[against all odds]

After reviewing the movie Dolemite, and i would highly recommend watching it if you haven't, it got me wondering:


Explain the reasoning and politics behind gm's different brands and why each division, including GMC, produced it's own engines?

a) Is the profit margin really that good if an individual company designs and builds it's own engines, at high R+D costs, and sells them as opposed to using another division's engines?

b) Eventually, generally all the divisions ended using chevy's engine anyways.

c) It would seem cheaper to use an established engine, e.g. the chevy small block rather than to develop your own (i am specifically thinking of cadillac....but this applies to all gm divisions.) You'll notice today no gm car division design or builds it's own engines. That is now the task of gm powertrain.

Dolemite (1975) - YouTube

Dolemite (1975) - YouTube

[E.Furgal]

take the ega regs out of the way and the r &d cost drop..

at one time people bought a pontiac wanted a pontiac powered car. if they wanted a chevy 350 they shopped at the chevy dealer..
badge engineering was g.m. downfall..

[against all odds]

Hmmm..... i didn't think most people gave a crap what was underneath the hood so long as it ran good. But maybe things were different back then?

[E.Furgal]

Originally Posted by against all odds

Hmmm..... i didn't think most people gave a crap what was underneath the hood so long as it ran good. But maybe things were different back then?

people flipped when they found out their pontiacs had olds or buicks in them a class action suit followed

[BOBCRMAN@aol.com]

Most of the big auto makers produced completely different engines for each particular brand/model. That was how it was done. Status, I remember the law suits when the Olds people found Chevrolet engines.

General Motors had each division developing different items. Like several different car companies under one roof. Competing, in a way, with each other. Chevrolet was the working mans car and Pontiac was the next step up. Then Olds then Buick then Cadillac. The auto was a status symbol. Each division had to have its own engine. GMC was added so B O P dealers had a pickup to offer. For a while they were produced with Pontiac and Buick engines.

Study the marketing of automobiles back in the day..

Chrysler was pretty much the same way. Many different divisional engines that had little or no interchange.

Ford had many different enginetrans designs also.

[Dave57210]

If you go back far enough, you see that many of the brands were not GM at the beginning. Ransom E Olds made a car. Buick made cars. Cadillac made cars.

When folks bought an Oldsmobile, they knew what they were getting and the merging of the brands into "General Motors" did not change peoples loyalties to - say Oldsmobile. So when they bought an Oldsmobile, they wanted OLDSMOBILE through and through, so the engine had to be Olds

There was a hierarchy, Chevrolet as the cheapest and Cadillac as the most expensive


As was referenced earlier, in later years when GM started stuffing Chev engines into an Olds, people got upset because they did not want a cheap, lowest-of-the-line Chevrolet engine in "my Oldsmobile" (Cadillac, Buick, etc) when I am paying good money to get a REAL Oldsmobile (Buick, Cadillac, etc)

Since this was happening at the same time as GM was experiencing a general downgrading of quality throughout all lines, - well - people who could afford Cadillac abandoned ship and bought BMW and M-B rather than paying top dollar for what they saw as being nothing more than a re-badged cheap Chevy at Cadillac price.

Customers bailed by the thousands and GM was set on it course to bankruptcy.

The politics of separate engine lines was (mainly) historic and customer driven

[OneMoreTime]

GM assembled its product lnes by buying out other car builders so each car builder continued on designing/building their own cars with their own engines/trans and such. over time corporate combined the varius builders into what you see today..Anyone remember Fisher Body..one of the first efforts to combine design groups..

Sam

[E.Furgal]

