Gojirra99

General Motors is adding its corporate logo to the exterior of nearly all the cars and trucks it sells in North America, a nod to the company's improving quality scores and a corporate campaign it has been running for two years extolling its quality and technological prowess.

The first cars to get the GM logos are the Pontiac G6 sedans. Other vehicles will be added on a rolling basis as tool changes are implemented.

GM found last year when it gave away 1,000 vehicles that many consumers do not associate brands like HUMMER or even Cadillac and Chevrolet with GM.

Many 2006 models will have a silver GM badge placed on both sides of the vehicle, between the front and rear wheels and below the beltline. The badge is about one inch square on cars and a little bigger for trucks and SUVs.

The automaker has come a long way since the late 1990s when former chairman John Smale, a retired Procter & Gamble chairman, insisted on downplaying the GM brand. Opinions have varied for years about whether the GM brand is an asset or liability with consumers who are not current GM owners.

The GM logo was on exteriors of many of the company's vehicles in the 1960s and '70s. -Jim Burt

source : thecarconnection.com

mmarshall

Sounds like just another public relations gimmick to me. You cannot raise quality just by sticking on a piece of metal....or plastic. GM cars already run almost the full gambit from very reliable to very un-reliable, depending on the specific model. For those which are aleady reliable....like the Regal and the non-supercharged Grand Prix, fine, but how about GM's lemons like the Trailblazer and Saturn VUE?.........a mere logo is not going to be a magic wand to all of a sudden give you Lexus reliability.

Falcon LS

I can't seem to understand what this has to do with improving quality? It may seem like they're trying to give people the impression that quality is one of GM's "ultimate" goals and all vehicles built under the GM umbrella certify to a certain quality standard, but I certainly cannot see how that would incorporate with other factors. Would it make the brand more desireable? Does it deliver better value? Does it focus on what people want...will more people go out and buy a Cadillac becuase it has a GM badge?
Personally, I think they've got bigger and more important issues to deal with...that'll not solve anything. To quote somebody, it's like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It's just another trim peice that's bound to fall off.

LexFather

I would NOT want my Caddy with a GM logo, sorry.
I don't know how this improves anything

Lil4X

Sorta like the big rear window stickers popular during the muscle car era - "Powered by Ford" . . . on a Ford . . .

. . . or worse, the sill plate logos that were on GM products until the early '80's that proudly proclaimed "Body by Fisher", somehow hoping to convey a cachet of excellence . . . nearly 40 years after brothers Fred and Charles Fisher closed the doors of the old Fisher body works that had been one of America's premiere independent coachbuilders. Sometimes brand image outlives the product!

Baby ///M3

Ford. Are you listening?

Now go and slap that blue oval on all Jaguars too!

Jon

CleanSC

Are they going to stick this GM badge on the cars they didn't even build but claim as their own? Like the Chevy Aveo that's really a Suzuki Swift?

What about Saab? I doubt Saab owners want to see a GM badge on the back of their 9-7X after blowing 40k on a "Swedish" Trailblazer.

Lexusfreak

Yippy!

Falcon LS

Don't worry...Ford's turned out to be a bit on the smarter side, compared to General Morons.

Baby ///M3

Darn!

How dare them! I thought some Jaguars' interior parts have already been assembled with Ford parts.

Com'on. Slap that badge on! We all love that blue oval!

Jon

mmarshall

No......you're thinking of the old Chevy / Geo Metro, which, as you say, was a rebadged Suzuki Swift. The newer Chevy Aveo is a Korean Daewoo product based on their Lanos and built for Chevrolet.

Now the Saab 9-7X? Yes, whether Saab owners like it or not, the 9-7X is a REAL GM product.........a rebadged Chevy TrailBlazer, just like the Buick Rainier, GMC Envoy, and Isuzu Ascender.

CleanSC

So then is Suzuki selling their Swift as a Daewoo-made product? Because their Swift looks damn much like the Aveo.



Incidently I just bought a '96 Geo Metro for cheap ($200 lol) to resell and to my surprise, this is a VERY good car. Small, costs almost nothing to operate, and reliable as hell. Seems to be built like most older Toyotas as far as mechanicals (the interior is not that great). I'm very impressed. Nice car for what it is. I overhauled it from top to bottom and was presently surprised at how user friendly and easy to work on this car is.

nthach

GM has already started adding their logo on their glass. It used to be a PPG or LOF logo on it, but it it just has GM and in small print, the glass maker.

MGS4

so 2006 Saabaru 9-2x is going to have a GM badge treatment as well?

mmarshall

OK...you may have something there. The Swift is no longer sold in the U.S.
Suzuki USED to build their OWN Swift and sell it the in the U.S., along with a rebadged Chevy / Geo version called the Metro. Apparantly, when Suzuki dropped the Swift in the American market, they also changed the source as well to a Daewoo product just like the Chevrolet Aveo.
So then, Daewoo builds not only their OWN Lanos but BOTH the Chevy Aveo and Suzuki Swift as well....the Aveo and Swift seem to be rebadged versions of that car...the Lanos.

Thanks for posting that new Swift picture. You not only learned something here but I did too. I knew that Suzuki was using Daewoo for the Verona, the Forenza, and the Reno, but I did not know that they were using Daewoo for the Swift as well. That is a marked change from just a couple of years ago.