Great speech about GM's problems by a real car guy/investor!

[Reatta Man]

All,

I sure hope someone with the power to make changes at GM reads this forum. Here is a link to a speech given by Jerry Flint:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~csimpson/TheOldsZone.html

The link to the speech was posted by a guy named 'texasred' in the Oldsmobile forum. His speech seems to sum up all of the things we have been complainint about with GM products all in one speech. The Olds forum link is:

http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/showflat....rt=1#Post288934

Joe

[Guest norb]

Every car person in the country that is interested in GM should read this speech by Jerry Flint. I have been involved in some way with GM for 50 years & it,s easy to see all this happening for a long time now. Norb

[The Old Guy]

I am going to copy this to some GM people,and see what they have to say!

[Reatta Man]

If I knew how to actually get this into the hands of real decision-makers at GM (if there really are any left) I would gladly pay for the printing and postage costs.

While many of us butt heads in here with different opinions sometimes, we all seem to want to see GM succeed and return to its previous position of being a world leader in producing cars and trucks.

In survival school, the first thing they teach you to do when you think you are lost is STOP GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION until you can figure out where you need to go.

GM seems to be traveling at 80MPH in a dense fog, in the middle of a moonless night with both headlights not working while wearing dark sunglasses thinking, 'Wow, we sure are making good time!"

Maybe they have all watched John Belushi in the Blues Brothers movie driving at night wearing sunglasses and thought it was a good idea because he looked cool?

Joe

[Guest imported_Thriller]

Yeah, but the Blues Brothers drove Chryco product...a cop car...dang, I can't reproduce the exact quote...guess I'll have to watch it again

Some interesting thoughts on GM though. I haven't followed the day to day stuff, but I certainly was intrigued by what he had to say. GM did something right at one point - in 2000, when I was looking for an extended cab pickup, the Ford didn't have enough rear seat space for the kids and you needed a ladder to get into the Dodge. Now it is time for a Duramax.... However, we are on our second Montana and when the lease is up, this one is gone too...we've had way too many major / minor / irritating problems to want to keep it.

[Reatta Man]

The quote you are looking for is:

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it."

Another good car quote from the movie:

"It's got a cop motor: a 440 cubic inch plant. It's got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is this the new Bluesmobile, or what?"

Love that movie!

Joe

[Guest invicta592]

I'm not familiar with the internal workings of GM, but everything that Mr Flint said about cars and design is right on the button IMHO.

Perhaps the management should take a quick look at Rover/MG in the UK, that have just ceased production. It's sad for the country, and even sadder for the thousands of people who have lost jobs, either from the factory, or from the suppliers to the company.

Whats the bottom line? Well, you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, and you can't force people to buy cars they don't like.

Lets hope that someone, somewhere learns something from this.

[Reatta Man]

Maybe Toyota will buy GM and clean house after they take over as the #1 maker of cars and trucks on planet Earth.

Yeah, THAT'LL fix em!

If that seems scary, just remember Chrysler used to be an independent company. At the rate GM is going, Hyundai could soon afford to buy them.

Joe

[Guest COMPACTBC]

Hi Joe: If you get any responses from "the people at GM" let us know, what they have to say. The scraping of the RWD platform and the transfer of Lutz, has me worried that "nothing has changed in the decision arena of GM". They seem to now want to blame the UAW contract for their market failures, but that is another whole subject. I only hope I live long enough to see some product excitement in a Buick showroom again. (sigh)

[Reatta Man]

Bruce,

Thanks for the kind words. However, my experience with bureaucracies (military officer, Air Force Reservist, and former mayor pro-tem and city councilman in a local suburb) tells me that when someone doesn't want to pay attention to people like many in this forum, they just dismiss us a raging fanatics.

In his personal Web blog, I did offer to meet Bob Lutz any time, any where he wanted to talk about GM's problems. So far, my phone hasn't rung.

Joe

[Guest imported_Thriller]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The quote you are looking for is:

"It's got a cop motor: a 440 cubic inch plant. It's got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is this the new Bluesmobile, or what?"

Love that movie!

Joe </div></div>

This is the quote I was thinking of...thanks.