Dude, Where’s my car?, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #6

January 6, 2009 Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia 8 Comments

Dear Art & Chris,

I run a company, you might have heard of it, General Motors.  We’re having huge problems right now but chief among them is that it seems no one wants to buy our cars.  The cars we’re making are better than ever.  An op-ed in the New York Times this weekend lauded the improvements I’ve made to the company.  What else do we need to do here?

-Rick Wagoner, Chairman & CEO of General Motors

Rick,

It’s an amazing coincidence that you wrote to us this week.  Both of us here at Pop Art… and Chris have bought new cars in the last 3 weeks.  Art was quite enamored with the Pontiac G8 GT and after a weekend of getting quotes decided to buy one from a major national chain of dealerships.  When he showed up to close the deal they could not find the car they had agreed to sell.  After a day off for New Year’s they called and said the vehicle was on display at a Costco and could not be removed until that night.  The next day that turned into Monday and, as of this writing, we have neither received or even laid eyes on this car.  This is the kind of thing that makes people reconsider buying your cars.

There are something like six times as many dealerships for American cars as there are for imports.  This is clearly causing some king talent dilution.  Perhaps fewer dealerships with the cream of the crop sales people would do less misplacing of $30,000 cars.  From what we’ve seen of your staff you should probably consolidate to about four or five dealerships nationwide.

Your brand image is in the toilet.  We think you’re approaching sub-Hyundai levels here.  We suggest adding a level of exclusivity to your vehicles.  I don’t recommend raising your prices; your vehicles just don’t warrant higher prices right now.  Perhaps you could take some cues from nightclubs.  Hire some guys to work the doors at your dealership.  Don’t let just anyone drive away in your cars; wait for the real movers and shakers.  Guys will only be allowed to buy a car if they bring two hot girls or pay twice as much.

People keep talking about making cars for the future.  While we agree you can separate yourself from other companies by making cars from further in the future.  We’ve seen Mad Max 2 a bunch of times and no one’s making cars like that.  We want external cages and optional flame-throwers.  The GMC Denali should at least come with a harpoon gun (this doubles as a marketing ploy get people to start calling them Ahabs).  It’s all well and good to try and save the environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  However, we’re not actually going to accomplish that so we need cars for the post-apocalyptic wasteland this country will certainly become.

All hope isn’t lost.  There was a time when no one respected Japanese cars; now Toyota is the world’s largest automaker.  This was accomplished by consistently making outstanding vehicles at a reasonable price.  Hyundai is on this path right now and there’s no reason, aside from pride, that you can’t walk this same path.  Concentrate on making the best possible cars, cars that people want to buy.  A close friend of ours laughed when they heard that Art was buying an American car.  That needs to change, and quickly, if you guys are ever going to have a shot at turning these things around.  The G8 is a great start, you need to go somewhere from there.