General Motors, under its new government management, announced plans today to revamp its entire line of automobiles. Gone are the land yachts, SUVs, and soccer vans. GM plans to introduce instead a sleek new automobile more befitting of the company’s revised mission in hard economic times.
In fact, GM has settled on a single, one-size-fits-all, model with a proven track record. The strategy will streamline the company, focus the marketing efforts, and cut production costs dramatically.
It’s actually a reprise of a classic, the Trabant.
Unlike Ford’s attempt to bring back the nostalgic Thunderbird, the Trabant offers a combination of nostalgia and practicality. Its German engineering is expected to be a real plus among auto enthusiasts.
The smoky, two-stroke engine was expected to be a drawback initially, but company spokespeople said there were very aggressive plans to replace the engine with more environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art hybrid within a very short time – “probably 7-10 years,” according to one congressional staffer.
Fred Flummocks, project manager, explained. “We started with a blank slate, put our best government designers to work on this problem, and they kept coming back with much the same thing. It was hard not to see some resemblance to the old Trabi, so eventually, we just looked around the room and reached a consensus that the Trabi was perfect as a government-produced car.”
“There was a lot of discussion – well, actually grumbling among the holdover engineers and design people who really weren’t in favor of this decision,” said Flummocks from his office in Washington. “But doing nothing just isn’t an option.”
Another high-ranking spokesman responded to questions about the need some people have for larger vehicles. “We considered continuing to make pick-ups for farmers and people who have stuff they need to haul around, but it wasn’t practical. Too many people in the city were buying pick-ups for no reason – you know, just taking them to Starbucks or chewing up two parking spaces in the office garage.”
“Besides,” he said, “The only people who need pick-ups are out in the country, and they really aren’t our constituency – er, market.”
Officials at Chrysler were quick to criticize the move. According to one source, “It’s just not fair that the government is propping up GM this way, and then it decides to go toe-to-toe competing in our market. We’ve been making the functional equivalent of the Trabant for years, so this could really take a bite out of our sales.”
GM’s managers testified before a House Subcommittee yesterday that the decision to produce the Trabant as GM’s sole offering would not result in the loss of single union job or any reduction in benefits.
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