Fantasy merger 

"El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!" (lightningzone) 10/21/2015 at 19:56 • Filed to: None

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A couple of years ago, GM and Honda signed a partnership to jointly develop fuel cells, self driving cars and other advanced technologies.

But what if they decide to take things to the next level?

If you look at their strengths and weaknesses, they kinda complete each other. Honda will probably never crack the large suv and truck market, and GM’s cars will probably never have the success and the following of the Accord or Civic.

Acura could take Cadillac platforms and build cars that are both performance orientated and in the same time deeply Japanese.

And GM would gain access to world class engine building know-how.

Also Robots!!

Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 20:02

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I’m trying to somehow picture a rebadged Camaro as an Acura....

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 20:13

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Isn’t there an old saying if GM could build a car as well as they can engines they’d rule the industry? Why exactly do they need VTEC?

El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/21/2015 at 20:20

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Because not all sayings are actually true or inline with the times. And because Honda engines are in everything. From F1 cars to bikes, planes, boats, lawn mowers and more. They just know engines.

PS9 > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 20:26

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Nah.

GM already has ‘world class engine-building know how’. It’d be great if they used it on other engines that didn’t have 8 cylinders, but it’s there. Just like it’d be great if Honda gave the world something with more than six cylinders in it. They could if they wanted, but they don’t Too bad so sad for us on that.

Acura wouldn’t be getting Cadillac platforms. They’d be getting the axe, along with Buick. Part of the problem with ‘old GM’ was a lot of samey kind of products splattered across different brands using the same engines/platforms/interior pieces/etc., ‘New GM’ has a lot of diversity now (The SS vs. The CTS is a great example of this) and is better for it. A CTS with an Acura badge on it will just cannibalize CTS sales. No matter what you do, you won’t be able to make both cars feel and look distinctly different from each other, because they won’t be. Consumers will notice, and take their money elsewhere.

A lot of overlap with Chevy and Honda will result in a lot of cancelled products. The Malibu and Impala die to the Civic and Accord. The Pilot dies to the Tahoe. The Ridgeline dies to the Silverado. We don’t care about these vehicles, but a market with fewer choices in it will be a worse off place to be for the consumers who do, but it’s better for shareholders who only see the combined gains in marketshare that come with consolidation. Nah. Nuts to all that.

El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 10/21/2015 at 20:26

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Visibility from the inside seems to be the same.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 20:27

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Small motors, sure. But I’m pretty sure Honda’s car motors for the most part are all behind power-wise to their current GM contemporaries.

Kofi > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 20:46

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Gm makes some of the most built proof engines, from the little 4 banger ecotecs to the lengendary 3800 series in the grand prixs to the most swapped engine the ls series. I don’t think the need help there, maybe on plastics lmao

ranwhenparked > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 20:54

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Ah, robots, great. Because if the FANUC tie-up taught us anything, it is that GM knows exactly what they are doing when they dabble in the robotics industry.

Of course, Roger Smith is dead now, so maybe it would work out better this time.

El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! > PS9 10/21/2015 at 21:02

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Not necessarily. Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I think it’s all in the execution. It seems to work very well for the Volkswagen group or Hyundai-Kia. Dieselgate has nothing to do with in-group competition.

Badge engineering is not the same with platform engineering. A platform can be untraceable from car to car, if interior and exterior design is changed, as well as the fine tuning of the car.

A CTS platform with an Acura engineered body, will fill like an Acura, with Acura characteristics.

The same principle could be applied for the mainstream brands. Share the unnoticeable parts, use different designs, engine/suspension tune-up.

The themes of the brands could be different too, with Honda being sporty and affordable, gunning for the likes of Ford, Mazda or Kia. And Chevrolet would be more mature and classy(the Camaro would be spun off into a stand alone Corvette brand, together with the Stingray, Zora and the Code), going after VW, Hyundai or Chrysler.

Buick would emerge as more powerful since it wouldn’t have Acura as a competitor anymore, because Acura would be repositioned(via Cadillac platforms) to better compete with Lexus, Jaguar and the Germans.

PS9 > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 10/21/2015 at 23:38

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The many brands of Volkswagen work well because there is almost zero overlap between any of them. In cases where there are, a product only exists because consumers demanded it and there is no opportunity for cannibalization. The Cheyenne and the Macan exist because Porsche buyers wanted suvs and crossovers without the plebian VW badge. The R8 and the Gallardo could exist because It’s a good thing for Audi to have a Halo car, and Lamborghini still needed something to slot beneath the Murcielago. VAG could undercut the Gallardo by $100k in this case with virtually the same car while raising the profile of Audi at the same time because that’s what the Lambo badge is worth to buyers who would never consider the R8.

In a GM/Honda merger, the opposite would be true; GM and Honda are competing for the same share of buyers in ways that VW, Audi, Lambo, Porsche and Bugatti do not and cannot. GM/Honda’s product portfolio would be overrun with overlapping cars competing for sales. Shareholders and bean counters would see that and immediately break out the scissors faster than the ink could dry on the merger contracts.

Badge engineering is not the same with platform engineering. A platform can be untraceable from car to car

No. Badge engineering IS platform engineering. Using major pieces of hardware from car to car produces samey products that turn customers away from a brand. Tell me with a straight face that you don’t see the Taurus, Fusion, Escape and Expedition in the MK(S,Z,T and X). Tell me how many miles apart the Scion iA is from the Mazda2. Tell me how completely untraceable Acura’s entire lineup is with the Hondas right across the street. Over and over and over again we’ve seen examples of badge engineered cars sharing major pieces of hardware and result has never been two totally different compelling products. Show me the person that can create two radically different, non-cannibalistic, in-segment cars that each have their own compelling reasons for purchase from the same set of parts, and I’ll show you someone who can turn lead into gold, because like alchemy, it’s never been done.

A CTS platform with an Acura engineered body, will fill like an Acura, with Acura characteristics.

No. A CTS with an Acura badge would be exactly that; A CTS with an acura badge. We already have a CTS. Why do we need a second one? We don’t. That’s why.

The craziest thing about this is; we already tried something like that with Cadillac. Caddy really did share pretty much everything with the GM parts bin in the bad old days of FWD V8s, and the result was a luxury car company with absolutely no credibility at all relative to the Germans. We already know what the result of this plan would be. We don’t need an instant replay, especially now after caddy has spent 30 years and $[xx]billion dollars rebuilding the shattered reputation that comes with being an avatar of the corporate parts bin.

Buick would emerge as more powerful since it wouldn’t have Acura as a competitor anymore, because Acura would be dead.

Fixed. I’m sorry, but there’s isn’t room in the luxury car market for two Cadillacs. Swapping out the Honda platforms for Cadillac ones would only exacerbate Acura’s problem as a redundant avatar of the corporate parts bin, only now with fewer customers, because none of the people who buy Acuras today aren’t looking for RWD nurburgring carving performance. I know it’s our tendency here to try and shove every luxury marquee into that mold, but there are at least 200,000 people every year that seek out the exact opposite of that, which is what Acura offers.

Hey, lets talk about ‘keeping up with the germans’ for a moment; How many badge-engineered Mercs, Audis and BMWs are there? How many of them platform-share with as many down market brands as possible? How many other brands using nothing but parts and platforms from other downmarket brands were able to successfully unseat the Germans at the top of the luxury car market?

To know the answers to those questions is to understand why Cadillac rises today were it could not have in the 90s, and to understand why putting Acura badges on something else will not give them even an inch of german luxury marketshare.