Coming to India: Pontiac, SAAB, Cadillac

[amit]

It's well known that GM wants to capture 10% of the Indian car market by 2010. Apart from the already well established Chevrolet, GM believes introducing it's other car brands will help it achieve that target faster. Choosing from it's wide variety of brands, GM seems to be zeroing in on Pontiac, SAAB and Cadillac.

Question is which cars will the Pontiac brand have? Grand Prix and Bonnenvile? what a overkill that would be! They may try and position Cadillac against the Mercs and BMW's but i think they should take on Skoda and VW with Cadillac and use the SAAB to take on the Euro sedans.

"It cannot be ruled out that GM brands like Cadillac, Pontiac, Saab and Vauxhall would be launched in India," GM India President and Managing Director Rajeev Chaba told reporters here on Monday.

Source: The Economic Times.

[BUSA]

Thats a good move, the Chevrolet brand which is used to sell the Spark can definately not be used to sell cars at the level of Mercedes, i think Vuxhall(Opel) & Cadillac are a sensible bet.

[iraghava]

I think they should first concentrate on the volume segment in which Chevrolet is player & is not doing too well. They can always target the niche segments later, the real volumes have to come from the B & C segments.

[V-16]

As amit put it, which cars will they get in the respective segments. Cadillac cannot be pitted against, say a BMW or a Benz. In an Indian market, if they do what Skoda did with their Octavia,it will sell. Forget trying to sell a caddy DTS against a 350S or a 740Li. I have had a ride in a 6 cyl caddy. It sucks. The four cyl Caddy Cimmaron which GM tried to indroduce was an utter failure. I dont think they will get these cars, at least not in the recent future. I dont even see VW selling their Jetta if they go wrong in the priocing. pricing is the key in our markets, coupled with the latest whats available world wide. Forget trying to sell old ware in an Indian market now. Those days are gone. Thinking is one thing and actually getting it here is another.

[1100D]

How many Merc owners (in India) take their Mercs to the grocery market? How many Honda Accords take the intercity trips between far reaching cities (Bombay-Poona excluded). Well the day, things like this would happen, people are likely have bought these cars for what they are rather than a display of status. For any transportation activity that need not involve the exhibition of economic arrival, there is a small car or an air-plane ticket that does the duty. So Sadly there is no real market for the large cars at the moment driven by the "need" to have these cars large. The actual "Needs" of the buyers that these cars satisfy, would go pretty much unsatisfied by a large car that reads "....mein to SAAB ban gaya"

But then, as we have seen "Chevrolets" in India, we could see Pontiac's too.

Interestingly Ssangyong is in the GM scan range, although not directly through the acquisition of Daewoo, but through Shanghai Automotive which is in GM's fold. Could we see the Cadillac Chairman at Skoda Laura prices. By the Way Shanghai Automotive has the Chery to make a Buick!

[devarshi84]

Gm has recently been doing well in India. When the magic is working, fiddling with other plans is a complete nono atleast in my books.

They should bring out a family SUV and let the the bowtie do the work for some years. Atleast until 2009. maybe then caddy can be brought in. Saab and Pontiac are a complete no no for now.

Just my thought.

[amit]

Originally Posted by V-16

I have had a ride in a 6 cyl caddy. It sucks.

I totally agree with you. I have driven the Cadillac CTS V6 version and it was just about okay in the driving environment. BUT, the interiors totally sucked! The quality of plastics and the total absence of feel good luxurious features was shocking. Sure it's priced much lower then Mercs and BMW's but it's still supposed to be a luxury car. But, yeah, I loved the seats. VERY comfortable and the driving position was good too. The car looks very good on the outside too but build quality was again pathetic. I could put a finger between the bumper and the body, thats how wide the panel gaps were. I thought my Palio was better built then the CTS! I'd say the interiors of the VW's and Skoda (in India), are much better then those on the Caddy. But Americans are now making a lot of progress on interior fit and finish, maybe, by 2009-2010 they maybe able to compete with the Skoda's and VW's here.