GM Divisions

because the government told them to. GM needed the bailout money. GM wanted to keep Pontiac, Saturn, Buick, and GMC
Saturn had never pulled a profit and Pontiac hadn't pulled a profit since the 1980's, so the government said if you want the money these underperforming brands have to go.
Actually they had big plans for Pontiac. Everything was going to go RWD. The ATS was supposed to launch with a Pontiac G6 sister car, among other changes.

Saturn almost got saved. Penske tried to buy Saturn from GM, but when GM found out Penske planned to import Korean Renault-Samsung cars as Saturns, they pulled out of the deal to save Saturn's dignity.

This is OP, thanks for your answers guys.
Any examples of the tech Oldsmobiles used? And in what ways was Saturn revolutionary?

Some googling makes it looks like there was backlash to letting go of Pontiac. Do you guys think that it was a good idea to cut it (from an economic standpoint, obviously we're all car enthusiasts so try to stay away from bias towards that)

>GMC is the redundancy department of redundancy

kek, but it's 100% true. Nothing but rebadged Chevy crossovers and trucks, what's even the point

I think GMC once made trucks entirely independent of chevy trucks with their own platforms that had nothing to do with chevy. correct me if i'm wrong though.

>Any examples of the tech Oldsmobiles used?
Among other things (some of which are shared with other GM divisions, usually Buick or Pontiac):

>First assembly line produced car (Olds Curved Dash)
>First marque to use the Hydramatic auto transmission
>First real 'muscle car' in 1949 when they created the Olds 88 by taking the 98's brand-new V8 and putting it in the smaller 76
>First FWD American car in decades with the Toronado, which was also a huge success and won Pikes Peak stock class because why not
>First turbocharged production car (Jetfire)
>Created a DOHC 455 V8 in the late 60's, which was shitcanned by GM (W43/OW43)
>basically just made good shit all around

> there was backlash to letting go of Pontiac. Do you guys think that it was a good idea to cut it
I dunno if it was a good idea, but it's not especially surprising, Pontiac was GM's whipping-boy for decades (even moreso than Oldsmobile).

>General motors - commercial
They made the big boy toys for companies. Think 3500/4500/etc and big cargo vans and stuff

Doesn't chevy cover that all ready?

I fucking love Oldsmobile. i wish they were allowed to fully flourish. they probably would've won Le mans and endurance championships by now.

For Olds, see:
As for Saturn, Saturn was quite revolutionary. Saturns were built using a steel spaceframe as opposed to a unibody, pic related a 2003-2007 Saturn Ion sedan with the body panels removed. The body panels were just non-structural plastic panels, so removing the body panels didn't affect safety. The plastic body panels were made of a dent-resistant plastic.
Saturn pioneered new manufacturing technologies that now seem commonplace, like lost foam casting, or their just-in-time delivery system where parts were delivers directly to the stations needing them as opposed to a designated shipping area of the plant, and then shipping them to they places on the assembly line.

>Saturn
Miata competitor and objectively better. Engines that will survive a speed bump.
>Ponitac
Gave the state of kangaroos their performance. Usually they will say that the US imports their stuff.
>GMC
truck, crossovers, massive SUVs, trucks, trucks...
>Buick
Old people stuff and lately trying to rebrand for the younger age
>Saab
The BMW competitor and objectively better. Engines that will survive a past 30k miles. Stole from Subaru in the later years.
>Hummer
Built for people who think they will off road, but the company knows that they will mostly hit the pavement.
>Chevy
The best of the best trucks. Often people will tell you that GMC makes luxury trucks that are just silverados with chrome, but really they are the best materials put together by hand, little known fact, by the best engineers who know what the fuck that are doing. Legend has it that every vehicle makes it over 1 million miles easy and only changing the oil.

Here's a Saturn spaceframe chassis from the early 90s, an SL sedan. compare this with what Honda and Toyota were doing at the time.

Hey I'm new to the hobby (is cars a hobby?) but is that the same idea as the Pontiac Fiero?

>quad4
>the world's fastest fiero with a bodykit

Yes it is. Glad you recognized that.

