Detroit auto tycoon Roger Penske confirmed he has reached a tentative deal to acquire the Saturn brand and dealer network, and said he wants to eventually build vehicles in the U.S.

Penske has signed a memo of understanding to acquire Saturn and its dealer network and the due diligence period will take 60-90 days. The deal will preserve 13,000 jobs and could close in the late third quarter, Penske told reporters this morning. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal includes the Saturn brand, the service and parts operation based in Spring Hill, Tenn., and a network of about 350 dealerships.

Penske said GM will supply the Saturn Aura sedan and Vue and Outlook SUVs on a contract basis for at least two years, after which he envisions importing vehicles.

Continue reading: The Detroit News

General Motors’ new global product development boss Tom Stephens is a different kind of Detroit executive: a car guy who’s as enthusiastic talking about the performance of the high-m.p.g. turbocharged 1.4-liter engine that will power the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze as about the 600-horsepower V8 in his restored 1967 Chevrolet Impala.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” the soft-spoken engineer said of reshaping GM’s product line as the company sheds brands and cuts its North American models from 50 to 34.

“We can concentrate our resources on fewer products and do them better,” he said. “Every vehicle must be a hit. Now that we’re down to four brands and 34 nameplates, we don’t have room for any boring vehicles.”

Stephens, who ran GM’s powertrain operations before becoming vice chairman April 1, replaces automotive icon Bob Lutz, who built a product development process that produced highly praised cars like the Cadillac CTS and Chevrolet Malibu.

Continue reading: Freep.com

General Motors Corp. expects to return to annual profits in 2011 and estimates stock in the new company it will launch from bankruptcy will be worth as much as $48 billion, according to estimates filed Thursday in its bankruptcy case.

The figures, the first provided by the company, show the tough haul ahead for the U.S. government to make money on its investment in rescuing the nation’s largest automaker, despite a bankruptcy restructuring that will slash its debt and overhead.

The company’s financial adviser, Evercore Partners, offered projections for GM’s finances in its bankruptcy case based on several scenarios. It forecasts that GM will lose $17.5 billion this year before reaching a profit of $3 billion in 2011 before taxes, rising to $7.8 billion in 2014.

Continue reading: Freep.com

Laurie Kipp recently was going through the papers of her deceased father, Samuel F. McFarland, when she came upon a slice of local history – particularly poignant in the context of current events.
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Kipp wrote: “I sincerely hope it can be a symbol of how this great corporation (General Motors) can rise again to reinvent itself.”

Kipp’s “symbol” is a letter dated Nov. 3, 1944, written by S.E. Skinner, the general manager of Oldsmobile, to local members of the armed forces. The greeting implies the letter was one of a series of similar letters:

“Dear Mr. McFarland: Greetings once more to you and all the other 2,000 Oldsmobile men who are in the fighting forces.”

Skinner begins with a glimpse of local color: “We are now seeing the last of our Indian summer, with the red and yellow leaves rapidly vanishing from the trees, and Ole Man Winter getting ready to breathe his chill breath down the backs of our necks.”

Then Skinner gets down to business: “With elections coming up and all the attendant ballyhoo filling the air, this promises to be a noisy month on the home front. Here at the plant, however, the production of munitions continues to claim our exclusive attention.”

Read Friday’s Lansing State Journal for more on John Schneider’s column

The causes of General Motors Corp.’s descent into bankruptcy are complex, but its failures are tangible enough in a rogue’s gallery of unloved and unlovely cars and trucks.

Click on over to The Detroit News to view the listing and gallery…

Oh ya and watch this – http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Jeremy-Clarksons-Detroit_196287.htm

THE demise of GM had been expected for so long that when it finally died there was barely a whimper. Wall Street was unmoved. Congress did not draw breath. America shrugged. Yet the indifference with which the news was received should not obscure its importance. A company which once sold half the cars in America, employed in its various guises as many people as the combined populations of Nevada and Delaware and was regarded as a model for managers all over the world has just gone under; and its collapse holds important lessons about management, about government and about the future of the car industry

Continue reading: economist.com

The trouble with the whole “Nixon goes to China” theory — which is grounded in the calculus that big progress is made when a politician goes against type to address a seemingly intractable challenge — is that sometimes the “bold” gesture is really just more of the same.

This is an important reality to recognize as the major media in the United States begins to play up the reshaping of General Motors by the Obama administration’s auto-industry task force as a courageous or groundbreaking “new” initiative to “save” domestic automaking.

It’s not.

Continue reading: thenation.com

At the deathbed of General Motors, I find myself filled with—dare I say it—joy. Here are my nine suggestions for transforming the company.

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the president of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM’s birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

Continue reading: thedailybeast.com

After filing for bankruptcy protection, General Motors is pushing a new ad campaign promising it will emerge from its financial troubles leaner and stronger.

Is this a good marketing approach? Will it allay consumer fears about buying from a carmaker with an uncertain future?

Advertising experts say GM — and fellow Chapter 11 filer Chrysler — should move past the negative and focus on their brands as they try to get car sales rolling again. Consumers are staunchly loyal to their car brands, they say.

GM says its brands are key to emerging from these tough times. But first it has to tell consumers how it will remake itself and what to expect, Jay Spenchian, GM executive director of corporate advertising strategy, said Tuesday.

Continue reading: mlive.com

Rollin Green, 24, has enjoyed the cumulative benefits of being in a General Motors Corp. family that went to work for the company in the 1940s, but that tradition may end with him.

Green, a fourth-generation GM worker, finally started full-time at the Lansing Grand River plant last June working on Cadillac trim production after a series of temporary jobs for five years. He was laid off in December.

With GM’s bankruptcy filing Monday, the future for him is much different from the one that stretched before his father, grandfather and great-grandfather decades ago.

The Detroit-based auto industry has created bountiful lifestyles for thousands of Michigan families that defined the state and fueled the middle class.

Continue reading: Freep.com with video

For the first time in 10 months, a General Motors Corp. vehicle made in Lansing has posted a monthly sales gain over the previous year’s figures.

The bankrupt Detroit-based automaker said today that sales of the Buick Enclave increased 39.6 percent last month. There were 4,103 Enclave crossovers sold in the month compared to 2,939 Enclaves sold in May 2008.

Continue reading: LSJ.com

“I’m confident that Hummer will thrive globally under its new ownership,” said Troy Clarke, president of GM North America, in a press release. “And for GM, this sale continues to accelerate the reinvention of GM into a leaner, more focused, and more cost-competitive automaker.”

GM also said that the deal should protect more than 3,000 jobs in manufacturing and engineering, and at dealerships “around the country.”

The sale of the Hummer brand to a Chinese company will not impact the production of U.S. military vehicles. Military Humvees are produced by a different company, privately held AM General, based in South Bend, Ind.

money.cnn.com

Bankruptcy for General Motors means the state is finally starting to hit bottom, a grim Governor Jennifer Granholm said Monday. While the action means more job losses for the state, Michigan can take some comfort in the idea that a viable auto industry will remain in the state once GM and Chrysler complete their bankruptcies, she told reporters.

But there is no escaping the reality that “this is a very tough day for Michigan,” Granholm said.

Continue reading: mitechnews.com