This time is worse, because Chinese companies can build a car that all Americans would buy. In the 70s, Japanese cars were tiny cracker boxes, so they didn’t really compete with the domestic company’s bread and butter.

Sounds like they gave him a glass of Kool-Aid too....

China would probably already own the American market if they gave their cars real names. The only thing protecting Chrysler is that people can remember what the Charger is called but nobody knows to ask the local importer for a Lee-Xiandong 2235 Model 25 F-900074.

Champing at the bit*

The solution for this, of course, is to permit these vehicles into the US market, assuming they meet the same regulatory and safety standards that apply to Japanese, Korean and German imports as well as domestically-produced American cars. If, as you say, the products turn out to be shit and the customer is indeed unfo…

Come on man. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about where the parts come from. That’s a bad fucking faith argument to start with when literally everything you can buy now has pretty much stuff made from basically forced labor/slave labor (pretty much all of SEA and African manufactured components, and all the prison…

Hertz is pretty lousy. Last year, I did a one-way rental to get back home after my just-purchased ‘96 Jaguar XJ12 died two miles from where it started (because of course it did). The rental in question was a pre-refresh version of the current Chevy Equinox, with hard miles on it.

THIS is a primary reason we need to legalize recording our phone calls. Here in Florida I can’t record my calls without the other party’s consent. When I lived in Texas the law stated only one party needed to consent, therefore you can record the other party, be it a banker, lawyer or contractor making promises they…

To be fair to Hertz, the customer did return his rental Tesla without a drop of gasoline in it.

Now that would be smart, but smart customer-poaching would take more than an MBA fresh out of college to pull off on a regular basis.

Every time I read a story like this, it feels malicious. Like some one deliberately added the charge out of boredom or something. 

GMC exists partly so that stand-alone Buick dealers can get some of those sweet, high margin truck sales along with Chevrolet and Cadillac.

If Buick had died, GMC probably would’ve died along with it (at least the non-heavy duty versions).

It pains me to say it but Lutz was spot on with his assessment. Especially considering Pontiac was just hitting their stride again after years of mostly crap...having just released the G8, which- yes, it was a Holden rebadge- but it was a pretty fuckin’ killer performer and a great value to boot.

Mostly due to nostalgia, I was crushed when they killed Oldsmobile. But I was never quite able to understand  how GMC has kept trucking along all these years (pun intended). Yeah yeah yeah, “professional grade”, but it’s a friggin’ Chevy. How are they not able to translate those profit margins into just one line of…

Absolutely baffling that GM wanted Pontic dead, but wanted to keep Saab. Pontiac actually had an identity until the day it died, unlike Saab which hit its low point as a rebranded Subaru.

Seriously, what the hell?  If I’m behind a bunch of...unicyclists? OK...on a one-lane road then I may not like it but I’m not going to commandeer a lane on the other side of the street.

Nobody gave a shit about Buick when Pontiac was axed except for China. Pontiac was getting interesting again with a lineup that was exclusive to Pontiac in the US: the G8, the Solstice, a rebadged Holden Ute was on its way, a Zeta-based GTO was in the works.

The bank supposedly cleared $40k in interest on an investment of less than $100k in 3 years. I don’t see how that’s not a winner.

There was a time when double-digit HP and 0-60 times were common for compact cars. Now we’re like 7 seconds is SO SLOW. 

if there ever was a director who would have a fun redbox era…