They make 10 versions of the same car and sometimes they switch out the cheap plastic with plastic that looks like wood trim so they can sell it to you for twice as much

>A tripfag who didn't make a complete fool of himself and contributed to the thread

Am I on the right board?

not really sure.

But I mean current GMCs. It's literally just rebadged Chevrolets with a more "fancy" Cadillac-esque look imo. Is there really a point on keeping this brand alive if their Chevy counterparts have the same exact shit?

I know this has been going on for over 50 - 60+ years but I think it's just very redundant brand at this point.

>implying the Fiero ever actually got the Quad-4

SR is usually an alright tripfag. He knows his shit about GM.

Recaros is a dictionary for everything GM and automotive

How did you not know this?
>rip 5.7 Firebird

A Quad 4 was planned to replace the Iron duke as the 4 cylinder engine of the second gen Fiero, which was canceled to protect the Corvette. Being as small and light as it was, the V6 second gen mules (using a preproduction LQ1 V6) were faster around GM's own test track than the C4 Corvettes of the time. Pic related. Second gen Fiero prototype. Was supposed to launch in 1990.

Right, that's why I said that. The second gen never went into production so it never actually got the Quad-4 to replace the Iron Douk.

>Is there really a point on keeping this brand alive if their Chevy counterparts have the same exact shit?
It sells.

Bean counters don't give a shit if you want a Banshee if the general public wants a truck.

fair enough, but it was planned. Have another pic of the 1990 prototype.

Never seen that pic before, fuckin' noice. It's like an SW20 MR2 mixed with a fourth gen Firebirb.

...

Those hidden headlamps are at a odd location. do they popup like a Countach?

Yes.

Man, you think that's weird, you ever seen a C4 Corvette with the headlights actually up/not broken? They spin ALL THE WAY AROUND.

youtube.com/watch?v=iCS97OfItJQ

That always struck me as weird. Just why. All of my why.

i wonder what will happen to the Ecotec "division", after Opel was sold to PSA

besides opel was kind of good, when it came making cheaper versions of "advanced" tech

those grills tho
why every american pick up has to look like shit?

Hmmm turbo 4 cylinders seem to be the future
Sell off the two divisions, Opel and Saab, that are any good at making them.

Do people really miss Saab? Did any of you actually drive any? They were ok in the late 70s/early 80s. Boring nothingmobiles since then

I miss it. Looking forward to buy 9-3 estate as my next car

9-5 aeros were quite quick, they were also the safest cars made. I personally didn't like the interiors as the went into the late aughts.

I can't speak to the 2nd gen 9-3 but my daily is a 01 9-3se. Great value for the money, reasonably quick with just a free tune and great potential after that.

I also have a 9000 and classic 900. So I do miss Saab, but honestly when they were selling new cars I didn't ever consider buying one new.

And by the end they completely cut off the enthusiasts that were still buying Pontiacs. They had only two cars I would actually call performance (G8/Solstice) and the rest were atrocious rebadges of economy cars. I mean, a fucking Minivan and an Aveo?

Why not fucking make two brands: Chevvy sports and everyday cars for everyman and caddy for """"high"""" end luxury for badgewhores.

Or break all of them up into different own companies so they stop just being badges with little freedom that gets squashed by men in suits.

There stopped 99% of problems GM had and stopped fiero from dying.

GM truly the worst fucking company because of all the hirearchy bullshit that kills any good cars it might've produced.

>Pontiac was going to become all RWD performance

God damn it.

I mean I know that just means they were gonna be popping out solstice's and Holden Rebadges, but still.

>Chevvy sports and everyday cars for everyman and caddy for """"high"""" end luxury for badgewhores.
That's exactly the direction it's going.

>Or break all of them up into different own companies so they stop just being badges with little freedom that gets squashed by men in suits.
And that's exactly the direction it was for decades and decades. Each marque under GM was essentially its own company which answered to and was controlled by General Motors, but wasn't part of the company itself. They had to use corporate bases and underpinnings and engines, but sheet metal, colors, advertising, etc. were all up to the company, and more importantly, they all had their own R&D divisions that churned out new ideas and designs without interference from corporate (until it was time to tell the company they didn't get to use said technology in their own cars, and then give it to the Corvette instead).

