ON THE TABLE
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 09:52AM June 10, 2009
GM (or what's left of it). Publisher's Note: Edward Whitacre Jr., 67, former chairman and CEO of AT&T Inc., was announced today (6/9) as the chairman of the "new " GM that will emerge from bankruptcy at some point. He replaces interim chairman Ken Kresa, who will step aside when the "new" GM begins business. “I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.” Great, just what GM doesn't need, another chairman of the board with not even a whiff of car experience. After all of the sturm und drang GM has had in recent history by selecting people who have no business getting near the top of the company - Exhibit A: John Smale - this guy is the very best they can come with to lead an allegedly "new" car company? You have got to be kidding me. This has to be beyond disheartening to the True Believers left at the company because it reinforces every hoary stereotype that has existed at GM for going on 40 years now, and that is that the outstanding GM cars that have emerged over the years haven't been because of GM management (except for the Bob Lutz's era), but in spite of it. Beyond pathetic. - PMD
The Honda Motor Company. Happy 50th Anniversary to our favorite Asian car company. They've stayed true to Soichiro Honda's The Honda Way, and they've remained focused on engineering and technical innovations from Day One. And the fact that they've been into racing from the very beginning is cool, too, even though their latest foray into F1 didn't go so well (except for Brawn GP, of course). We just like the way they go about the automobile business, and as we like to say, they don't call it the Honda Motor Company for nothing. Here's to another 50, ladies and gentlemen, nicely done!
American Honda Motor Co. Check out the ad on Page H32 in this week's Automotive News tribute section to Honda in America entitled "We Started With A Dream." Simple. Nice. True.
Sergio Marchionne. From the "No Shit, Sherlock" File comes word that the Fiat CEO says he won't walk away from the Chrysler deal even if the Supreme Court holds it up. "We would never walk away. Never," the Italian business leader told Bloomberg News. And why would he? Whether Chrysler emerges from bankruptcy somewhat intact or it sinks into liquidation, Marchionne and Fiat will be handed Chrysler for just this north of nothin'. You don't walk away from deals like that, you hover until it's all yours.
AlixPartners L.L.P. From the "Nice Work If You Can Get It" File comes word that that the local Detroit firm advising General Motors through bankruptcy restructuring was paid nearly $40 million before the company's June 1 Chapter 11 filing, according to Crain's Detroit Business. The firm is also slated to earn a $13 million "success fee" if the process ends in a positive manner. Other tidbits from the Crain's report? Al Koch, vice chairman and managing director of AlixPartners is being paid $835 per hour as GM's chief restructuring officer (he was appointed on May 31) and as many as 70 AlixPartners employees will work on the GM case with hourly fee rates ranging from $180 per hour to $995 per hour. Capitalism, Baby!
Mike Jackson. Not the Auto Nation CEO but the other Mike Jackson - the ex-GM marketing guy - takes some solid shots at his old employer in a guest column entitled "GM must overhaul marketing" in this week's Automotive News. Jackson makes some fair and painfully "Master of the Obvious" points about how GM marketing managed to get it wrong over the years, but he also makes some off-the-charts boneheaded statements, too, like "Zarrella was a visionary marketer committed to making GM brands relevant to American consumers." Really, Mike? How did that work out for GM? Not so much is the understatement of the decade. Jackson also neglects to mention the fact that he never really did his job while he was there, concentrating on promoting glitzy image events so he could pal around with celebrities instead of immersing himself in the nitty-gritty, in-the-trenches side of the business that actually moves the metal. Oh, yeah, and btw, his eyeball-popping expense accounts were legendary, too, the very definition of Gulp Fiction. We're just sayin' is all.
The Packard Plant, City of Detroit. Bill McGraw, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, opened his story in Tuesday's edition with the following: "That big plume of black smoke that filled the sky Monday night and was visible from downtown to the eastern suburbs? It was just the Packard Plant burning. Again." McGraw went on to describe how the once-magnificent Packard Plant - designed by Albert Kahn beginning in 1903 - has been reduced to a rotting cadaver that Detroit firefighters aren't permitted to enter after dark because it's so dangerous structurally, so it is just allowed to burn. McGraw reports that "the fires stem from scrappers and their acetylene torches and people, many of them young, who like to explore the Packard Plant and think it’s cool to set fires to the huge mounds of trash and other dumped debris in the complex’s large rooms." McGraw closed his report with this: "The complex is owned by a company called Bioresource Inc., which emerged with the title after a lengthy court battle with the City of Detroit. City officials say the firm has failed to pay Detroit taxes since it bought the plant in 1987. State records show Bioresource has not filed an annual report since 2000 and was declared dissolved by the state in 2003." Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away Detroit was the fourth largest city in America with a population of two million people. Now it's a staggering, struggling hulk of a city symbolic of the decline of industrial America and what was once quaintly known as the Big Three.
Chrysler. Chrysler and Fiat finalized their government-mandated deal today after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to mess with it. The "new" Chrysler will operate as Chrysler Group LLC, with Robert Kidder as chairman and Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne running day-to-day operations. This hasn't changed the harsh realities of this situation, however. Chrysler has exactly two - count 'em - two new products coming in the next 20 months, the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Chrysler 300. The soonest a new Fiat will arrive in the new company's showrooms is spring 2011. With a fire-sale mentality hanging over Chrysler like a negative shroud of mediocrity, we give the enterprise a 25 percent chance of survival. Marchionne may get his Fiat North American network up and running down the road at some point, but in the interim prospects for the "new" company are Not Good. Not Good at all.
The State of Michigan. To add insult to injury, according to the latest nationwide survey of gas prices, Michigan has the highest prices in the country at $2.93 a gallon. Next up is California and Hawaii. Industry analysts blame it on Chicago-based refineries being closed for maintenance. If that were the case, why aren't Illinois prices right up there too? Just another day in the life of the shit storm called Michigan, unfortunately.
The Detroit Red Wings. We need this one bad, boys. Keep The Cup right here in the Motor City where it belongs.
Autoextremist Readers. Publisher's Note: This week's edition marks the 500th issue of Autoextremist.com. We wanted it to coincide exactly with last week's 10th Anniversary milestone but it didn't work out that way, so we'd like to thank our longtime readers - again - for all of your support over the past decade, and we'd like to thank you new readers out there who are coming on board every week too. Five hundred issues is a nice, round, big-time sounding number. I could say it smells like victory in fine, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore "Apocalypse Now" fashion, but the race isn't over, not yet or anytime soon either. But we'll savor the "500th" nonetheless. And there's always that race over in Italy, uh, what's it called again? Oh right, the Mille Miglia. One thousand miles. That has a real nice ring to it too. Thanks again! - PMD, WordGirl & yes, even Dr. Bud.
See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" hosted by Autoline Detroit's John McElroy, with Peter De Lorenzo and auto industry PR veteran Jason Vines this Thursday evening, June 11, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv. By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to the Autoline After Hours podcasts, click on the following links:
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