GM kills the GTO

I see today that GM killed the GTO, their US version of the Australian Holden Monaro. I had predicted this in my blog back in July 2005 when GM launched the new GTO, and it went over like a lead balloon. GM is blaming this decision on the expense of redesigning it to meet federal air bag rules for 2007.

This is a sad day for the once mighty American automobile industry. The Germans, Japanese, and Koreans are eating their lunch. Now, they can't even succeed in ONE area where they have no real foreign competition, muscle cars. GM managed to defeat themselves. Wow.

The Monaro is a well respected and highly desired car here in Australia. If GM had just managed to leave well enough alone, they could have sold them in the US and made money. But noooo. Too many executive that need to justify their jobs put all their little changes in until the GTO was nothing like the Monaro that it was supposed to be.

I don't understand why GM has failed to notice that the German and Japanese car makers sell pretty much the same car at home as they do in the US. They don't produce a dumbed down and problem filled version of the Mercedes sedan, the BMW 525, the VW Jetta, the Toyota Corolla, or Honda Accord just for Americans. Nope. The Americans get the same quality automobile that the Germans and the Japanese get.

Pathetic.... just f**king pathetic.