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Re: Globe & Mail wants it over with. To close Saab for good
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Posted by JerseySaab [Email] (#666) [Profile/Gallery] (more from JerseySaab) on Wed, 7 Sep 2011 17:17:57 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: Re: Globe & Mail wants it over with. To close Saab for good, Steve T., Wed, 7 Sep 2011 12:45:57
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"The longest, most tortured death..." ???

Studebaker was in dire financial condition by the 1950s, and the merger with Packard was of no help as that company was near collapse. The popularity of the compact Lark which debuted in 1959 (engineered by chopping the front and back off a standard-size Studebaker) kept the company afloat for a while, but sales plummeted when the domestic "Big 3" compacts hit the market. Production was moved to Studebaker's small Canadian plant for the 1965 models using Chevrolet drivetrains, just about breaking even on 20,000 units a year but not enough profit for future model development. (Their last platform was designed was in 1953, even the Avanti used it.) Studebaker pulled the plug after the 1966 model year, it had diversified and decided it could make more money by not building cars. The various pieces were sold off over the decades. Today the company lives on in Studebaker-Worthington Leasing, which leases just about everything except cars.

American Motors (Nash and Hudson merger) lived hand-to-mouth for several years starting with its formation in 1954. In 1958 (a recession year) sales of the compact, economical Rambler took off. (Company president George Romney waged a very public and vocal war against the "gas-guzzling dinosaurs" and "trundling tanks" of the Big 3.) The good times lasted through the early 1960s. However a change of management when Romney went into politics sent the company on a suicidal attempt to match its larger competitors model-for-model. Also the Big 3 had entered the compact arena which was the Rambler's area of specialization; where before there had been little or no competition the smaller Ramblers now had to sell against Chevy, Ford, and Plymouth. By 1967 sales had tanked to the point where AMC could not meet payroll and had to do some fancy footwork to obtain a bank loan. They spent the next 20 years having ups and downs, but never really getting healthy again. AMC purchased Jeep in 1970 and that helped kept them afloat during lean years. Renault gained controlling interest in the late 1970s, and through the mid-1980s. That was pretty much a disaster. (The chairman of Renault, George Besse, was assassinated during this period!) The game was up when the company was sold to Chrysler after the assassination of Besse.

These are short, oversimplifications of these stories, but as can be seen, calling Saab's current problems "the longest, most tortured death of a car company in the history of the automobile business" is not particularly accurate.

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