The thing is, that is exactly what CAUSED 99% of the problems GM had. The marques weren't quite strong enough to stand on their own, but when they were all under the GM umbrella, there was so much infighting and backstabbing due to the sheer number of brands that GM continually shot itself in the foot.

>Chevy
Regular cars
>Pontiac
Dead
>Saturn
>Dead
>GMC
Rebadged Chevy trucks and SUVs
>Buick
Entry level luxury
>SAAB
dead
>Hummer
Dead
>Cadillac
Luxury

Chevy - blue collar sedans and trucks, and "american dream" corvette

Pontiac - chevy but with body molding and fake performance upgrades, fiero and trans am are exceptions to this rule.

Saturn - American Toyota, underpowered but reliable af

Oldsmobile - somewhere inbetween Saturn and Buick. Wanted to be an Acura/Infinti/Lexus competitor towards the end of it's life. Based shortstar V6

GMC - chevy trucks but with leather as standard and more 4wd than rwd trucks

Buick - Soft luxury. Not as luxurious as Cadillac but more affordable.

Saab - quirky autistic savant/redheaded stepchild, part of GM but abused by daddy GM and neglected until it died. To their credit made good cars up to its death.

Hummer - for those who want a Chevy Tahoe but need to assert their masculinity even harder

Cadillac - BMW but with a beer belly and a "make america great again" hat

>saturn
"I want to buy Japanese but buy American
>ponitac
Chevy with a different grille
>GMC
fleet vehicles and light commercial trucks (only good GM)
>Buick
old people and negroes
>saab
mis managed before GM, royally fucked after GM
>Hummer
microdick maximus
>Cadillac
old people and negroes with a bit more money
>Chevy
bland versions of everything above

How does the Aztek fit ito the performance / enthusiast cars?

jalopnik.com/oldsmobile-made-a-giant-wagon-with-built-in-nintendo-in-1697968085

You can argue the Aztek was an enthusiast vehicle of a sort. It was based on the U-body minivan chassis, given optional AWD, and the venerable 3400 V6, if only to make the thing drive like a car and be palatable to mot people.
Then came the Aztek's party trick. The Aztek was designed for people with an outdoorsy lifestyle. Like to go Kayaking? There's a rack for that. Like to go camping? BAM! Tent that attaches to the rear hatch. It also features a built in air compressor to pump up your air mattress. The interior was made of a special fabric so you could hose the thing down. There were a bunch of options like that. So while the Aztek may not have been a performance vehicle, it was definitely an enthusiast vehicle. The closest competitors it had was the Honda Element and Subaru Forester which went after the exact same crowd.

>on the verge of becoming all-RWD

This is truly the dark timeline

Like to go tailgating? the center console doubles as a cooler, the rear hatch features a split folding tailgate, and there are redundant stereo controls in the back cargo area.

And here you can see the rear redundant stereo controls. On the left by the speaker.

drivin by only the best meth cooks

Almost makes me want one

I think the Aztek gets a bad rap, it's ugly sure but there are uglier things out there, and allot of people accuse it of being a bad car, but it wasn't really, it wasn't great but it wasn't bad.

Honestly it's biggest flaw was trying for the youth market but being too expensive for most of the youth of the day, it did allot of things that weren't done much back then and some, like the tent and cooler as far as I know haven't been done from OEM anything since. I could be wrong on that.

I've driven them they're nothing to write home about but they're not horrible cars deserving of bring put on all these ten worse car lists (unless it's talking about flops I guess).

They're painfully average aside from oddities like the design, tent gimmick and things like the cooler.

Honda offered the tent on the Element as well, and they still offer it on the Pilot and Ridgeline. I took this pic at the 2017 New York International Auto Show at one of the 2 Honda booths.

GMCs to me are some kind of luxery outdoorsman brand where Cadillac is too luxurious to be off roading or camping in.

I miss Saturn. Had an SL2(1?) way back, handed it off to my brother, then it went to each of my sisters in turn. Back when I was driving it (and maintaining), I noticed it had really weirdly high crankcase pressure. If you loosened the oil cap, it would blow off. And it always smelled horrible. But it ran. So three siblings later, it ate a rod bearing and we opened it up. "Holy fucking shit, look at that"! There was a hole the size of a quarter in one of the pistons. Just a huge chunk missing out of it. Replaced it, and no more high-pressure or stink. It had been running for almost 10 years like that, as a 3-cylinder.

