LiquidBlue

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...991-story.html

okfoz

IIRC, What is interesting that airbags were introduced in the 1973 Caprice as an option, I had a friend who had a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible with a factory Airbag, and port fuel injection.

LiquidBlue

Did not know that. my Formula was the first car I ever owned with an airbag. wonder if it still works......

mikeceli

iTrader: (2)

What the article doesn't mention, and I recall from being in the car business, etc., in the 70's.........If you divided the R&D Costs, GM spent, by the number of SRS systems sold, the the early 70's offerings, GM would have been money ahead, if they gave the Cadillac's, Caprice's, etc., AWAY FREE and only charged for the Air Bags.

okfoz

Thus the problem with "bean counters" When GM was run by engineers instead of those who were only interested in profits, they were much more successful. Make a quality product and people will come. Starting in the 70's GM was run by accountants, and you can see the spiral from the mighty 1960's to lame 1980... There has always been infighting and a struggle to get things like a V8 in Chevy, the I6 was enough so they thought but the SBC was a game changer for them, again Delorian wanted a V8 in a smaller car and the GTO was born, but it was darn near a fight to the death to get it to that point...

GM has always had great innovation.. Most people do not realize that GM has been making EV cars since the late 40's. There is a fleet of EV S-10 trucks out there which are used at airports and malls, that no one knows that GM actually made them.

TransamGTA350

iTrader: (2)

This is so true. This change in culture was a big reason why John Delorean left GM in the early 70's. Through the late 70's and most of the 80's Pontiac (but not GM corporate) still had this mentality and they tried very hard to bring cool stuff to the market, many times being shot down by the GM bean counters, but occasionally being able to sneak something through. Even in the mid 2000's, Pontiac had some good stuff going (Solstice, G8, GTO) when the only other GM performance car was the Corvette. Unfortunately, Pontiac was on the chopping block in 2008, but that had more to do with GM's overall poor management and not really Pontiac sales.

I like what Dodge has been doing for the past decade. Would like to see GM do more of that.

okfoz

I honestly believe GM had a concerted effort to get rid of Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Buick and Saturn. If you looked back to around 1999-2000 Pontiac sold more Grand prix than Luminas or Impalas... Pontiac was performing well in NASCAR and only a few short years later GM pulled them from NASCAR, They pulled Buick from Nascar 10 years after they won the Grand National in 1982... About the time Pontiac was releasing the Aztec, and Buick had yet to release the Rendezvous, I had an opportunity to sit down with a GM executive at an airport. If he was blowing smoke he sure knew his stuff. Oldsmobile was already at the end of its life but was still finishing up current production, He told me that Buick, Pontiac and Saturn were all on the way out.

Unfortunately as things have shifted away from Cars, which was the focus of Pontiac, even if they did hold onto the brand name it would not be the same as it was 15 years ago. Chrysler literally makes 2 vehicles, The 300 and their new minivan, Dodge makes a 2 door, and 4 door, a Minivan and a Truck the Durango. Buick which had the slogan "Isn't it time for a real car" in 2000 now has 4 crossovers and 3 cars, and the LaCrosse has been cancelled. Chevrolet now has 6 soon to be 7 SUVs or Crossovers, and 7 soon to be 6 cars (not including electrics). Ford has 4 cars soon to be less, and 6 SUV/crossovers...

I am not sure if people would be too excited if Pontiac was a conglomeration of rebadged Chevy and Buick SUVs... It may be different if Pontiac was still here, unfortunately they are not. I wish it was, but there is probably no place for a new Firebird, Buick almost got a Camaro based car but it was dropped when they decided that it would just take sales from Mighty Chevy.