NEWS BULLETIN - NO MORE BUICKS

3

39 Century

Active Member
Tonight's local evening news was reporting rumor has it that if sales don't improve - General Motors is considering eliminating one or two of their car lines. Namely Buick - Pontiac.

Anybody else heard this ?????????

Lets see what does that leave ? Oldsmobile is gone - Caddys and Chebbys I guess!
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I saw the same thing on our local news. Also said that this was just a rumor. However, based on the way things are going in the automotive world these days, you can never tell. I'm sure that all the Buick and Pontiac dealers went ballistic at the first announcement and put a lot of pressure on GM to clear this up one way or another. GM can always deny the rumor today and cite valid reasons for whatever they decide to do in the future.
 
Excuse me if i sound like the devil's advocate or way too pragmatic here, but whats the difference? GM cars are all the same now except for a few differences in trim and styling. If they eliminate the buick line, I think most of us only stand to gain from it because these cars will increase in value as time goes by, moreso than the makes which are still in production. I'm not saying we should wish for it, but is there anyone here that can tell me a HUGE difference between any buick, olds, pontiac or chevy car built since 1989?


Just my thoughts,
Ben
 
pretty much gotta agree with you.

ever since GM turned all of it's divisions into styling houses instead actual car manufacturers it's been fighting a losing battle to justify all of these different brands.

i don't think the bean counters in charge over there are ever going to understand that they are making good tactical (short term) financial decisions that are disastrous in the strategic overview.

accountants have their place and they are necessary but they shouldn't be permitted to run anything.
 
if buick ceases to exist , I can say without hesitation, "I will never buy another GM product".
I am a 4th generation buick owner, I have never owned nor will I own anything but a buick...
I have had 80 buicks since 1984...
our current stable consists of
'71 gs convertable
'71 skylark custom
'89 reatta
'04 ranier

this is not the first rumblings of buicks demise.

buick has always had a stronger following than pontiac, and the pontiacs of late have become nothing more than the poor mans GM car.
every time I hear this I get p.o'd....

strating in the late '80s, GM dismantles the buick GN program, they outsold the olds 442 and chevy SS and to this day carry more value.
then it cancels the reatta program because it was making its sister cadillac allante look bad in the sales numbers.
I drove the escalade before we bought our ranier "just for grins",and the cadillac for lack of a better term is an over priced sled.
the ranier eats it alive in every way.

more recently GM consolidates the lines and steals the 3.8 thus making it a "corporate" motor...
thanks buick engineers,now go home.

I will never own a chevy, or pontiac, and it will be a cold day in he// when I own a cadillac.

GM has been mismanged for years... there was no real reason to eliminate oldsmobile either.

I will add, with the ever growing import market GM no longer needs to have 5-6 4 door cars from each of its namesake lines competing with each other... the '50s-'70s are over...
wake up GM you can scale back without eliminating product namesakes.

john jaco /WI
gsca #385
 
I think we should find a way so send a message to GM to stop screwing with things that work, and they face losing many customers over it. Not that they would care any...

Just my $0.02

Jim.
 
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Hey Guys!

I also have been a lifelong Buick Owner, along with preceding generations of Family Members. My Father assembled Buicks aat the GM assembly Plant in Linden, NJ.

In the past few years the Riviera became History. Now the Park Avenue. :mad:

The Century/Regal mnameplate is being replaced by the LaCrosse. :confused:

Next year the Lesabre will fall to the new Luceren. :confused:
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History lessons are for a purpose. To learn by your mistakes. Some people just don't get it!

Or maybe they don't realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot?
Isn't this the same formula that led to the demise of Oldsmobile.

No more 88 & 98. No mure Cutlass. Rename and drop your best selling nameplate and behold. No more Oldsmobile.
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Regards,

Tom Gallagher
 
Does anyone on the site have the ability to get in contact with some of the upper management for GM? I don't know how things are in other places around the country, but here in Wichita, KS there seems to be more new Buicks on the road than any other manufacuter of passenger cars. It would seem odd that the manufacuter of one of the largest growing segments of society would decide to alienate their current market and future markets that are available. I don't deny that I am one of the younger multiple Buick owners out there, but hey even I am going to buy myself a new Buick for my 30th Birthday present to myself.
GM I think should also look at the fact that Buick is only one a few car companies out there in the world that has over 100 years of consistently staying in business. They've ridden out the high and the lows of the market for over a century so why think about killing off the only real branch of the company that can say these things?
 
I live near what was once the home town of Buick, (Flint Michigan) and can tellyou that there aren't any high officers of BMD that are remotely interested in what we think! They are so removed from the common man that they haven't the slightest idea what we want.
 
When I look at the excitment that the new Ford Mustang and the Dodge Magnum, Chrysler 300 are going to generate GM doesn't have a thing to offer.
Solution cut costs by downsizing and blame the workers.
Lack of vision will unfortunatly be the demise of many GM families as the executives responsible live comfortably on their back doored pensions.
 
Ben, don't want to point this out too oddly but the fact is there has been no real difference in Pontiac, Buick and Olds long before 1989. I am aging myself but the fact is you can go back to the late 40's and their were basically all the same. Only difference was some trim packaging and each had their own motor designs. Skylark/Nova in the early 70's!....GM just needed years ago to realize they would have to specialize divisions to be creative and they failed to do so....
 