>SL2(1?)
Easy way to tell the difference is the engine.
SL1's got a 100 HP 1.9L SOHC I4.
SL2's got a 124 HP 1.9L DOHC I4, making the SL2 the sport model.

There's an old saying that GM vehicles will run badly long after other vehicles have stopped running completely. I keep finding this to be true.

Man, we were this close to getting the ultimate touge machine to dethrone the JEE TEE ARU.

It's kind of depressing to see all these divisions killed off because of GMs incompetence.

I found a thing I was looking for.
youtube.com/watch?v=IQ_rj-juOHg
youtube.com/watch?v=vFAIzeeh1ic
youtube.com/watch?v=L2z5VDCtZfg

All hail.

Were there seriously people who didn't realize Saturn's logo was the planet fucking Saturn? Did they just think it was two random circles?

Not knowing the final Olds logo was a deformed rocket launch I can understand, but that's ridiculous.

A lot of people just thought the Saturn logo was a heavily stylized X.

there isn't even an X in S A T U R N

what the fuck

no one ever accused the buying public of being intelligent. After all. People still buy Nissans.

Poor
Old
Nigger
Thinks
It's
A
Cadillac

LOL
O
L

It was already dead, it needed to be killed.

Exhibit A, the Aztec

Exhibit B, the Vibe

Ironically if those dogshit cars had been released last year instead of 15 years ago they'd have sold like hotcakes.

Ironically the G6 G8 and probably F-body clone were on track to be a nice little core of the brand

Lutz wanted to keep it, Chinese bought too many Buicks to justify it

Blame wall street for all this fuckery

GM has a bunch of cool shit in the pipeline pre 2007 that got dumped into lake michigan after the financial crash

>GM has a bunch of cool shit in the pipeline pre 2007 that got dumped into lake michigan after the financial crash
god. I read about so much cool shit that was shitcanned. The Northstar was supposed to get a replacement DOHC engine architecture known as the Ultra engine. The Ultra V8 was supposed to launch in 2011, but the financial crash killed the project. There was talk of replacing the LS engines with the Ultra V8, so it was a big deal. I think the Ultra program started back up a few years ago since they're now talking about releasing a 4.2 or 4.4L twin turbo V8 for the Cadillac CT6, and there's also talk of a DOHC LT5 for the next generation Corvette/Camaro.
Time will tell if any of those projects get brought back, but likely not.

>Vibe

Rebadged Toyota

This is why automotive history always pisses me off. If every project that just barely missed production ended up actually built then the world would be a better place. Shitcanning the enthusiasts' brand for being a hodgepodge of rebadged Holdens has given GM absolutely no room for creative freedom, so while Ford is bringing back the Bronco because they fucking can, GM is trying to convince geriatrics that the CT6 is better than a Mercedes-Benz. On a similar note, shitcanning Oldsmobile took away the only chance they had to actually go head-to-head with the japs. They couldn't mess with the formula that got any of their other makes to sell and risk killing them, so Olds was the only shot they had. The final lineup was no worse than any other GM cars of the era, and if the second-gen Aurora hadn't been castrated before it reached the assembly lines then it would have been strong enough to possibly keep them alive. I get that the brand was losing money during a period of time when GM couldn't afford to lose any more money, but canceling their import fighter instead of trying to develop its image and make it actually competitive meant that their only chance at stealing sales from Toyota or Honda was the Chevy Cobalt.

Sometimes the only thing that GM is good at is shooting themselves in the foot.

Why are stupid faggit millenias so obsessed with pop up headlights?

I know they literally just missed the era of pop ups, but they were shit.

Explain to me how a grand am is an "enthisiasts car"?

An enthusiasts car is a miata or a 3-series. The piigfat ribbed mullet mobile with interior derived from recycled milk bottles, and a wheezing coffee grinder pushrod V6 driving the front wheels via a weak 4spd auto doesn't sound like anything any enthusiast would drive except reluctantly as a rental car. Could that possibly be why they are no longer with us?

Don't even start about the L67 powered cars, as all they had going for them was a little extra contemporary grunt.

