AMC, Plymouth, and now Oldsmobile

[Dan]

Didn't realize that they'd be stopping manufacturing this year. Kinda' sad to see the marquee go; it was just in the past few years that Oldsmobile seemed to find a niche, and start making appeaking cars.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - It's the end of the line for the oldest automotive brand name in the United States. The last Oldsmobile rolled of the line Thursday morning at the Lansing Car Assembly plant, which has produced the venerable vehicles for nearly a century. Employees watched as the last Alero rolled off the assembly line. The last car will feature the signatures of the plant employees on the inside of the hood and be displayed at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing for about four months, said Rebecca Harris, a spokeswoman for General Motors Corp.

Oldsmobile, the brand that pioneered chrome-plated trim and gave drivers the Eighty Eight series, the front-wheel-drive Toronado and the Cutlass, was named for its founder, Ransom E. Olds, who started the Olds Motor Vehicle Co. in Lansing in 1897. It became part of GM in 1908. Of the 35.2 million Oldsmobiles built during the nameplate's existence, more than 14 million were built in Lansing. GM announced in December 2000 it would end production of the struggling Oldsmobile line with the 2004 model year. The Alero is the only remaining vehicle in the brand's once diverse lineup.

 

[michaelskis]

Olds has a few great cars out there... I will miss them.

 

[mendelman]

The inexorable march of de-industrialization.

Meh

products and companies come and go all the time.

No big deal..........except for the Olds employees in Lansing, MI. :-\

Remember:
Blind brand/product loyalty is the greatest in-joke imposed by the captialists. If you submit to it, you are no longer optimizing consumer choice and the ever-repeated freedom of the free market.

 

[BKM]

Olds has a few great cars out there... I will miss them.

Alas, the Alero was not one of them

My father growing up was a devoted American Motors owner. Awful, awful cars. I still remember the 1980 "Spirit" a kinda hatchbacky thing set up way high (but my dad's downscale model was 2X drive, not 4X drive). I still remember almost rlling that thing at least a couple of times.

 

[jsk1983]

So many of the cars today look the same, as essentially they are the same. The last model of the Cutlass was essentially a Malibu with an Olds symbol and some fancier trim. The previous generation of Monte Carlos, after it was revived but not the current one, looked like a two door Lumina. The only difference between many cars today is the trim and marketing.

 

[Cardinal]

Olds "lost it" in the late 70's and never really came back. The company that once made the 4-4-2 became another Buick. I hate to see them go (learned to drive on a '76 Cutlass with a 350 Rocket) but it is with the bittersweet feeling of seeing the plug pulled on a patient in a coma.