General Motors - the demise of a giant

It's been coming for a long time, from a company which in recent years (decades really) in its 'heartland' churned out technologically mediocre and inefficient products, led by a management which even very recently simply didn't get it, even when asking the US Government to bail it out with shedloads of public money. It had, despite its former might, become somewhat irrelevant in the wider US ecomony - but remained arrogant and unmindful of wider trends in the US and global automotive markets.

But it's still sad.

Here's a very recent ad. run in the US which illustrates just how desperate was General Motors' situation, specially within the context of an economy undergoing major recession and why the inevitable has happened today:



I don't think I've ever actually owned a GM product, although I've driven a few either as hire [rental] cars whilst on vacations in the US, or company cars when I lived in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s - 'tanks' such as the Chevrolet Caprice Classic or the Buick Le Sabre, which whilst powerful were, as even I could see (I make no particular pretence of knowing or caring how motor cars work or how they are engineeered - although I am not quite so ignorant as that in reality), not far below the superficial veneer of luxuriousness, quite crude vehicles with generally atrocious handling characteristics. My exepriences of driving Opel or Vauxhall products as occasional rental vehicles were only marginally more satisfactory. Why would I have considered buying a GM product when there were much more reliable, safe, comfortable and economical products readily available? And it's that reality that has brought GM to today's denouement.

PS/ This article was almost ready yesterday evening when my broadband connection went down - I'm publishing this courtesy of a neighbour's internet connection.