Starting with the Motoramic 1955s, GM and Fisher Body seemed to start using some standardized itmes across the GM brands. Like their outside door handles, sun visor designs, that distinctive "dip" in the belt line ahead of the rear wheel, etc. These styling cues identified the cars as "General Motors", and all that that meant. Not to forget the Fisher Body logo that was on each front door sill plate, either.
Each of the GM brands had been acquired by Billy Durant to form "General Motors" as an entity. Starting with Buick, then the entry-level Chevrolet (Louis Chevrolet was Buick's race team operator), and the other brands were already free-standing brands with their own unique identity in the marketplace. Then Durant brought other suppliers into the fold, too, as Albert Champion (after he left Champion Spark Plug) as a part of GM, most in the Flint, MI area. And things grew from there.
From new reports of the time, Chrysler did not go bankrupt due to "build variations", I observed that it's financial woes came AFTER "The Merger of Equals", when the mountain of Golden Eggs (amassed during the LH platform years of their very successful 1990s!) seemed to evaporate. Plus some of Lutz's financial controls also seemed to dmininish after he left, too. Followed by some very bad product decisions under the Daimler time. Think "Neon replaced by Caliber", plus the Chrysler Sebring models. By that time, the upcoming 300 was close enough to production that only some Daimler components could be used, rather than complete re-designs.
Chrysler, by itself in the 1990s, was very successful with stock prices which did double for several years, with each new product introduction. LOTS of excitement in the corporaiton and in the marketplace. AND they had amassed lots of financial reserves to fund future products well into the future, but one stockholder wanted MORE dividends, so he caused a ruckus about it. Plus Chairman Lee had retired and apparently "wanted back in", it seemed. So living in Vegas and being good friends with the stocholder, a plan was in the formulation stages. Bob Eaton got wind of this and crashed their "Donate to the cause" party being held in Vegas. And THAT proibably was the start of doing something to position Chyrlser Corp to resist such a stockholder revolt, I highly suspect. Eaton had been working in Europe and obvioiusly knew the Mercedes people, very possibly . . . and the rest happened as it did.
With GM, Fisher Body had been after the carline to have more unseen metal stampings common between them for decades, to save costs. This seemed to increase with the new 1977 models, I suspect. More cost issues were arising with the cost of certifying each engine family in the GM Powertrain portfolio, too. So they were playing the "fewer unique parts" game, too, as always.
But the amount of unique-to-carline parts depended upon WHICH carline was involved, by observation. In the 1960s Chevy cars, the focus was on "end of assembly line cost", so that was primary, but the cost of heavier-duty parts for optional engines was figured into the price of the option. End results, over a 10 model year spread, there was a total of about 50 differnent drive shaft slip yokes for various engine/transmission/body model combinations. In Buick, there might be three. Similar with Olds. Cadillac had fewer. Pontiac might have had 10. When the cost of inventory was considered, Chevrolet could have possibly done well with just 10 different slip yokes, but that was not their focus.
The interesting thing is that the more the GM carlines became alike, the lower the GM market penetration became. Saving money with fewer products made the financial people happy, but when GM market penetration decreased to below 20%, when it had been over 50% several decades earlier, THEN they got nervous! By that time, it was too late, no matter what they did.
Then there was the takeover of the GM Board by a Proctor and Gamble retired executive whose "Brand Management" orientation he finally rammed down GM's throat. Only thing is that HE forgot that people bought cars and vehicles on desires rather than popular utility functions. So he brought in lots of former consumer good executives to oversee GM carlines and manage them a bit. Bad thing was that brand management probably greatly-inflated GM's employee numbers, with what became (from my observations on the sidelines) "a parade" through mangement offices. Somewhere in that timeframe was an economic recession and some brand suffered more than others. As Cadillac needed rebuilding, Oldsmobile suffered along with a multitude of "Cutlass" models, for example. And things tended to go downhill from there. Which allowed Chairman Lee to tout that "ALL of the Chryslers now have a driver's side air bag as Standard Equipment" as GM had none.
The hallmark of original GM had been "A product for every purse". That worked great back then AND Chrysler's offerings also matched GM, product level for product level, until April 15, 1961 when DeSoto ended.
What MANY marketing types did seem to not observe was that for every product model/brand GM deleted, the import brands seemed to have anticupated this and had new models ready to arrive in that now-vacated model segment. AND they did well with that. Growing as GM downsized. When Oldsmobile died, that brand had a last-year's sales volume of MORE than some import brands had in total! Yet GM was allegedly losing money with every Oldsmobile they sold, even the ones with the very identidal production costs as the similar Pontiacs built in the same plant.
So, to me, Brand Mis-Management led to GM's ills more than anything else. Which looked at profits rather than real product excitement and innovations to build sales from. No real amount of innovative marketing can build sales on mundane products (which was what GM seemed to be focused on in the middle 1980s). Plus that "Not your father's Oldsmobie" ad campaign! What if Dad's Oldsmobiel had been a 1957 J-2 Rocket 88? Or a '70 W-30 "Machine"? There are MORE examples, too!
Just some observations,
CBODY67
