Episode 930 – Caddy ATS Makes Olympic Debut, Canadian Labour Costs, ‘Ring Faces Bankruptcy
July 18th, 2012 at 11:32am
Runtime: 7:00
Cadillac will unveil its ad campaign for the new ATS small sedan during the Olympic opening ceremonies. The French government is telling PSA it needs to meet conditions for stimulus funds. Ford is in talks with Canadian labor over cost issues, the company is also looking to cut 15 percent of its Aussie workforce due to low demand. All that and more, plus Autoextremist Peter De Lorenzo on why GM should have an official museum like many other automakers.
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Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of Autoline Daily. It’s Wednesday, July 18th, 2012. I’m Peter De Lorenzo, The Autoextremist, filling in for John, who’s out today, so let’s get to it.
CADDY ATS MAKES OLYMPIC DEBUT
As the world introduces its greatest athletes, GM will introduce its latest offering from Cadillac. The ATS sedan will premiere with as many as nine 30-second ads, plus another one-minute spot during the Olympic opening ceremony. The ads show the car on a worldwide adventure seeking out challenging roads across several continents. I’ve seen it and it’s good stuff, featuring excellent work by my old pal Jeff Zwart.
FRENCH GOV’T ORDERS PSA CONCESSIONS
Last week PSA, the parent company of Peugeot and Citroen, announced it will shut a plant in France down in a move to restructure the company. Now the French government says the company needs to make concessions if it’s going to receive aid from the government. According to Reuters, France is preparing a stimulus for the auto industry but wants companies to make concessions like suspending dividends to get the aid. The plan is expected to be unveiled at the end of the month.
CANADIAN LABOUR COSTS
And speaking of labor issues, Ford says it is looking to cut wages in Canada. According to The Detroit News, the company says labor costs in Canada are the highest out of any country it does business. The average employee makes $34 an hour compared to $28 in the U.S. A strong Canadian dollar is making it more expensive to build cars in the country. Ford will also cut 440 jobs or about 15 percent of its workforce in Australia, and it will also cut production in the country by nearly 30 percent because demand for the Falcon is declining.
VW CUTS 5-CYL FROM JETTA
Yesterday we reported that Toyota won’t offer a four-cylinder for the 2013 Sienna, now Volkswagen is dropping the 2.5 liter 5-cylinder from its Jetta lineup in favor of a 1.8-liter turbo four. The move comes as Germany’s largest automaker seeks to improve fuel economy and performance in its base level Jettas. The new 1.8-liter turbo engine will be built in Silao, Mexico.
Sound the alarm! You know things are bad in Europe when the world’s greatest road racing circuit, the Nürburgring, is in financial distress. The track is estimated to need 13 million Euros worth of investment to stay afloat otherwise it will likely enter bankruptcy at the end of the month. The track needs the money to pay back a nearly 300 million Euro loan it received in 2009, according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Coming up next, a few of my thoughts on why GM needs a museum to properly showcase the company’s heritage. We’ll be back right after this.
GM’S HERITAGE NEEDS A HOME
There are some great automotive destinations in the world. Volkswagen has Autostadt in its hometown of Wolfsburg, a theme park devoted to everything VW, and you can even take delivery of a car while you’re at it. Audi, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz have stunning museums awash in the history of their respective brands. Ford is affiliated with one of the most important historical museums in the world, and there’s even a modest museum dedicated to the product history of Chrysler in Auburn Hills.
Are some of these museums over the top? Absolutely. But these manufacturers rightly see these kinds of structures as part of their continued brand building. And they’re absolutely right to think that way.
But GM? The No. 1 or No. 2 automaker in the world (depending on what day it is) has an 81,000-square-foot warehouse in Sterling Heights, Michigan, called the GM Heritage Center where it keeps a smattering of its most important cars. And it’s not even open to the public on a regular basis.
Now granted, the very last thing on CEO Dan Akerson’s “to do” list is funding a museum for General Motors, so the likelihood of GM spending $100 million on a museum is, well, it’s just nevergonnahappen. Because the reality for Akerson and his troops is that they’re operating in a 24/7, all-hands-on-deck frenzy, developing competitive products, putting out fires, trying to move the sales needle, cutting costs, trying to maintain momentum in China, trying to grow business in new markets, etc., all the while waiting impatiently to get out from under the tainted moniker of “Government Motors” that no one wants to hear about anymore down at the RenCen.
