Buick and Pontiac strive to avoid Oldsmobile's fate

More bad GM news...

At an analysts' conference last week, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said both lines are "damaged" and that dropping one of the venerable names - both date back more than a century - was possible unless there's a turnaround. Lutz said closing a brand, as it did with Oldsmobile after the 2003 model year, was something that GM hoped to avoid. But he said that, if the carmaker's brands don't hit sales targets, "then we would have to take a look at a phase-out. I hope we wouldn't have to do that. What we've got to do is keep the brands we've got." GM officials have tried to backtrack somewhat on Lutz's comment, saying there are no plans to drop a brand and that he was only answering a question about a hypothetical. They say they're confident the brands will get the investment needed to grow.

But auto experts look at GM's continued slide in market share along with the financial problems caused by its current cost structure, and say the possible end of another GM brand isn't as much a surprise as the fact that a top GM executive would raise the possibility. "It's a signal to folks that it's going to happen," said Walter McManus, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation. "They're very careful not to speculate about things that aren't going to happen." Buick had 1.8% of the U.S. market in 2004, just ahead of the 1.7% share that Oldsmobile had in 2000, when GM announced the end of that line. Pontiac had a 2.8% share.