Saaaaved by Zeeeero

Popular Mechanics has an absolutely brilliant article up on the 10 cars that damaged GMs reputation. I've posted a few of the highlights

"Legend has it that when Chevrolet Division Manager John DeLorean went to the GM Proving Grounds to get his first look at a prototype of the new 1971 Chevrolet Vega, the front of the car literally fell off onto the ground....the only innovative thing on the Vega was the all-aluminum block around which its 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine was constructed. Unfortunately, the art of building aluminum engine blocks was in its infancy back in 1971 and the unlined cylinder walls of Vega engines were scoring almost instantly. That led to lots of oil burned and early death for this engine. Throw in haphazard build quality and sheetmetal that you could practically hear rusting away, and the Vega truly rates as one of GM's great debacles. But the Vega was actually a sales success. Chevy sold nearly 268,000 during the 1971 model year, over 390,000 during 1972, almost 396,000 during 1973, and over 450,000 during 1974 (sales finally collapsed during the 1975 model year)... But ultimately that meant there were just that many more people disappointed by the Vega. By the mid-1980s, Vegas were being junked so aggressively that some salvage yards in Southern California had signs up saying they wouldn't accept any more."

I'm sure there was some VP at GM that thought all the mechanical problems the Vega was having would be great for sales. I mean the sooner your customers have to buy a new car the sooner you get to sell them a new one, right? What else are they going to do, throw their vote away? it's a two party system!
Sorry I channeled Kodos there for a second.

"From the late 1970s and into the early '80s, Oldsmobile sold the most popular car in America: the Cutlass. Olds was on a sales roll; it seemed nothing would be able to stop the division. Then came the Oldsmobile diesels, and stopping is exactly what they did best.... Soon after the 5.7-liter diesel V8 debuted in Oldsmobile full-size 88 and 98 models (during 1978), the engines started tearing themselves apart. That extreme fragility was despite the fact that the 5.7-liter diesel option cost between $800 and $1000 extra per car and only made a puny 120 hp and a stingy 220 lb-ft of peak torque at 1600 rpm. In short, these engines were awful. But the 4.3-liter version of the diesel V8 was even worse—rated at only 90 hp, it was somehow even more fragile.... And when the engines inevitably blew up, the cars they were in would either head to an early death in a junkyard or have a more reasonable powerplant swapped in."

A 5.7L diesel that gets 120hp and puts out 220lb-ft of torque! My nissan sentra has a 1.8L 126hp aluminum hamster on a wheel and it gets 30 miles to a gallon. Sure it's not as torquey as the super manly V8, but come on. This isn't just a car that helped kill GM, but diesel engine production in the US. Mention a diesel engine to anyone over 35 and this is the kind of car they think of. A smoke belching piece of crap that costs a ton to maintain and has no performance bonuses over it's regular gas powered brothers. To bad no one thinks of the 63mpg Ford Fiesta that's only available in europe.

"Even today, the two-seat GM EV1 remains one of the best-engineered, best-working pure electric vehicles ever released to the public. With clever engineering throughout its aluminum structure, an incredibly aerodynamic body and a whole bunch of lead-acid batteries, the first-generation EV1 was able to go maybe 75 miles if driven with extreme care. The second-generation EV1 with nickel-metal-hydride batteries upped that range to about 150 miles... GM built the EV1 to satisfy a mandate from the state of California that 2 percent of a manufacturer's fleet sold there be zero-emissions vehicles. However, the EV1 and electric vehicles built by other manufacturers finally convinced the California Air Resources Board that the zero-emissions mandates weren't achievable by then-current technology. This led to the cancellation of the mandate. So GM canceled the EV1, and when the leases on the 1117 it had produced ran out,GM took them back and crushed them...suddenly the world was full of conspiracy theories about why GM "killed" the electric car. If the Hummer H2 makes GM seem callous toward the environment, the way GM handled the EV1 makes the company seem downright hostile. It's been a public relations nightmare."

Here it is the granddaddy of all GM screw ups. At a time when people were starting to worry about global warming and the price of gas was about to go through the roof, GM decided to crush its entire fleet of electric cars. Now they could focus on more cost effective projects like rebadging its Suburban into belgian military grade knock off humvees. You really think GM has been helped out by the small army of crooked hat retards driving these things around the country? I'm pretty sure this is the reason the terrorist hate us.