The Chevy Citation Killed GM!

Comments · 1.3K

• JE

  @jeffreymcfadden9403 · 5 years ago

  The downfall began when GM put the &quot;bean counters&quot; in charge.<br>I am a former GM employee with 21 years, when they sent my job overseas.

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• SO

  @soaringvulture · 5 years ago

  The company I worked for in the 1980&apos;s made manufacturing equipment for, among other corporations, auto manufacturers. I interacted with the engineers at GM, Ford and Mercedes. The GM engineers, by and large, were not car guys. It seemed to me that they were only vaguely aware that they were making cars. All they needed was something that met the specifications. The Ford guys were way different. They usually had hot cars and motorcycles and they were really invested in making good vehicles. And at Mercedes, the engineers were strongly aware that they were building Mercedes. Internal engine parts not only had to perform perfectly, they had to look good.<br>So there is an internal ethos in a corporation that affects product quality. It&apos;s called caring.

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• BL

  @BlancGivre · 5 years ago

  Put succinctly, GM killed itself by cutting corners...

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• GR

  @grandrapids57 · 5 years ago (edited)

  I write off the X-car criticism with Shakespeare, from Julius Ceasar: &quot;The evil that men do lives after them; the good oft interred with their bones.&quot;

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• JO

  @johne6081 · 5 years ago

  When the Chevy citations first came out, my boss bought one and reluctantly accepted power windows, because GM was fully loading all of the early production models. He told the dealer, &quot;I &nbsp;really don&apos;t want power windows, because they are unreliable.&quot; When he went to drive it off the lot, he pushed down on the driver&apos;s window button, and the glass did not budge. :)

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• BR

  @briangil2163 · 5 years ago

  I&apos;ve had various GM&apos;s 70&apos;s - 2000&apos;s and they each had their own share of what you&apos;ve discussed here. &nbsp;Best GM I owned was a 63 Cadillac.

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• TH

  @thelegendaryblackbeastofar39 · 5 years ago (edited)

  I agree, the Citation (in fully restored) condition deserves to be kept in a museum. The car is historically important as it forever changed the American car industry, entirely for the worse.

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• HE

  @henryd1981 · 6 years ago (edited)

  The oil embargoes were actually 1973 and 1979, though the &apos;79 crisis wasn&apos;t so much an embargo as it was a result of the Iranian Revolution.

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• CR

  @CrazyPetez · 5 years ago

  You neglected to mention the Oldsmobile Diesel engine debacle.

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• BA

  @BabyShark-cg3sz · 5 years ago

  GM killed GM with all the crap they were producing! It wasn&apos;t just one vehicle, it was all of them ...

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• CH

  @charliedee9276 · 5 years ago

  When working at GM in the 90&apos;s I heard a manager state, &quot;we are not in the business of making cars, we are in the business of making money. We do it by making cars using as little money as possible&quot;.

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• RO

  @robs4517 · 5 years ago

  Every once in a while GM makes a mistake and gets one right.

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