Oldsmobile joins Plymouth: RIP

that woul;d be up until '66

But as time went on, GMC trucks and Chevy

in '67 they had the same bodies, but in the GMC you gould still get
GMC's big 305 V6 (yes, V6) it wasn't until the '73 MY that they were
identical twins.

the '67 GMC w/ a 292 is the same as a Chevy.

no they don't and CAFE has a lot to do with it as they continually
make parts lighter and lighter to keep the CAFE number down as LD (sub
8500#) trucks keep taking up a bigger share of the pie.

-Bret

 

Funny thing is, it's probably better for the environment to build
a car that lasts as long as possible because it's built well than to
gram shave and keep building new replacements. Given all the energy
that goes into the raw materials and manufacture of a vehicle, it's
got to allow quite alot of usage of an existing vehicle from an
energy/pollution standpoint.

 

Much better to get laid off from such a firm than to be still employed there when it
goes TU.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

 

I'd love to tell you, but I can't. :-( Maybe someone else who hangs out on
here can.

DS

 

Of course they do! And if you're in the right stage of life, lousy imports
will do the same thing. Teenagers experience everything in emotional
hyperspace, they can't tell what's lousy. There's no sense being in denial
(like Nate). There are going to be car shows 30 years from now with a bunch
of gray haired old guys wiping down Honda Civics with big wings on the back
and tires sticking out. Year One will have to make reproduction fart
mufflers. Wearing your pants down with the crotch at your knees will be
considered "vintage costume". Try to be objective, guys. The car hobby is
primarily about nostalgia. If stupid things make you nostalgic, well, that's
nostalgic for you.

I admit I'm not too sure about mini vans. Still thinking about that one.

 

Right; and that brings up another issue. I may be wrong about this, but I
think the reason people are driving trucks all the time now is because the
CAFE standards for trucks are pretty slack, so they still make them big and
heavy, and more powerful than ever. I just wonder if people would still be
driving cars if CAFE hadn't come along and, through a series of events, hurt
their image. Just wondering.

In any case, it just shows that tinkering with market forces has side
effects.

 

i took my first "management" position last year about Thanksgiving.....
turns out i'm not REALLY a manager, unless they need to yell about
something i have no control over, but i'm expected to act like one.

for some reason, i was having problems getting my folks to do listen
and follow instructions i gave them %-). my stupidvisor was talking
to me about the problem and said that i had to find something to
praise EVERY employee for EVERY day. i told him that was impossible
with those whose greatest achievement daily was showing up sooner
or later.

he told me that a good manager would lie as necessary to get the
results he wanted. i told him that a good leader never lied.
he seemed confused by that, as he was when he told me on day two
there that i would have to change my ways, or my minions would never
"like me", and i told him that i wasn't there to be liked, but to
w*rk.

the only thing i got out of the discussion was that i could dismiss
everything i am told there as a lie.

redc1c4,
looking for a new j*b. (and frag a buncha MBAssholes too!)

 

There are many marques that have disappeared over the years, but who cares..
it gives older people something to nostalgically look back at, something to
collect, something to buy and sell at Barrett Jackson.. GM chose to cut a
marque that maybe one time overlapped into Cadillac and Buick product lines
no doubt for reasons of economy.. so now they have Caddy at the top, Buick
in the middle, and Chevy bringing up the rear.. Olds and Buick both have a
history spanning a little over 100 years.. so they chose to keep the Buick
brand.. good for them.. and for the record, I watched a news item on tv in
the last few days where one of the reasons given for the demise was that
Oldsmobile cars were bought mainly by older people that had always been
loyal to the marque..

 

Mike () wrote:
: and for the record, I watched a news item on tv in
: the last few days where one of the reasons given for the demise was that
: Oldsmobile cars were bought mainly by older people that had always been
: loyal to the marque..

Older people buying your product is not a reason to discontinue the
product. Its when they stop buying the product that you've got a problem.

Oldsmobile had a wide-ranging market for most of its life. You had the
older buyers who bought the 88s, 98s, and Custom Cruisers, but there was
also a younger market that bought 4-4-2s, Cutlasses and the like, who
recognized the engineering and content superiority Olds had over Chevy. So
what did GM management do? They killed off the big cushy 88s and 98s that
the older buyers preferred, and turned the Cutlasses into Chevy-clones.
Bye-bye target market.

Too late they realized they were a brand without a market, and tried to
turn Olds into an import alternative. I remember reading at the time of
introduction of the final edition of the 98 (the FWD one with the odd
styling) that it was an Audi 5000 alternative. Yeah, sure. The Intrigue
was supposed to be their bread-and-butter car for the mainstream. I have
one and love it, it's a great car, but it sure as hell didn't appeal to
the traditional older Olds buyer who was looking for a bench seat with red
crushed velour uphoolstery, lots of chrome and a column shifter. And they
didn't market it to those it would have appealed to, those who would be
considering Accords and Camrys. Heck, they didn't market it at all. Is it
any wonder they failed?

