to have had an individual example of any of the models listed that weren't "junk" because they held up better than the norm. The status of junk is determined by the overall trend of a particular model, and there are always exceptions to the big picture.

Taking the Cimmaron in particular, the late models were pretty decent in terms of reliability as I already pointed out. Looks wise, it was still unbecoming of a Cadillac to share a body with a Chevy economy car; but that is my opinion. That it did was due to the inability to re-skin the J body due to inherent design limits that could not be overcome; that is fact.

So, it had a lot of detractors based just on looks alone. The fact that the first couple of model years were riddled with problems damaged it's reputation such that by the time it became a decent car, interest was already lost.

The Cimmaron "experiment" also did untold damage to Cadillac's reputation that has taken many years to shake off. Much of this may have been undeserved, but in business, what "the public" really thinks is all that matters as it impacts how much money you are making.

I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me on almost everything I've just said. But, at least I tried to explain where I'm coming from.

KDirk