Lots of g.m. problems started very early for them.. and the other automakers as well..
When they started out.. it was a bunch of seperate companies.. under one umbrella..
everyone doing their own thing.. TO A POINT.. some steps where made to not step on each others toes..
once they started all building the same basic car with different trims..
even tho. they where styled very differently.. they where the same basic cars..
in the mid 60's (my opinion) when the cars looked to much like each other in size and outline.. is when the problems started..
the cars still was different enough in trim levels and content..but the outlines of the basic car was getting to close in sameness.. you park a 63 olds/buick/chevy/pontiac.. you can see the same car design in each..
didn't get any better in the 70's when because the hp was killed off. they started adding options to the lower models..
the you have the 80's that the cars didn't look different at all.. yes they are different but if you stand back and look at the g body family.. you can see the same car... and at this point the buyers all started wanting power everything.. you alway could get the power options in a chevy.. but the buyer didn't expect it.. the showroom stock was less likely to be a loaded car.. and if you wanted that you stopped by a buick/old/pontiac dealer..
the late 80's 90's killed off the idea of the trim scale.. chevy/olds/pontiac/buick/caddy/ they all could be found at the dealer lots. with the same equipment.. give or take one or 2..
and buyers started expecting power windows/locks/etc in the lowest of models..
bean counters figured out that if they built the same mid sized car across the board. they only haave to crash test one not all 4 (exp)cutlass/gp/monty/malbu/regal/etc,
they also found it cheaper to drop one engine in that basic car lowered the epa testing cost.. if they used one or 2 v8's and a few 6's instead of 18 different engines.. and by then brand loyalty was low. so if a pontiac g/p had a buick 3.8 no biggy.. but don't drop a chevy in it.. up till the last midsized rwd cars the buick/olds/pontiacs got olds v8 and buick 6 and chevy got chevys.. caddy got the olds 307 and that wonder of f up's the 4100
at that point g.m . SHOULD have kept the rear drive mid sized cars and moved them upscale.. letting olds/pontiac have that and the new front drive ones to chevy and buick.. I say buick beause g.m. was still pissed at buick and the g.n. making the vette look silly..
it can be said that the vette is g.m.s highwater make and it's cross to carry..
many cars that g.m. built where sidelined because of this one car.. and g.m. need to keep it king of it's hill..
g.m. sheading brands lately had to happen.. cars are not different enough to have 4 brands with the same segment car fighting each other.. that brand killing should've happened in the 70's g.m. waited to long.. they really need to stop with the 2 brands of trucks and make it one..
then move chevy into the mid sided and down and buick to mid sized and up..
and caddy as the flagship..
bring back the mid sized rwd car and hand it to buick.. YES buick.. let them make it sporty family car.. going fast with class.. and let chevy have the rwd camaro and vette.. moving the camaro back to basics.. build a kids camaro.. a fun car they can afford.. kids don't car if it's got 400 lb of sound deadner.. build a lite cheap model.. loose the center control syste that houses everything in the car.. radio/heater controls/gps/etc..
if they are going to keep the malbu and impala.. (same car) make one 2 door
g.m. over the time I've been into cars has let alot go. because of bean counters (fact of life) and the vette as the flagship mind set..
they also perfected the "we'll get it right then KILL it"
the fiero/the b bodys/the f bodys/ among the many..
imagine a g body sized car today.. rear drive with traction control for winter driving for those that can't drive(hehe) and todays powerplants..
oh course it's easy to point out g.m.s mistakes after the fact..
I'm sure it wasn't as easy in the board rooms..
someone needs to kick the beancounters in the shins and tell the designers K.I.S.S... KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID....
g.m.s next move should be a diesel powered small car.. that run circles around europes offerings.. and if they already have it.. bring it here..
same with a mini duromax.. for the 1/2ton market.. no ones gonna cry if their 1/2 truck is getting 30-34mpg+

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by E.Furgal

people flipped when they found out their pontiacs had olds or buicks in them a class action suit followed

Yes in deed they flipped, there were lawsuits by people who had bought cars and then found out they had another brand motor in them, you bet they flipped!

My father was a Buick salesmen from 1957 to 1979 and people were very brand loyal, whole families would be Buick loyal. I remember him coming home and over dinner telling us "Wait until people find out that the Regal has a Chevy motor it in". It was HUGE news, and it didn't go over well.

The different lines were very different, they WERE different "makes" they WERE different cars and they were made for completely different markets.

It went right up the economic ladder, Chevy being the cheapest targeted the more blue collar market, then Pontiac going one step up, and if yo couldn't afford a Pontiac, you got a Chevy, it was basically that simple. There came a lot of other twists to it but that was the basics, economics.

We are talking about a time when people paid off their cars in ONE YEAR, or they bought them with cash. My dad had a customer walk in and buy a Buick Riviera (a VERY expensive car) with silver dollars he had saved! The guy bought in cans and bags of silver dollars!
We are talking about a time when you left the dealership without a radio because you couldn't afford the 6 dollars more on your monthly bill. People weren't in hock like today, people bought within their means, they didn't go out and buy something they couldn't afford.

The GM lines were even more different from on an other than the Ford and Chrysler lines, and it made a difference.

It was a different America, today, it's largely a waste of money to make different emblems to put on the cars. People go out and sign 6 year loan stretching out not so they can afford the basic car, but so they can buy a car they have no business buying! They should be buying a little Chevy Aveo and paying it off in a couple of years but they are buying a fully loaded Camaro with a six year loan! It's ludicrous what people are regularly paying on these loans, it is absolutely ludicrous the kinds of cars people THINK they can "afford" simply because the loan has been made long enough to bring the payments down enough that they can make them, it's NUTS!