The sad part for me is that they were just starting to come around with
some good product at the time they were killed. The Intrigue, the Bravada
(the best-looking of all on that platform), the gen-2 Aurora, and even the
Alero was a better car than its twin, the Grand Am. The Silhoutte van
("the Cadillac of minivans" - Get Shorty) was the only one that was still
an outright clone. All those cars needed was a market, and GM didn't try
hard enough to find one.

 

No way! The grille is different! ;-]

-'dreas

 

Ah, yes. At work we refer to this as "You can be a supervisor here,
but the first thing you have to do is remove your balls and leave them
in your boss's office."

Ah, yes, I'm familiar with that. You look at the car keys, then look
at the phone, back and forth, trying to decide which one to use.
Anyway, when people hate where they work, you have to bribe them.
Like a small $.50 per hour bonus for being there every day and on
time.

Its a lot easier if the grunts like and respect you.

Anyway, we know when our boss's boss is lying... its when his lips are
moving.

 

I don't disagree with you, except sometimes when people see the
consequences (as I said, those unintended ones) of what has happened to
others as a result of seemingly harmless acts that wrecks not only the
lives of the person who didn't realize what the consequences of his
actions might be, but of his totally innocent children, spouse, etc.,
and people he doesn't even know, they can actually change their
outlook. Very similar to the old saying "Those who don't know history
are destined to repeat it".

I think the philosophy about the purpose of laws applies here. Here it
is in three steps:

(1) Some people will do the right thing whether there is a law requiring
it or not (i.e., they do not steal, or rape, or kill innocent people
simply because it is wrong, meaning they follow the sense of right and
wrong that God put into every human being before birth.

(2) Some people will do the right thing only if there is a law requiring
it and there is a reasonable chance that they will get caught and
punished or humiliated if they violate it.

(3) Some people will do whatever they want to do whether there is a law
or not. This is what prisons are for.

As I get older, I get the impression that most people fall into the 2nd
category, and as time goes on, it becomes more that way. Very few
people are in category (1).

The Lockheed Brake case is a perfect example. The people doing the
testing let the pressures of costs and making the schedule by having the
brakes pass the qualification testing push them to do the wrong thing.
If they had consciences, they rationalized what they were doing. If you
had told them ahead of time that a pilot was going to be killed, a plane
lost, your company's reputation seriously damaged, etc., etc., dut to
what they were getting ready to do, they defintitely would not have done
it.

If the NASA officials and the Morton-Thiokol managers had known that the
Challenger would explode and kill 7 astronauts, plus all the other
untold ramifications, do you think they would have launched in spite of
what the engineers were telling them? Obviously not. In their own
minds, they let a certain threat of loss of future business for
scrubbing the launch outweigh the (in their minds) remote possibility
that the engineers were right - after all, we all know how anal and
overly cautious engineers are - the chances of that o-ring being a real
problem were so slim. IOW, one path leads to certain moderate
consequences, the other has a small chance of leading to inestimable
dire consequences, so you go with door #1, and, in that case, lose. An
ethics class may present these or other real life cases to some future
engineer or manager and totally shape how they conduct themselves during
their career. They will be less likely to play on the roll of the dice
especially when other people's lives, reputations, families, and
fortunes are at stake. Yet managers are highly rewarded for being "risk
takers".

Of course the other side of the coin is that you can get a bureaucrat
who wants to follow the rules when clearly not following them in a
particular situation is clearly the right thing to do. That's what
makes life such a challenge, and why often people are made to feel that
they are in a no-win situation.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

If it were not for 'older' people the Camry would not be the
number one selling car in the US. Seems like old guys and woman
are primary buyer of Camry's. I offered to buy my one grandson a
nice two year old Camry convertible, that I could get cheap from
an estate. but he said no thanks, I'll keep my Focus SVT. He
has it all riced up with a big wing like skate boarders tow bar
on the trunk lid and a muffler that makes it sound like a cow
mooing as it goes by.




mike hunt

 

Also called "untintended consequences". 8^)

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Yes - get used to it. Some busimesses call this being a "manager
trainee". It's called having the responsibility without having the
authority or resources to avoid or fix the problem. A staple of modern
business. Next month they will want to send you to "Management Control"
seminars.

You're smarter than I was (re: looking for new job) - took me several
years to figure out what you have learned in just a few months. When
deciding in the future whether you want to be a manager or not, don't
let the (many times false) promise of big bucks fool you. Often it's
better to not be a manager and make less money, have a relationship with
your family, keep your health longer, etc.

One saying that I've often heard over the years that is so true: "No one
has ever had engraved on their tombstone 'I wish I'd spent more time at
the office.'"

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

....along with the cliché "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" that GM
used in their own ads.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Oops - I meant to say "they will want to send you to 'Anger Management'
seminars".

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Sounds just like being an engineer at my former employer.

 

I don't remember this one. Which airplane was involved?


Matt

 

To be honest, Matt, I couldn't tell you. I did a term paper for the
ethics class at VA Tech in about 1976 or 77, so it would have had to be
for a plane built before that.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")