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There’s a couple of reports here in Australia that slipped under my radar. Thankfully , they didn’t slip under PT’s radar and he emailed me to let me know about them.
The first report concerns the cancellation of Cadillac’s launch here in Australia. GM Premium Brands had planned a press launch for Febraury 9-10. Now, they’ve pulled the plug on Cadillac coming to Australia in the near term.
Holden MD Mark Reuss has announced the company will “indefinitely delay” the introduction of Cadillac to Australia. The decision comes less than three weeks away from the brand’s media launch Down Under.
Blaming tough economic times and a slump in the luxury car market, Reuss said he personally made the decision to cut the flagship GM brand.
“We only have one chance to the brand in Australia,” Reuss said in a teleconference this afternoon.
“We weren’t able to 100 per cent do the car or the brand justice… It’s painful but its just one of those tough decisions we’ve got to make.”
You may be expecting champagne corks popping or some similar gesture from me. I think we’re a little beyond that now.
I’ve always believed that the introduction of Cadillacs into Saab’s markets outside the United States has been a mistaken allocation of resources, though not so much in Australia where big RWD vehicles are still major players.
The bigger issue for us here in Oz is what this will mean for the GM Premium Brands, who are charged with looking after Saab’s interests. The staff of GM Premium Brands started off as the staff of Saab Australia, so they’ve got a lot of Saab people in there. My concern is whether or not they’re still going to be supported as they should.
GM say they will, but then there’s the potential sale of Hummer to consider.
In another report, GM’s Rick Wagoner says that Hummer could be sold by as early as the end of March.
“The people who had said ‘we’re interested’ are looking at the financials and talking about their ability to support it, so hopefully we can bring this to a conclusion by the end of this quarter — at the latest.”
Given that Hummer is one leg of this tripodal organisation that’s possibly about to be removed and that Cadillac is now on the shelf for some time, that leaves an ailing Saab potentially on it’s own here in Australia.
I should be happy about the potential concentration of resources again. Things haven’t exactly gone well under the GM Premium Brands banner in the last 18 months. But then again, there’s not much evidence to say that GM are going to have a massive show of faith in Saab here in Australia.
Like everywhere else, I guess we’re in for some interesting times.
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7 responses so far ↓
1 alaero
// Jan 22, 2009 at 9:57 pm
hmm.
Too many brands that would shitpile on Holden.
It was never going to work whatever way you look at it, same reason HIrsch isn’t available here as HSV are worried that they loose will there bread and butter performance share to SAAB.
I feel for the folks at Saab in Port Melbourne, some good people down there, but SAAB as a company stopped existing when it was integrated fully into GM and most of the OG people moved onto Merc Benz, Porsche.
They lost some very passionate people in that transition and they were replaced with not so passionate Holden people that didt and still dont understand the brand.
2 Richo
// Jan 22, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Two things:
1. When I was dealing with the Saab Australia (GM) people on the phone they didn’t have a clue about Saab. One even seemed surprised about the brand. It seemed to me they’d moved the old Holden tea ladies up to Saab phone support.
2.”Holden MD Mark Reuss has announced the company will “indefinitely delay” the introduction of Cadillac to Australia…. Blaming tough economic times and a slump in the luxury car market”.
Why would a slump in the luxury car market effect Cadillac?
3 Adam
// Jan 22, 2009 at 11:41 pm
I’m shocked Australia doesn’t already have Cadillac. I thought Australians liked big RWD iron? (no offense intended)
4 turbin
// Jan 23, 2009 at 6:01 am
Not totally unexpected but disappointing in a very strange way.
I understand that there was at least one Oz Saab dealer lost because Caddy was being forced onto them. Now the plan is dead and Saab’s dealer network has been damaged. Good one GM.
There is also New City Saab here in Melbourne that set up a new showroom based on the GM Premium Brand promise. GM is in discussion with 2 dealers that have made big spends in relation to Caddy, wonder if they were one of them?
5 PT
// Jan 23, 2009 at 7:12 am
The question about why the luxury car market affects Cadillac puzzled me too Richo. I would have thought that trouble in the bogan car market might be relevant but luxury? Hmmmm. Look, I saw TOPGEAR, I’ve heard about the lap at the Nurburgring but you’ve got 50 years of floaty, poorly made, under-engineered barges to get past so forgive me if I’m slightly sceptical about Cadillac worrying BMW or Mercedes just yet.
Like Swade, I sense that its probably no time to be saying “we told you so GM” – but we did. At least the local MD is honest enough to take responsibility for the decision and not try to pass it off with corporate waffle.
BTW trivia for today: Cadillac is named after a Frenchman who founded Detroit. Or something like that.
6 Robin Capper
// Jan 24, 2009 at 2:28 pm
An insane idea dies before it goes too far. I thnk it had one less chance of success than Mr Reuss. One paper here mentioned $9 million stock landed in Aussie already?
7 jimmy
// Jan 27, 2009 at 10:32 pm
this is one of many bad moves that gm has and will continue to make if they dont bring in radical measures such as getting rid of saab, buick, pontiac, gmc, saturn, vauxhall, opel. making cadillac, chevrolet, holden there three global brands. cadillac = gm luxury, chevrolet = gm conventional, holden = gm conventional (where chevrolet branding is unacceptable in some regions due to it being perceived as “low quality american built”) basically gm needs to take on the same business model as toyota where the branding is consolidated to two simple brands toyota = conventional and lexus = luxury. simple.