2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette fascia gets accidental web preview

Has GM ever had a "car guy" as CEO?

Jimmy

 

Ed Cole,Bob Stemple

 

A "car guy" to me is a guy who builds racing cars and then builds street cars to help finance his racing program....lol. Seriously, I'm not familiar with GM's early history. They did think that they had 12" members however and thought they were untouchable-probably right up until they filed bankruptcy.

 

well you are welcome to read about both of thses gentlemen then decide for yourself

 

Holidays are coming-any recommended books J?

 

good question
not sure if there are any that would describe the passion for cars that those two had
Ed Cole was the alleged father of the small block Chev as well as the Corvair and any number of additional great cars from that era.
Stemple was an engineer's engineer

 

Everything I read pointed to Bob Stempel not only being a terrific Engineer, but a real car guy as John has stated, he has the misfortune of coming after Roger Smith who probably did more damage to GM than any other CEO, IMHO.

 

Look what has shown up in GT5 recently...

http://www.gtplanet.net/camouflaged-corvette-c7-new-aventador-appear-in-gran-turismo-5/

 

The historical arrangement of GM at the top was that President came from the engineering ranks and Chairman was financial. This goes back to Alfred Sloan.

I believe that you can get thumbnails on the most senior people of GM from a GM Heritage website.

This entire subject is what Bob Lutz railed against in his recent book "Car Guys versus the Bean Counters". Car guys kept getting pushed away from the top spots for those who could count beans and use ever fancier B-school formulas that all missed the point of intrinsicly understanding product.

Jeff

 

Yes sir, there is a new Pic of the C7 with a Car Cover just released by GM.
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What is that...their 'Shroud of Milford' there?
CH

 

I don't know about that, I just wished they showed the damn thing already.

 

well now................. that certainly reveals a great deal

yes,the "Shroud of Milford"

 

in today's autoextremist Peter once again goes off on Sergio:

Sergio Marchionne. Editor-in-Chief's Note: The opening sentence from Bryce G. Hoffman's story in today's The Detroit News about Sergio and his - shall we say - now tenuous plans to purchase the rest of Chrysler: "Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has conceded that he no longer has enough money to buy the rest of Chrysler Group LLC — but he may still have ways of coming up with it, including taking luxury carmaker Ferrari public." Well, well, well, Sergio. This sounds like another missive from "The Best Laid Plans" File. Except now you're going to drag Ferrari into this financial mess? As it is, Ferrari is teetering on the edge of becoming a caricature of itself, the Bernie Ecclestone of the high-performance luxury car market, chasing every last dollar from every new market, integrity be damned. If it wasn't for the F1 team, Ferrari would be in serious trouble. But taking Ferrari public - reducing it once and for all to commodity status - to fuel your personal ambitions of global domination of the car biz? A new low. - PMD

 

They should offer it on the game with that "paint scheme."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-CQhimRXyU&feature=youtu.be

teaser vids/pics from GM ....but pausing the vid at the sketches shots, i notice several are actually of the fast&furious stingray

 

Fueled by the Arab stake in Ferrari wanting to cash out perhaps?

 

don't know,but Peter's less than stellar opinion of Ferrari of late comes as a shock as well:
"the Bernie Ecclestone of the high performance luxury car market"?......whoa!

 

Question here on Carlos Ghosn. It seemed to come close where Ghosn would have had the tie-up with GM when Krekorian was pushing for it. At the time Ghosn was viewed as having the golden touch much like Marchionne does now. In viewing both there are similarities: each took companies that had serious structural problems and made major changes that had previously been viewed as undoable. As part of that each altered the corporate culture.

So, is Ghosn the real deal too? Is he still wielding the same sort of power and respect?

This Peter seems to have it out for Marchinonne in a way that is petty and unreasonable. This sounds more like a personal issue that anything actually reasoned. [Did Peter get bumped from a restaurant reservation he coveted because of Marchione?] As for how Marchionne ended up with Chrysler that was an interesting part of Rattner's book. Marchionne played his hand perfectly in the negotiations - knew he was the only one that was stepping forward to make any deal, knew as the only one he could dictate virtually all the terms, the goverment really did not want to liquidate Chrysler. Don't blame Marchionne for knowing he had the winning hand. Blame Cerebus for doing a private equity deal in an industry that they should have never been in. Blame Daimler Benz for their hubris before that.

Jeff

 

Cerberus were going to sell off Chrysler in parts. The Government interest in it halted that IMO.

Marchionne doesn't travel around light anywhere. He is most well guarded CEO in the industry by a longshot. So reservations would have been for an entire restaurant ;-)

I can't stand that 90% + of the auto media mispronounce his name. "Mar She Own".

 

I am inclined to believe that Cerberus went into Chrysler as a typical private equity transaction. Buy with virtually all debt, quickly sell some non core business untis to pay down debt, spiff up the books over a 5 year period then flip it out by taking it public or selling it onward to someone/anyone else.

Private Equity had no business taking on a car company. My belief is that they thought it worked like a widget maker and could not comprehend how capital intensive it really is and at the same time how dependant it is upon a fickle acceptance in the marketplace. These are massive commitments that take years to play out. Way too long of timeline for the impatient Private Equity types.

Then with the Chrysler situation there was a crumbling economy that busted all the projection that would allow for servicing the debt load. Oops!

Virtually the same situation happened with a Goldman Sachs private equity deal. They bought Hawker Beechcraft from Raytheon and then watched their number 1 client (Net Jets) cancel their jet orders and the military clients were not ordering more King Airs. The entire corporate aircraft industry knew that Hawker Beechcraft had been a problem child throughout most of Raytheon's ownership. Now it is in Chapter 11 and they are killing all of the jet manufacturing, stopping support on the 2 newest jet lines, and going back to the historic Beechcraft side only plus some service centers (3 are being closed).

Jeff

 

+1 I could not have said it any better.

 

today's comments about Ackerson @ GM,Sergio @ Chrysler/Fiat,and Mulally @ Ford are close to the mark.
Peter keeps piling on when it comes to Ferrari,however....

http://www.autoextremist.com/

 

John, I don't know why he is so down on Sergio or Ferrari, but he seems to be spot on with FORD and GM.

 

It is strange,particularly his comments about Ferrari
Can't remember if I mentioned it to you,but Peter's book "Witch Hunt" is worth reading as well.