Word: chevrolet
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Smith's handpicked group of bureaucracy busters, who work 15-hour days and call themselves "the cowboys," aim to liberate each of GM's brand-name divisions to give them back their long-stifled control over styling, engineering and marketing decisions. Each division, from Cadillac to Chevrolet, will be expected to survive virtually on its own. Already, the layers of approval required for manufacturing decisions have been reduced by half. Individual engineering components that fail to add style or identity to a product have been dramatically reduced: 17 different ignition systems have been refined to three, nine engine families...
...everyone agrees. Lately, GM's products have earned high marks for quality. But the company desperately needs to make them more cheaply and sell them more effectively. The automaker's U.S. market share dipped to less than 31% last August, down from 45% in the late 1970s. Sales of Chevrolet and Oldsmobile models have sagged most dramatically, slipping 13% and 9% respectively since last year. If the economy remains stuck in low gear during the early 1990s, price competition is likely to remain fierce, and only the low-cost producers will make money. For GM's top managers, getting there...
...problems at General Motors in recent years has been the bland similarity of its products, which seem to have been stamped by the same cookie cutter. At a new-model preview several years ago, a Cadillac engineer was asked his opinion of the main difference between the look-alike Chevrolet Cavalier and Cadillac Cimarron. "About $5,000," he said dismissively. Many 1980s-era models were also prosaic, underpowered and poorly executed. But a handful of new models demonstrate that GM divisions, when well motivated and organized, can build distinctive, high-quality products. A sampler...
...Chevrolet Suburban. This redesigned classic is the king of the road in Texas and parts of the Middle East, where drilling crews travel over terrain more suitable to burros than cars. It has better aerodynamics and a suspension capable of smoothing out bumps that the old model delivered unadulterated. And the $18,155 Suburban has almost no competition in its market niche...
...movies portray the state's citizens as Bayou-dwellers hunting for crawfish and speaking a kind of bastardized French. This is the land of "The Big Easy"--not of apple pie, baseball or Chevrolet...