Other Editorials

Buick Blues

Jim Dollinger
Saturday, January 7, 2006

They took the lease incentive off Park Ave in April of 01 just as Spring began.
In 02 they offered the Century with $500 extra off only in white, silver, or tan.
They starved the division of product, only serving up warmed over Trailblazer, Venture ,and Aztec.
They closed Buick City even though it produced the highest of quality.
They are now tearing down the magnificent Buick headquarters on Hamilton Ave.
They make the most boring interiors with the most bland of colors.
They make the lease payments significantly higher on Buicks than comparable GM models.
They are combining Buick stores with other GM franchises to soften the legal entanglements when they swing the axe on the foundation stone.
The LeSabre went to the graveyard along with Skyhawk, Skylark, Century, Regal, Park Avenue, Roadmaster, Riviera, and can't remember last time we had a coupe or wagon. What happened to Grand Nationals and TTypes?
They constantly shift marketing slogans from "Spirit of American Style" to "One Better" to "It's All Good" to "Dream Up" to "Beyond Precision".
They show a nut driving a Riviera on season ending ER episode shooting at main characters.
They have Eva Longoria bored to tears at a Buick LaCrosse display during Desparate Houswives.
They promise $3 Biilion investment in Buick. It never happens.
We receive the goofiest brochures in the business.
The LaCrosse and Lucerne both intro well past Christmas and aren't available for the big year end spree.
The rebates are announced even before the brochures or vehicles arrive.

And you believe Wagoner and Company aren't on a mission? They are simply marching to orders, the real question is from WHO? As suppliers and eventually manufacturers belly up, watch for Wilbur Ross and his band of Rothschild banker friends to pony up cents on the dollar and recreate from the carcass, then devoid of pensions and health care, as well as union contracts.

Kind of amazing The Buick has survived. Attribute the longevity to the most spectular heritage in automotive history. Buick bred men like Durant, Mott, Nash, Chrysler, and Curtice (Time magazine's man of the year). The Buick dealers make up the finest distribution channel in the business and have prospered in spite of the virtual attack on their operations, not from the competition, but rather from their very own manufacturer.

Stockholders need to rise up and sue the Board of Directors for negligence. Wagoner should be imprisoned. He is a bigger crook than Ebbers or Lay ever imagined. $4,000,000,000 to his Fiat friends, and the stock ends up at Merrill Lynch while their chairman Stan O'Neal serves on our board. Hello???? 30,000 jobs to be lost and today he is quoted as saying there may be more. The man is out to completely destroy what he hasn't already spun off or shut down. Time to WAKE UP!