Interesting tidbit of old GM

"404 - User No Longer Available" (toni-cipriani) 01/13/2018 at 15:08 • Filed to: None

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After seeing the ELR with the Cascada rims, it occurs to me that GM seems to have this habit of going on a wheels mixup when a car is about to be discontinued.

For example, the Final 500 Oldsmobile Intrigue used the Aurora’s rims:

...whereas Final 500 Aurora got the Cadillac STS rims (the old FWD one, which was discontinued 2 years before this Aurora):

...and the Intrigue’s rims ended up on a Buick Century “Special Edition”, before it was replaced with the LaCrosse.

Corporate beancounting to the max, or maybe it just shows part of old GM’s problems, atrocious inventory management when they can just have all these parts lying around, and seemingly just continue to this day.

mazda616 > 404 - User No Longer Available 01/13/2018 at 15:25

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GM does/did this type of stuff a lot.

The GMC Acadia facelift used taillights from the defunct Saturn Outlook.

SmugAardvark > 404 - User No Longer Available 01/13/2018 at 15:31

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I think a good portion of it is just cost cutting. They already have the parts and tooling for these. And let’s be real, most people buying Oldsmobiles during the marque’s waning years probably cared very little about wheel design. As long as it got them down to the senior center in time for Canasta, it was all good.

ThePlasticOne - no diggities expressed nor implied. > 404 - User No Longer Available 01/13/2018 at 15:38

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ranwhenparked > 404 - User No Longer Available 01/13/2018 at 16:40

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I think it was because changing out the wheels to ones from another model was an easy way of making a special edition look different or special without having to design a whole new wheel for a limited run of a few hundred cars, or make a more costly sheet metal or plastic fascia modification to create distinction.

Note that in most cases (Aurora rims on an Intrigue, Cadillac rims on an Aurora), you’re talking about wheels from a higher end car being used on a lower end model to dress it up a bit. The Intrigue to Century route changes that arrangement, but the Olds was considering a more modern and somewhat more stylish car at the time, so I guess that’s the logic.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > mazda616 01/13/2018 at 17:42

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Came here to post this. Actually it’s not the lights - they reused the entire rear half of a car that had been discontinued for 2+ years:

jdrgoat - Ponticrack? > 404 - User No Longer Available 01/13/2018 at 17:47

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The paint for the Cobalt SS/SC wheels (a surprisingly expensive gunmetal finish) was in short supply at some point that the 2007 models were being built. Solution? Use the Malibu SS wheels which are almost,  but not , the same.

Nauraushaun > 404 - User No Longer Available 01/13/2018 at 18:14

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I guess it’s pretty much free for them to do. Smart ;)

Assuming your customers are that ignorant. Also smart ;) ;)