So todays buyer is WAY more interested in the emblem on the side, the size of the wheels and length of loan than the car it's self, they could care less what motor is in it, if it was made in China, or what ever, as long as they look "prestigious" in it. As long as they LOOK like they have a car others will be envious of, that is all that matters.

Brian

[MARTINSR]

To give an example I remember one time buying a 48 Buick grille at a wrecking yard (yep this was only about 15 years ago, at a regular pick-ur-Part) and an old man came up to me and told me how his parents would have loved to have had a Buick but they were a Pontiac family. There was a BIG difference guys!

BRian

[silentpoet]

I am a big fan of the caddy engine. But also the buick straight 8s. I am sick and tired of the corporate motor cars and trucks. My caddy is now running at least and it is within sight that I might be able to drive it some day soon. It gives me hope that I might escape the modern corporate motor hell.

[monster76]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

It was a different America, today, it's largely a waste of money to make different emblems to put on the cars. People go out and sign 6 year loan stretching out not so they can afford the basic car, but so they can buy a car they have no business buying! They should be buying a little Chevy Aveo and paying it off in a couple of years but they are buying a fully loaded Camaro with a six year loan! It's ludicrous what people are regularly paying on these loans, it is absolutely ludicrous the kinds of cars people THINK they can "afford" simply because the loan has been made long enough to bring the payments down enough that they can make them, it's NUTS!

Brian

6 year loans 10% down with a credit card because they don't have the cash to put down got to love how people do things now a days. But hey every one can be a 30k dollar millionaire with a pen and good faith.....

[against all odds]

1) Were the people who cared about engine brand and/or file the lawsuit a small minority of buyers? i have never known anyone who bought corporately---i.e., buick, olds, cadillac etc. really care what brand of engine was under the hood.

a) Could this lawsuit maybe have been seen as an opportunity to make money?

b) It's funny how no-one seemed to care if the care was equipped with a TH-350---which was designed by chevy and buick, NOT hydramatic.


If it was true that people really cared what brand engine was under the hood, then what caused the change the current consensus----that is that no-cares what's under the hood; No gm division designs or produces engines---that is taken care of by gm powertrain now.

Come to think of it, no gm division designs cars anymore either; The individual brands are just marketing diversifications.

[E.Furgal]

Originally Posted by against all odds

1) Were the people who cared about engine brand and/or file the lawsuit a small minority of buyers? i have never known anyone who bought corporately---i.e., buick, olds, cadillac etc. really care what brand of engine was under the hood.

a) Could this lawsuit maybe have been seen as an opportunity to make money?

b) It's funny how no-one seemed to care if the care was equipped with a TH-350---which was designed by chevy and buick, NOT hydramatic.


If it was true that people really cared what brand engine was under the hood, then what caused the change the current consensus----that is that no-cares what's under the hood; No gm division designs or produces engines---that is taken care of by gm powertrain now.

Come to think of it, no gm division designs cars anymore either; The individual brands are just marketing diversifications.

we have yet to see g.m. powertrain come out with much of anything..
the echotech is an undated olds.
the 3800 is a buick
the ls is chevy RACing..
the inline 4/5/6 is /was d.o.a.
the duramax is isuzu

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by against all odds

1) Were the people who cared about engine brand and/or file the lawsuit a small minority of buyers? i have never known anyone who bought corporately---i.e., buick, olds, cadillac etc. really care what brand of engine was under the hood.

a) Could this lawsuit maybe have been seen as an opportunity to make money?

b) It's funny how no-one seemed to care if the care was equipped with a TH-350---which was designed by chevy and buick, NOT hydramatic.


If it was true that people really cared what brand engine was under the hood, then what caused the change the current consensus----that is that no-cares what's under the hood; No gm division designs or produces engines---that is taken care of by gm powertrain now.

Come to think of it, no gm division designs cars anymore either; The individual brands are just marketing diversifications.

1. How old are you? Now, not so, 35 years ago when GM first started replacing the Buicks, Olds and Pontiac engines with Chevys (re-naming it "Corporate small block") people were TICKED. They bought a BUICK, not a lowly Chevy. YES it meant a lot.

a,b) Maybe, but it was false advertising to them, they bought a PONTIAC, not a Chevy. Now sure this had been changing over time like your point about the transmission, so it shouldn't have been a big shock but it was.

And by the way, the Buick had a TH400 before anyone else in 64. It was called a "ST400" (Super Turbine 400), I have one in my Gran Sport (though originally it had a ST300 two speed).

Brian