But, and this is a very big “but,” despite GM’s swirling maelstrom of problems and challenges, the fact that it doesn’t have a proper museum is bordering on the criminal.
I get that under Dan Akerson GM is more about cost cutting than brand building, and for the very short term maybe he’s right. But there’s a bigger long-term issue at stake here, and if Akerson wants his legacy to be one of other than “the guy who was there after GM emerged from bankruptcy,” then maybe he ought to heed history, or at least acknowledge its importance to the company and put plans in motion to build a proper museum to showcase GM’s glorious past, ever-changing present and promising future.
And it just might have the beneficial side effect of convincing people that GM is so much more than a faceless enterprise, an iconic American company filled with colorful stories, True Believers, imaginative solutions and flat-out creativity that once dominated the business and set the standard for future generations.
And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.
But before I go, I want to remind you to join us for Autoline After Hours this Thursday. John and I are going to be chatting with Joel Ewanick, the head of all marketing and advertising at General Motors. This is going to be a great show, so tune in this Thursday at 6PM Eastern time for some of the best insider discussion in the automotive business.
Anyway that’s it for today’s show, thanks for watching and I will see you tomorrow.
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Comments (26)
July 18th, 2012 at 11:51 am
Great comments on whether GM should have a museum, Peter; of course it should. But here’s a question, Corvette has a museum in Bowling Green, and I seem to remember it soliciting for donations (when it was in the planning stage), is this museum affiliated with GM (in any way) or is it private; I do know you can have a factory delivery (of your brand new Corvette) there so maybe there is some sort of agreement. It would be nice though for the other cars that GM has sequestered to be available to the public’s perusal (via a museum).
And this goes without saying, Peter, a question for AAH with Joel Ewanick (about GM’s consideration) for a museum or at least his opinion (of your idea).
July 18th, 2012 at 11:51 am
GM’s museum could be part of the Smithsonian, I mean after all they are both funded by the United States Government.
Finally, the world’s second most expensive production 4-cylinder engine is beginning to show signs of DEATH. The world’s most expensive 4-Cylinder engine of course already died, and was also from VW, the useless VR5. Every time I drive a VW with one of these I-5′s under the hood I can’t help but think how much better Nissan’s I-4 of the same displacement performs and feels.
July 18th, 2012 at 11:51 am
Peter,
I wish I could believe your BS about GM but GM has proved time and time again that it’s all about the money! They offer Cheap quality products at above market cost.
July 18th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Hi Ben S., I just watched today’s ALD on the new Nexus7 tablet. Looking and sounding a-ok.
July 18th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Snark alert, Peter: I thought the MIT Sloan School of Management was GM’s museum:-)
/snark
July 18th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
It’s all about the money for all auto makers, just some of them care about what they put out there will say more about them than all the ads in the world.
July 18th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Having no Govt. Motors Museum is a fitting tribute to the army of bean counters who helped destroy a manufacturing company made great by designers and craftsmen. Their bonus checks could have paid for the Museum that Isn’t.
Why don’t they find some volunteer docents and charge $10 a pop for the GM Heritage Center instead of saving it for VIPs – car buffs want to see the cars and not a Disneyworld knockoff.
July 18th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
I’ve been to the Corvette museum in Bowling Green, and my thoughts were, “this should be a GM museum, not just Corvette.” I don’t know how it should be funded, but I agree with Peter. GM has such a colorful history and so many cool products over the years, that this should be showcased in a proper museum.
July 18th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
That VW I5, while not terrible, was just mediocre in every sense of the word. Mediocre performance, mediocre gas mileage, and mediocre, at best, “feel.”. I’m surprised it didn’t go away years ago.
I assume the new 1.8 turbo will not be the 5 valve one they used for several years. That was a nice engine, but probably expensive to make, and it needed premium gas. I hope the new one does not need premium, given VW-s market position.
July 18th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
The Henry Ford Museum is great and it would be hard to out do in Detroit. With that in mind should GM really put another Car Museum in Detroit? Disney’s “GM Test Track” is pretty nice and if anything expand that experience. It’s getting an up grade pretty soon so here’s GM’s opportunity.
July 18th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
To Mr. AutoExtremist. (question)
Why is it you think GM never started the building of a proper museum? Or the funding to build a proper museum?
Everything you said seems so obvious, it really puzzles the mind to think why GM haven’t in 100 years build a museum, it’s not like GM’s headquarters or factories were ever bomb to the ground.
