General Motors, once burdened by an overabundance of brands, has now been whittled down to just a few. But since GMC has proven that subbrands can really work within the empire, what nameplates should the automaker bring back?
The Hummer brand was, in many ways, ahead of its time. Presaging the world’s obsession with big SUVs, the brand was a victim of the 2008 financial crisis.
Now that the economy is strong again (let’s see how long it takes for that statement to look poorly aged) and big SUVs can defend themselves thanks to big, heavy battery packs, the time is perfect for the Hummer brand’s resurgence, for which GM’s product planners are no doubt congratulating themselves.
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But rather than being its own brand, Hummer is actually a subbrand within the larger GMC brand. Unbound by GMC styling, the Hummer can be its own thing without having to establish its own dealerships and experiences and that’s good news for fans of the Hummer.
But what about the Saturn supporters, the La Salle lovers, the Oldsmobile oglers, the Holden holdouts, and the Pontiac partisans out there? How shall GM reward their steadfast support?
I think there are some answers here that aren’t too hard to imagine working well. The originators of the subbrand scheme, it seems, have been performance tuners. Think AMG to Mercedes, BMW‘s M division, and Audi’s RS department. Why not turn Pontiac into a tuning house, kind of like Dodge is doing with Direct Connection?
The Pontiac brand was always supposed to be about performance cars, so why not commit? Instead of using performance codes that only nerds understand (Z06, LT1, Z28), just add a badge that says Pontiac Power somewhere on the car. You could even mine the automaker’s history for names. Instead of a Camaro Z28 or whatever, make it a Chevrolet Camaro Firebird Edition. Or they could add the Bonneville name to anything that goes more than 200 mph (320 km/h).
It would be a great way to ease GM’s audience into an electric future, much like Ford is doing.
On a personal note, as someone who grew up in Oshawa, near the McLaughlin GM plant, I think it would be cool to rebrand all of those BrightDrop vehicles as McLaughlins, since they’re being made in Canada, anyway.
Those are just a few ideas, though. What do you think? What dead nameplates should GM bring back and, more to the point, how do you think they should do it? Sound off in the comments.