Ben, don't want to point this out too oddly but the fact is there has been no real difference in Pontiac, Buick and Olds long before 1989. I am aging myself but the fact is you can go back to the late 40's and their were basically all the same. Only difference was some trim packaging and each had their own motor designs. Skylark/Nova in the early 70's!....GM just needed years ago to realize they would have to specialize divisions to be creative and they failed to do so....
 
Let's see . . . they all have bodies by Fisher, so body quality should be the same. Somewhere in the 40s or even 30s some genius pointed out that all the body envelopes could be the same and differneces between brands could be brought about by fenders, bumpers, trim, badging, and names. Buick maintained a more distinct separate personality with their engines (the only OHV straight 8, and then the nailhead); the dynaflow transmission (villian or hero, it was funamentally different to drive); the most outstanding example of marketing cynicism, the "cruseliner ventiports"--but all in all, there has for decades been darn little fundamental difference between GM lines than styling and badge engineering--especially since the bean counters decreed that the cheaper Chevrolet 350 engine would be used in the Oldsmobile (and other?) lines.

There's not a damn thing we can do to change the velocity of General Motors. We'd be like Mighty Mouse trying to deflect a huge meteor heading for Earth.

Too bad the marketing geniuses don't have the bravery (or brains) to quit trying to produce a separete type of car for every type of person, and go back to the slightly-overlapping heirarchy they had in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Fewer models, more quality, and some genuine distinction between an Chevrolet Impalla and a Cadillac Coupe DeVille . . .

Get used to the future. It's inevitable.
 
but Mighty Mouse did deflect the meteor. I still believe that GM errored primarily in not paying as much mind to the public as they could have. Look at Ford, Probe was to be the Mustang of the future until Mustang fans screamed bloody murder and look what is still here and look what has gone by the wayside. The Probe will end up being a collector car soon due to the public making such an issue with Ford and it's attempt to discontinue the Mustang. Olds fans did not yell loud enough with the fall of the 442 or Hurst Olds. In addition, trying to make them into other lines of GM did not help. I'm sorry, FWD 442 or Hurst just would not cut it. So alas we return to those days of yester year. Up til 1980 I could tell you the car that was motoring down the road even if it was a Cutlass or a Regal. Imports no clue and the FWD's that GM has made for past few years totally have me confused. The trims and fenders as you note were the primary. My 55 Buick though resembled greatly the 55 Olds and 55 Pontiac, you could tell the difference but primarily same cars less running gear differences. Now you aren't sure what you get. 1978 Olds buyers filed suit against GM for failing to sell them true Olds due to using chevy small block V8's. Suit settled and eventually the 307 came along to fill the Olds buyers void. Odd though that in all it is the same approx size in dimension as the Olds Rocket 350 and 455. Makes you wonder why they just did not keep the Olds 350 and use that. I had a discussion regarding my 55 Buick that I received from my godparents back in 1972. They bought it late 1956 from a Doctor who bought it in late 1955. I was told that there was no 322 ci V8 til 1956. Truth was typical of GM, late year production many times will have next years goodies since they do not want to re-machine up. Not cost effective. The 55 did in fact come from the factory with the stock 322 not a 264. Luckily my godfather kept all the paperwork ie: repairs and all was clearly supported by the shop that had cared for it for all those years.
GM taking the small block chevy V8's and shoving them into the BOP's in 78 with overall size reduction of the cars only follows suite with what they have been doing for years.
 
Mighty Mouse only defelected the meteor in a cartoon. Remember the years when the Mustang was a 4-cyl piece of garbage? That's when the bean-counters had their way. Took Mustang fans and dealers several years to get a decent Mustang back. I don't think if they bean countes chache a mark that its fans will ever bring it back. Didn't happens with LaSalle or DeSoto; isn't happening with Plymouth (well, maybe no fans there . . .); isn't happening with Oldsmobile; don't believe it would happen with Buick or Pontiac.
 
Had a friend whose dad had an automotive garage. The dad got hold of an original body style Skylark with bummed front sheet metal and replaced it with hood, fenders, grille, and bumper from a Tempest of the same year--and the lines on the body matched perfectly.

Friend got a parking ticket and designation of car was " ? " (I got one once with a Citroen ID19 with a " ? " for the vehicle brand.)
 
I know why you got the Parking Ticket.

If You had a Citroen and it was Damp or Raining
the darn thing wouldn't start.

English Sports Cars and Fiats experienced the same problems.

And I swear that a childs Lionel Train Set is wired better than a Jaguar. Jag's had a real problem with their re-charging system. They go jumped more often than a 42nd St. Hooker.

Tom Gallagher
 
Oddly, I never had electrical problems with the Citroen. I did have a Lucas electrical system, didnt'it?
 
:confused: Along with these bitter grapes in this column, I have to point that from 1st. of January we have here in Spain those ricegrinders called Daewoo now wearing "Chevrolet" logos.
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I've got possessed 80 cars of every brand, English the most, and never got an American. My erotic Super 'nette '49 been the 1st. And getting the Buick bug instantaneously was like when I started my first Harley 28 years ago. It's like sex. :D
One o'most celebrated American roman, I guess from Harold Robbins, painted a very old lady facing madly the Judge in a courtroom file, and shouting in rage: "Hey, your honor, I can be in the nineties, but I can yet distinguish between a Ford and a Cadillac, huh?!!"
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Idiot commercial laws destroyed the Indian Motocycle myth. You good Americans: Don't permit this.
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Just 22 years ago it happened something this way with H-D. The Harley family and Mr. Reagan arranged it. Sure the hell there's Federal Laws protecting the America's external picture.
 
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