It's done. Yes, we all knew it was coming. But, the reality of it all set in this morning with the actual filing of the General Motors bankruptcy.
My first memory of a car is that of my mother's black early '50's Chevrolet Bel Air. Throughout the years my parents owned primarily GM products (Chevy's, Pontiac, and Cadillac). It was not until 2001 that my mother got her long awaited Lincoln (but let's not talk about that).
Now while my parents stuck with U-S automakers, the same was not always true for their four sons. Our choices for cars were first heavily influenced by my father and his aversion to buying a foreign automobile. But, once parental control of us waned, our choices were based on price, mileage and reliability. Generally that meant we bought foreign cars -- Japan (Nissan, Honda), France (Renault), Germany (Mercedes, VW), and Sweden (Volvo).
There's no sense going back through the recent history of U-S automakers and the rise of foreign imports. And if you want to play the blame game, there is enough blame to go around for everyone from company management, to the unions, to the government and yes, U.S. consumers as well.
But it is with a twinge of sadness that I reacted this morning as I listened to the news of GM's bankruptcy filing. No matter that we've been planning for this day and how we would report it.
So tonight we report the bankruptcy filing, but we also look to the future of General Motors. There will be those who express optimism, those who will be skeptical and of course the cynics.
We won't have all of the answers, to all of the questions. But as this chapter closes, a new one is beginning. I really liked that black Chevrolet.
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Brings to mind a decades old story of a wave of warranty claims for inexplicable rattling sounds. Turned out to be empty beverage cans left in the doors by disgruntled workers.
Talk about going back through history -- this reminded me about a high school friend who had a love affair with his Pontiac Le Mans. As the only one of our crowd with a car, he drove everyone everywhere & put us to work. We all learned to work a timing light and clean the engine and have one sunburned arm from leaning it out the window. Those were the days. For nostalgic reasons I hope GM can find success again, but with "PONITAC" stories like Stuart's I don't know if it will.
My parents were loyal GM car owners for many years. They had a great looking two-tone '55 Oldsmobile 88 sedan and, later, a '67 Olds Cutlass convertible.
When I graduated from college (1970), my parents bought me a new Pontiac Firebird.
I knew GM was already having quality control issues on the assembly line because when we picked up the Firebird at the Pontiac dealer, here's how the brand name was spelled on the rear panel above the license plate: PONITAC.
You can see the photo here. I couldn't make this up if I tried...