Their actual "enthusiast cars" we're already redundant with other divisions like the hypersexualized, overcompwnsating camaro variant, the firebird. The shared Saturn Y bod solstice, and the piigfat g8/gto Aussie shit should or could had been more successful as Chevys

Pontiac was shit. I've owned two of them. Mclaren Grand Prix and a 3.4dohc gtp. Shitbuckets. Not for enthusiests

That tent looks like it is crawling out of the garbage bag that this dumpster baby of a car should had been put into so nobody would hear it's screams and allow it to live....

Big deal my first gen CR-V does all of this except the air compressor, and has a double wishbone suspension like an integra.

Pontiac wouldn't make t)3 g6 successor RWD

The dealers and rental car buyers would put up a shit fit.

Why does the stupid apologist Pontiac "historian" continue to perpetuate this place with and rumors fantasies of convertable grand prixs and Lq1 powered fieros that would only had made sense on a 2004 era BBB message board?

It's the same thing as blaming Union labor for the dumb mistakes of Gm executives to design shitty cars with accountants involved in everything, and lazy engineers.

Fun fact...dealer network and fleet buyers have the most impact on GM car design. This is why every division had to have their version of the latest 3400 powered shitbox to compete with the Chevy, Buick, etc. Not to compete against Honda or toyota. They care about volume. Gmc exists because Buick / GMC dealers used to compete against Chevy / Caddy dealers. This way the Buick dealers had trucks to sell too. Fleet buyers only care about cheap cheap cheap fwd cars that any retard can drive in the snow and last about 30k miles before falling apart

someone told me GMC stood for General Motors Chrome division.

holds up too, they are just Chevys with extra chrome trim

Holden was GM's Australian division. It designed and built some if its own exclusive designs but also rebadged some US models and some Opel models. For the most part it was known for the Commodore and the most recent Commodore was actually imported to the US and became the new Chevrolet Caprice.

>tfw I saw a third gen trans am last night

It was laughing at me because I don't own it and I want to

Pontiac wasn't really Pontiac after about 1979.

>tfw GM is making money and Mazda is losing money

Veeky Forums BTFO

>I know better than Bob Lutz who confirmed this shit

What you need to know about GM is simple: Chevrolet is the master, and everyone else is Chevy's bitch either limited to Chevy re-bodies or not allowed to succeed too greatly that they might over-shadow Chevy.

Fleets have zero sway over car design. Cars are designed for CONSUMERS, not for FLEETS you retard.

As to "rumors" of the LQ1 powered Fiero prototype.
Here's a pic of the prototype's engine. Still not convinced? I see an LQ1.

>It's the same thing as blaming Union labor for the dumb mistakes of Gm executives to design shitty cars with accountants involved in everything, and lazy engineers.

Holy shit are you retard, Rodger Smith may have sucked major ass when trying to ruin inner GMs constructive competition but the UAW sunk GM into their grave.
They had a truce with GM in WW2 but literally months after VE day they had a massive fucking strike demanding more money, GM caved. They then went to Chrysler and Packard and destroyed the Packard plants by unreasonable costly demands that they were forced to pay, and then they went under due to being unable to stay competitive with the big 3. Packard was the canary in a coal mine and the unions went and crippled detroit in the years to come.
"In the Eighties and Nineties, when foreign-owned companies like Toyota were entering the U.S. market in large numbers, UAW contracts bound and gagged the Big Three with costs and obligations that fatally restricted their ability to innovate and compete, just as the UAW had done to Packard against the Big Three in the Fifties."
The unions fucked Detroit.

if, hypothetically, GM was doing well enough, what's stopping them from bringing back Pontiac?
a proper American GTO would be fantastic

>what's stopping them from bringing back Pontiac?
lack of appropriate cars. They can bring back Pontiac, but they need to have product to put under the brand.

You might see a Pontiac badge bei g sold at a Chevy dealer, but I doubt gm would invest in relaunching a brand with dealers.

I have to wonder if a Pontiac gto would sell better than a Chevy ss if it was just a name difference and perhaps a bit of styling.

>triple line breaks

found a pic

I mean, I don't hate it, but it definitely isn't as aesthetic as single sealed beams.

and the 1990 interior