And to think it was only a few years ago that they wanted to get rid of them all, and tried their best? But no, the Union 76 ball has resurfaced in the upcoming Will Farrell remake, Land of the Lost. A bit about the film from IMdB: On hisMORE HERE
DETROIT – Not that I really like Pontiacs these days. They’ve not been interesting for a long time. But now, there are serious discussions that GM will announce that Pontiac will be shut down as a brand. Frankly, it doesn’t make sense. If Pontiac sales stink, then so do Buick.MORE HERE
DETROIT – No brand is safe now and General Motors (NYSE: GM) is indeed in a mess. All the brands are damaged. It should not be this way. All of them lost sight of what their mission was in GM. You cannot have multiple platforms which cost you money andMORE HERE
DALLAS – Will Saturn become a retailer? Very interesting way for the brand to survive. An investor group that includes private equity firm Black Oak Partners, LLC, working together with a number of Saturn retailers, announced today that it has approached General Motors about buying and operating the principal assetsMORE HERE
FAIRFAX – Mobil has always known how to brand itself through television. The idea? Don’t engine up your name everywhere, but instead attach your name to television shows that reach a key opinion-leading segment of your target market. Hence the once sponsorship of Mobil Masterpiece Theater (no longer sadly) andMORE HERE
DETROIT – We found the rather spectacular website Artificial Owl with some hauntingly beautiful photos of Detroit’s empty Union Station. The site is all about photos of abandoned places. I cannot help but think of the parallels between Detroit’s waste of this great building, and the waste that is theMORE HERE
IRVINE, Calif. – BMW is the coolest car brand in America. Or so says Kelley Blue Book, which has just released current winners of their 2009 Brand Image Awards. And Cadillac? Boy do Americans like the interiors. The Brand Image Awards are presented to the top brands in 10 categories,MORE HERE
A quick thought. What happened to diversified car companies. The nation misses diversified products, though they are sold by foreign companies, particularly Asian companies, all at the same time. The companies were more interesting when: Ford made Fordson (and Ford) Tractors, Tri-Motors and Philco Televisions. Kingsford charcoal was an interestingMORE HERE
We have been thinking not only of what happened to Saab, but then what to do about Saab. We haven’t gotten far, we admit. And then we found this great response in the alternative weekly The Hook in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was a response to Courtney Stuart’s article on theMORE HERE
Above, a Boyce Moto Meter. The Boyce was a hood ornament that kept the temperature of radiators; in a pre-anti-freeze era this ensured the proper working of engines.MORE HERE