July 18th, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Will they include their misses as well as their hits in this Museum?
July 18th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Maybe the UAW could fund the GM museum.
July 18th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
GM’s not having a museum seems to point out a big difference between the histories of GM and Ford. Ford was a “family business” headed by a guy with a lot of money and a big ego, thus the Henry Ford Museum.
GM, on the other hand, has always been a corporate entity, with, seemingly, no interest in preserving and displaying its legacy when things were going well, like in the 50′s and 60′s. Heck, the divisions were competing with each other as much as they were competing with other car companies, not the right atmosphere for establishing a GM show place.
July 18th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Kit is right, the jury is still out on GM, from all the reports I’ve read it seems the new Malibu is not as good as the outgoing one. OUCH! I also read that Ford is delaying the EU launch of the new Mondeo (Fusion) so they can take care of some quality issues. I guess they learned the lesson from Fiesta and Focus
July 18th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
This olwrench has always preferred GM products,but
for the life of me I can’t recall any models that
were museum grade, except the Vette, of course,
and one off Show cars , of which most have been destroyed .
July 18th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
The truly “museum grade” GM cars would be some of the 30′s Cadillacs. Still, GM’s history is fascinating, along with the cars over the years.
As far as Corvettes, I like them, I like seeing older ones at shows, and I generally liked the Corvette museum. Still, by the time I was a third of the way through the museum, I would much rather have seen a Nomad wagon or even a Corvair Corsa than another C3 ‘Vette that looked like a half doznd I’d just seen. I’m not a “hard core” Corvette person, though.
July 18th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
I just read an article on Left Lane about Opel offering a 1.4 turbo Insignia which will run CNG and petrol using seperate tanks! Using Cng only provides 31 mpg and can travel 310 miles. Gas mpg’s are 41(must be EU estimates). Utilizing both fuels,the total travel dist. is 1,050 miles. In Europe,the savings from using CNG work out to 40%. I was unaware that CNG was so inefficient, comparably speaking. But the idea of having two seperate fuel modes is very interesting!
July 18th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Come on Ford wake up bring the Falcon to the US. You need a large RWD sedan . The current Falcon is a great car . I have several friends in AU that have them and love them.
GM , I thought they did already have a museum , Jay Leno’s garage.
July 18th, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Let’s see here, would you have a public museum if you had produced the Aztec, Cimmeron, Citation, Vega, etc.??? Oh, wait a minute, I think the GM museum is over in the industral area of our town behind a falling down whitewashed fence with a sign that says “wrecking yard”. There does seem to be a large collection of their products of recent years in there…
Seriously, I do agree that GM should have a museum because they did, in fact, have some great cars and advancements years ago that should be recognized…It would also be a good way to promote sales and brand heritage/image and that would help their “bottom line”…
July 18th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Ouch!
July 18th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Mr. Auto guy,
GM does not need a museum. They need to start building vehicles that do not start niggling people to death as soon as the vehicles reach 70 or so k miles. It’s not real hard to do as some other automakers have been doing it for years.
July 19th, 2012 at 8:34 am
There are quite a few GM cars on display at the Alfred Sloane Museum and around the corner at the Buick factory in Flint Mi.
July 19th, 2012 at 9:23 am
#18,
CNG has lower energy density than gasoline, but there is a lot of it out there. That Opel dual fuel car sounds like a great idea.
I’ve always wondered why Honda didn’t make their CNG Civic dual fuel like that, so it could be a “do everything” car. You could fuel it at home with CNG, but have the ability to drive wherever you want on gasoline when the CNG runs out.
July 19th, 2012 at 10:14 am
The site at Sterling Heights is just fine. There is also the Corvette museum and apparently there are preliminary plans for a Cadillac site(?). Before GM does anything, it needs to consolidate its efforts.
July 19th, 2012 at 11:06 am
#14
Kit – Ever been to the Henry Ford Museum? It is a museum of history, not just auto history. Probably 10% is devoted to Ford vehicles, the rest is locomotives, planes, houses, guns, sewing machines, electric generators, etc., etc…
The GM Heritage Center is very cool, with many old show cars and first off’s of almost every vehicle (would love to get the Regal GNX out for a cruise on Woodward!). There are also 3 other warehouses that rotate cars through the Center. Would be great if they could somehow make it public…