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10 Cars That Brought GM's Reputation Down

General Motors is doing extremely well in the Indian and Chinese markets. But some of its past erroneous models could have been a reason why the carmaker had to file for bankrupcy during the recent economic downturn. Let's take trip down the memory lane and look at the GM models that bombed big time.

1971-1977 Chevrolet Vega

It is believed that when Chevrolet Division Manager John DeLorean went to get a first look at the prototype of the new 1971 Chevrolet Vega, the front of the car fell off. Not one to believe in bad omens, GM went ahead with the production.

With a four-cylinder engine in the front sending power back to a solid rear axle, the Chevrolet Vega was considered to be an ordinary car. But there was one point of innovation - the aluminium block around which the 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine was constructed. The art of manufacturing aluminium engine blocks was in its early stages in 1971 and the unlined cylinder featured in the Vega engines were making it a gas guzzler, which led to its untimely and unfortunate death.

Vega, which sold about 268,000 units in 1971, was actually a success but collapsed during 1975. By 1980, Chevrolet Vegas were being discarded in junkyard and, in fact, California had signs announcing they would not accept any more. And you know it is trouble when even junkyards won't have your vehicles.

1980-1985 X-Cars

When the all-new 1980 Buick Skylark, Chevrolet Citation, Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix were launched in 1979, there was a lot of hype surrounding them. These front wheel drive system cars immediately replaced GM's rear-drive compacts.

Chevy alone sold a great number of vehicles, 811,540 Citations, during 1980. But, unfortunately, these four- and six-cylinder cars suffered the blow of more recalls and endemic problems than any other GM model.

Customers regularly complained of disintegrating transmissions, suspension systems that had a mind-of-its-own and brakes that were not famous for being very smooth. These problems led to the eventual downfall of the model.

1976-1987 Chevrolet Chevette

The Chevrolet Chevette was built on GM's "T" platform and it looked anything but modern. And the car could not survive the competition from Honda Civic and Accord, Volkswagen Rabbit and Ford Fiesta. To top it all, the Chevette, with a 1.4-liter Four making 53 bhp or a 1.6-liter version of the same engine rated at 70 bhp, was under-powered.

1982-1988 Cadillac Cimarron

May be the idea of making a small Cadillac is not all that bad, but trying to rebadge a Chevrolet Cavalier and selling it as a Cadillac is one grave blasphemy that GM committed.

The 1982 Cimarron was powered by the same 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine as the Cavalier, backed by either a four-speed manual or three-speed automatic transmission. And it also had the same interior as that of the Cavalier, albeit a different grille and hydraulic dampers between the body and front subframe.

And if all these were not enough, Cadillac pitched the car against BMW 3 Series. Not surprisingly, it was a total flop show and people did not make any efforts to take one of these homes.

1991-1995 Saturns

Saturn was General Motors brand looking for a make over. But the cars from Saturn was out-and-out mediocre. Saturn cars had plastic body panels stuck on to the steel space-frame, and then there were gaps in which you could push your entire hand. Even though the plastic panels were less affected by collision damage, it was prone to discolouring, and as they got older, they cracked too.

The Saturn cars had four-cylinder engines that were very noisy. Handling and looks of the car was another ordinary affair. And competitors like Honda, Toyota, Mazda and others took full advantage to lure the customers with their cars.

2001-2005 Pontiac Aztek

Pontiac introduced the crossover Aztek in 2001, and it was not one of the best looking cars in the America. Pontiac had earlier showcased the car in concept form back in 1999, which actually had garnered good response. GM decided to go ahead with the production of the new Aztek on the existing platform of its front-drive minivans which was a grave error in itself which resulted in the Azetek ending as an awkward shaped vehicle.

1978-1985 Oldsmobile Diesel V-8s

The Oldsmobile sold the most popular car, Cutlass, in the US during the late 1970s and into the early 80s but then it decided to bring some diesel engine cars, and that spelt disaster for the car maker.

Instead of designing a new line of engines, General Motors based the new diesel V8 design on its then gasoline Oldsmobile 5.7-liter V8's. There had been some modifications for handling the 22.5:1 compression ratio of a diesel engine.

These engines were less powerful and made just about 120 bhp at 1600 rpm. The diesel V8s were offered across most of the Oldsmobile models. But they never managed to catch on the fancy of American car buyers.

1997-1999 EV1

The two-seater GM EV1 is still one of the best engineered pure electric vehicles ever released for the public. Smart engineering, incredible aerodynamics and whole lot of lead-acid batteries worked well for the first-generation EV1 and they were able to go more than 75 miles maximum. And the second generation EV1 with nickel-metal-hydride batteries could do about 150 miles.

The problem with these electric cars was that it was utterly difficult to manoeuvre in the traffic. And it was a difficult task to maintain a range more than 40 miles.

1981-1984 Cadillac V-8-6-4

GM attempted to turn Cadillac's throttle-body injected 6.0-liter V-8 into an economy engine, known as "Modulated Displacement" during 1981. The idea behind that was, as the engine load decreased, fewer cylinders in the engine would actually be needed to generate power. In simple words, "V-8-6-4" was a commixture of all the three "V" engines; it was V8 which became a V6 at high speed and V4 while cruising. But this was the theortical part of the long story and to cut the story short, it bacame a bane on GM.

Eventually, GM stopped producing these engines in everything except limousines after just one year.

2003-Present Hummer H2

The Hummer H2 is functionally a good and capable car. It has got amazing off roading capability and runs real well on the roads too. But the problem with H2 is that it has a very bad fuel economy and looks straight out of a military stable.

GM introduced the H2 at a time when Toyota was launching its green car, like Prius, and hence GM was seen as insensitive to environmental needs. Environmentalists started to vandalise the Hummer dealerships and random civilian-owned vehicles. Worst nightmare of GM came true when the gas prices were hiked.

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