Olds To Disappear

FTLComm - Tisdale - January 24, 2001

Bow Mar Sales of Tisdale is one of those special General Motor's dealerships that has access to the full line of vehicles made by the company and for that reason the recent decision by General Motors to discontinue the production of its Oldsmobile line will have little impact. In an interview Ron Bowditch pointed out that innovation and modernisation of the Buick line has made that line of cars the dominant seller for almost a decade and though the renaming of the Olds line brought some excellent cars to the market they still were being outsold by the Buick line. One of the interesting problems General Motors created for itself was by changing the names from 88 to Intrigue and 98 to Aurora, they lost the long time customer loyalty of generations of car buyers. Even though the Intrigue is a fine car, Mr. Bowditch said it did not sell as well as expected. The luxurious Aurora was introduced by Oldsmobile to meet the challenge of the Lexus and European luxury vehicles and its high price and high quality failed to capture the interest of the former 98 customer. However, there is a chance that the Aurora will remain in production and be adopted by the Chevrolet line. The real problem for General Motors are those dealerships who up until now are Chevy/Olds dealers. With the removal of Olds these dealerships are in serious trouble having no mid to upper class vehicle to sell. Both Saskatoon and Regina Chevy / Olds dealers are extremely anxious about the future and only time will tell how they make out in the changing marketplace.