Gm"s new 2016 El camino ? ( Ute )
Discussion
ARAF said:
Is it happening?
I'm surprised that GM never took the Ute to America, as the El Camino. The Commodore managed to cross the Pacific as the G8 and then the SS, so if the market was there, they had a ready made product for little outlay.
USA has deliberately high import duty on pickups - IIRC 20% or thereabouts - to make it too expensive to import from overseas therefore protecting local manufacturing.I'm surprised that GM never took the Ute to America, as the El Camino. The Commodore managed to cross the Pacific as the G8 and then the SS, so if the market was there, they had a ready made product for little outlay.
So importing the Commodore Ute as a Chev would never have worked financially.
The simple reason is that they struggled to sell 30'000 imported cars from Australia through the pontiac brand.
Just before the down turn in 2009 they had only shifted 10'000 cars and they had ordered 30'000 cars.
Under the restructure of chapter 11 Pontiac was one of the brands they chopped due to poor car sales.
Its a bit similar to vauxhall when they ordered a few hundred vxr8's and most were stored up because they could not sell them, until they reduced the price.
Just before the down turn in 2009 they had only shifted 10'000 cars and they had ordered 30'000 cars.
Under the restructure of chapter 11 Pontiac was one of the brands they chopped due to poor car sales.
Its a bit similar to vauxhall when they ordered a few hundred vxr8's and most were stored up because they could not sell them, until they reduced the price.
Edited by DRC72 on Sunday 23 August 10:11
Jader1973 said:
ARAF said:
Is it happening?
I'm surprised that GM never took the Ute to America, as the El Camino. The Commodore managed to cross the Pacific as the G8 and then the SS, so if the market was there, they had a ready made product for little outlay.
USA has deliberately high import duty on pickups - IIRC 20% or thereabouts - to make it too expensive to import from overseas therefore protecting local manufacturing.I'm surprised that GM never took the Ute to America, as the El Camino. The Commodore managed to cross the Pacific as the G8 and then the SS, so if the market was there, they had a ready made product for little outlay.
So importing the Commodore Ute as a Chev would never have worked financially.
Anyway, they don't have to import them, as they have the necessary manufacture and assembly plants, so could import all non-US produced parts for assembly, or duplicate the tooling from Oz.
ARAF said:
Jader1973 said:
ARAF said:
Is it happening?
I'm surprised that GM never took the Ute to America, as the El Camino. The Commodore managed to cross the Pacific as the G8 and then the SS, so if the market was there, they had a ready made product for little outlay.
USA has deliberately high import duty on pickups - IIRC 20% or thereabouts - to make it too expensive to import from overseas therefore protecting local manufacturing.I'm surprised that GM never took the Ute to America, as the El Camino. The Commodore managed to cross the Pacific as the G8 and then the SS, so if the market was there, they had a ready made product for little outlay.
So importing the Commodore Ute as a Chev would never have worked financially.
Anyway, they don't have to import them, as they have the necessary manufacture and assembly plants, so could import all non-US produced parts for assembly, or duplicate the tooling from Oz.
And......
It would mean the GMNA admitting that somewhere other than the US had the right idea - which is never going to happen.
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