Rumors Ford & Gm merger ?

[JNYLTN5.4]

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060918/UPDATE/609180404/1148/AUTO01:confused:

[Mark #2]

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060918/UPDATE/609180404/1148/AUTO01:confused:

And while GM and Ford are closing everything down.
Toyota is building new plants in the US.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4193672.html

My next vehicle will be a Toyota, we already have a Honda product(Acura), it's 6 years old and still rides/drives perfectly.

GM and Ford are history, just like the US Steel industry in the 80s, see if you see any similarities in the link below.

I had an offer from Bethlehem Steel in 1982 and spent some time in their plants, that were amazing on the scale of things. They were moving railroad cars full of scrap metal with cranes like they were HO model trains.

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF0704/Strohmeyer/Strohmeyer.html

[dboat]

And while GM and Ford are closing everything down.
Toyota is building new plants in the US.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4193672.html

My next vehicle will be a Toyota, we already have a Honda product(Acura), it's 6 years old and still rides/drives perfectly.

GM and Ford are history, just like the US Steel industry in the 80s, see if you see any similarities in the link below.

I had an offer from Bethlehem Steel in 1982 and spent some time in their plants, that were amazing on the scale of things. They were moving railroad cars full of scrap metal with cranes like they were HO model trains.

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF0704/Strohmeyer/Strohmeyer.html

thanks for the link to the good articles..

[wesman]

Sweet, they can merge, lay off another 300k people and still lose Billions of dollars a year...as long as the execs are taken care of thought :rolleyes:...sounds like a plan :tu:

[my2002lightning]

Just before I bought my L in early '03, we visited one of my ME groomsmen in Lansing with GM. Even then he mentioned that GM was crumbling.

He got out ahead of the fall.:cool:

[Tex Arcana]

Talk about making the "faithful" in each camp scream bloody murder!! :rll:

What gets me, is that these companies are selling cars like there's no tomorrow, yet they can't turn a simple profit?? Like Mark said, with Toyota and Honda and their plants being built here, it's obvious that a profit CAN be turned; problem is, the US automakers can't seem to find their a55es with a road map and a week's head start :rolleyes:, and IMHO this comes from the executive levels, where they just do not care about how the company is doing, just as long as they get their hyper-inflated salaries and bonuses, and get out before they get indicted. :flaming:

I've always felt that Ford finally got it into their head that product is what supports them; but recent goofiness is belying that. GM has always had a bizarre attitude about their product, it's been biting them in the a55 for years, yet they act as if it's not hurting a bit, the damn fools.

Autoweek had an article a while back (a year?), where they said that the US automakers need to stop these silly sales incentives, put that money back into the content of the cars to make them better, more competitive, AND cheaper--hell, if you take those $5000 "incentives", and put that back into <name vehicle here>, you could improve materials, engineering, AND knock $1k off the price (if not more), ending up wiht a car people will actually WANT.

I just can't see a merger like this being a good thing, especially given that they (GM especially) already have too much internal competition, and are just way too big to get anything done. I think Gm needs to break itself apart, spin the divisions off into their own companies, to sink or swim on their own merits; and Ford needs to do the same. I think if the individual divisions were to become smaller companies, they would be better able to adapt and adjust their lines to fit their intended markets, AND make better vehicles.