Word: gm
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fins, no bulk, virtually no chrome, not even a backseat. In fact, the new Allante (price: about $50,000) looks more like a sports car than the kind of Cadillac young, wealthy car buyers can remember their grandparents driving. But that is precisely what its creators at GM had hoped. Determined to shed the stodgy image that has caused the company to lose so many upscale U.S. buyers to Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar and other imported brands, Cadillac decided it needed a pinch of European flair. So the carmaker teamed up with the Italian design firm Pininfarina to create an entirely...
...GM is not the only U.S. automaker to find romance in Italy. That country has suddenly become Detroit's most abundant wellspring of style and mystique. Chrysler signed a deal in June to boost its stake in the Maserati sports-car company from 3.5% to 15.6%, and plans to bring out a jointly produced convertible priced in the $30,000 range by fall 1987. Ford, meanwhile, is negotiating to buy a majority share of sports-car maker Alfa Romeo...
...feel the competition. So far this year, the companies have sold a total of 4.9 million autos, a 3% decline from 1985. In the past few weeks Ford has engineered a sharp sales upturn, thanks partly to the sudden popularity of its futuristically styled Taurus and Sable vehicles. But GM has a troublesome surplus of more than 1 million unsold 1986-model cars and trucks. In a bid to shrink its swollen inventory, GM late last week postponed the roll-out of its 1987 models, from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, and announced some dramatic come-ons. The automaker will...
...finance subsidiaries have contributed more than their share to the balance sheets of the Big Three. GMAC, which reaped $1 billion, or some 25%, of GM's $4 billion net earnings in 1985, is expected to account for fully one- third of this year's profits. At Ford, the credit arm pitched in 17.5% of earnings in 1985, and is projected to reach 26% this year. Chrysler Financial is expected to contribute 17% in 1986, up from...
...automakers' financial forays have alarmed traditional bankers, who complain that they are unfairly hobbled by federal laws and regulations. For example, the law generally restricts interstate branching by banks. But nonbank competitors, such as GM and Ford, can offer loans anywhere they please. Says Donald Senterfitt, president of the American Bankers Association: "We are living in a financial-services world that is half slave and half free, and the banks are the slaves." His solution: speed up banking deregulation...