Do you envisage any motor companies going out of business in current economic climate

agent_smith

Hi Guys,

Hope I am not posting in the wrong thread. But I was chatting with a friend at lunch today about the current economic climate/ recession and the drive towards green fuels. We got talking about some of our favorite car manufacturers and one thing after another we started to speculate about which motor brands will be hit most / potentially go out of business...
To start the ball rolling, IMHO i would not be surprised to see jaguar hit hard/go the way of rover over the next year or two. As a company, they have been bought and sold too many times to remember, and currently in the hands of an indian parent company. As a company they do not produce fuel efficient cheap mass market cars, they produce fuel guzzlers, but fuel guzzlers which arguably are not best of breed (that honor prob goes to bmw/audi/merc )... I would imagine they are very vulnerable in todays economic climate...
Anybody any opinions ?!

bazz26

I'd say you will see alot of smaller manufacturers being absorbed by the bigger car corporations. Similar to what is happening with alot of smaller banks in the current credit crunch.

Heroditas

You could very well see a large American company go out of business, particularly if the US Govt cease backing up these uncompetitive dinosaurs.

Stephen

General Motors has been pretty ****ed for the last few years. Didn't the US government recently approve another $25 billion bailout for their car manufacturing industry recently?

L1011

Vote for General Motors, or Chrysler.

towel401

its hard to imagine GM going bankrupt

maidhc

towel401 wrote: »

its hard to imagine GM going bankrupt

Well their pension plan was crippling them before the credit crunch.

agent_smith

What bout the likes of alfa romeo. I know alfa cars from time to time get a hard time around here, but im speaking specifically about their brand and sales figures.
At the very least (i know Ireland is a small market) but SIMI's sales figures for alfa were worrying to say the least.... now that the economy has been hit, do you think many people will be willing to take a punt on a 159 etc..

Guy:Incognito

agent_smith wrote: »

What bout the likes of alfa romeo. I know alfa cars from time to time get a hard time around here, but im speaking specifically about their brand and sales figures.
At the very least (i know Ireland is a small market) but SIMI's sales figures for alfa were worrying to say the least.... now that the economy has been hit, do you think many people will be willing to take a punt on a 159 etc..

I'd imagine Ireland is small enough that most companies could probably pull out of here without it registering on their books. Collectively the small countries add up to a bit but they could probably pull out of one or too of the lower end ones to cut a few costs.

bazz26

agent_smith wrote: »

What bout the likes of alfa romeo. I know alfa cars from time to time get a hard time around here, but im speaking specifically about their brand and sales figures.
At the very least (i know Ireland is a small market) but SIMI's sales figures for alfa were worrying to say the least.... now that the economy has been hit, do you think many people will be willing to take a punt on a 159 etc..

Alfa Romeo are part of the larger Fiat Group which as a whole is performing quite well to my knowledge.

E92

bazz26 wrote: »

Alfa Romeo are part of the larger Fiat Group which as a whole is performing quite well to my knowledge.

They're doing very well in Europe generally, but FIAT are down quite substantially this year here.

I think Alfa are selling better this year than last year here, but I'm not certain.

They poached some young marketing guy from BMW Ireland earlier on in the year, and he was supposed to have been doing very well with BMW so they are hoping that he will help turn them around.

LolaDub

I'd say Ford will be bowing out in a while

L1011

E92 wrote: »

They're doing very well in Europe generally, but FIAT are down quite substantially this year here.

I think Alfa are selling better this year than last year here, but I'm not certain.

They poached some young marketing guy from BMW Ireland earlier on in the year, and he was supposed to have been doing very well with BMW so they are hoping that he will help turn them around.

Fiat Ireland have been doing badly for three or four years. They've got a new head and are (I'd go for 'were' now, with the crunch) intending to ship out the dead wood dealers, get new ones in and a new marketing campaign. They're already down a number of dealers I'd have classed as bad ones but no new ones as yet... but I've seen ads for the 500 frequently, and more and more on the roads.

They were one of the very early 'small' marques to be in Ireland on their own rather than through a distie and seem to intend to stay for the long run, thankfully.

L1011

towel401 wrote: »

its hard to imagine GM going bankrupt

They, effectively, are bankrupt already. Lost 38 BILLION dollars in 2007. They've had to cancel their autumn ad campaign as they can't pay for it. Their long-term plan to merge with Fiat died a few years back and realistically any future for GM died with it - Fiat were in bits prior to that and are now highly profitable, GM are getting worse and worse.

GM have a very large financing division also, which if the banking crisis gets worse, will start eating them from another side. I give them a year, tops, without a major restructuring - possibly having to divest or close brands, withdraw from territories...