General Motors

The March 2008 issue of my Hemmings Classic-Car magazine floats an interesting proposition.
Namely that mighty General Motors is far from kaput.
This is in contrast to the feeling I had that General Motors was going the way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, once the largest railroad in the world.
Pennsy, unlike General Motors, was regionalized, essentially northeastern U.S.
General Motors is global.
And railroads, even if they tank, leave behind quite a bit of themselves.
Abandoned railroad rights-of-way are all over, as are segments that were bought by other lines. —If a railroad tanks, often the railroad-grade gets left behind; often even the bridges.
The Pennsy lives on. Their incredible main stem across Pennsylvania is still moving huge amounts of freight, although now under Norfolk Southern.
That segment is still phenomenally successful, because it’s Pennsy resurgent. The original Pennsy investment is still making buckets of money.
On the other hand, there’s no guarantee the General Motors brands will continue.
GM pulled the plug on Oldsmobile, a long-lived prime leg in its five-legged stool.
And if a factory were abandoned it wouldn’t leave behind a long mark on the landscape. (—Like the long-abandoned Peanut.)
That factory might get bought by another company and thereby live on.
But then there is the massive Ann Page plant outside Elmira, victim of the end of A&P.
It sits forlorn and abandoned — probably cost more to tear it down than let it sit.
I sure hope General Motors lasts; it brought us some of the finest automobiles of all time.
My time is from the ‘50s, but even during the ‘30s there was the fabulous LaSalle, a brand that later had to be excised.
And for the 1955 model-year, Chevrolet brought its fabulous Small-Block V8 to market, an engine that revolutionized engine design and manufacture.
Soon everyone was building a Small-Block; that is, engine designs that copied Small-Block engineering principles.
In 1960 the Corvair was brought to market, another cutting-edge design, that sadly died of exceeding market expectations. It was a great design, but not what Granny wanted.
In 1966, the General brought us the Oldsmobile Toronado, perhaps the greatest iteration of that genre, and a styling triumph.
Later GM finally caught up with international practice by bringing the X-car to market; front-wheel-drive transverse motor like everyone else.
But GM seemed content to rest on its laurels.
That dreaded Small-Block V8 was in production over 40 years, and to some extent still is.
GM was falling behind of its own weight.
The Japs were bringing cars to market GM should have been marketing. So that now, once a Chevy-man, I think Honda and Toyota instead of Chevrolet.
For years I lusted after the Chevy Small-Block; but that’s been replaced the fabulous Japanese double overhead-cam motorcycle engines that sound just like the Formula One Cosworth-Ford V8s of old.
But I keep hoping General Motors can produce a car as desirable as my Hondas and Toyotas.
There is hope.
A while ago I rented a Chevrolet HHR, and was impressed.
It’s as impressive as my Honda and Toyota, but -1) it’s a submarine, and -2) it’s not all-wheel-drive.
But I was left thinking GM can do it. They already build all-wheel-drive vehicles, and cars that aren’t submarines.
Would that I could buy a car as desirable as my Honda, and my Honda isn’t that desirable. (Toyota and Honda are just as turgid as General Motors.)
But GM cars also have a reputation for poor quality.
The new Pontiacs look fabulous, but often I see them on tow-trucks.
And I’ve heard horror-stories.
My Jap cars never see the shop.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years.

The “Peanut” was originally the Canandaigua & Niagara Falls railroad, built in 1852. It crossed western New York from Canandaigua to Niagara Falls. It was eventually bought by New York Central railroad, and was called a “peanut” by an NYC honcho compared to the NYC main stem. Most of it was abandoned in the ‘30s; later (‘70s) all that remained was also abandoned, a short stub-end segment from Canandaigua to nearby Holcomb, where it served a farm-supply. Most of the “Peanut’s” grading still exists.

“Elmira,” N.Y.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches and is unrelated.