I haven't kept up with sales for a while, but I did have some news to pass on. Mostly because of GM.
I keep hoping to see "Isuzu roars back into car, light truck, and small SUV" market.
For those who have BugMeNot or a way to log in, this is a good GM article that mentions Isuzu several times.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20080914/ANA03/809150419Another problem: Melding different corporate cultures into GM's plodding bureaucracy of 750,000 employees.
EDS was used to lightning-quick decisions by founder Ross Perot. Hughes was used to the military procurement model. GM didn't truly understand why Fanuc clients used robots.
Saab's Swedish business model was baffling. Isuzu merely rolled over for whatever GM wanted, even if it was the wrong path. Suzuki was too small to make an impact in the boardroom. In short, none was a good fit with GM.....
GM also made forays into Japan, linking with Isuzu, Suzuki and Toyota. GM bullied Isuzu to stop building passenger cars yet somehow was unable to lead Isuzu into capitalizing on the SUV boom in America. GM plundered Suzuki's small-car expertise to create the Sprint and replace the aging Chevette. Model sales plummeted from 120,000 to 30,000.
And in an article about GM's best engines
http://www.autonews.com/article/20080914/ANA03/809150461Duramax diesel V-8: The Duramax, designed with Isuzu's help, rebuilt GM's reputation after the disastrous passenger-car diesels of the late '70s and early '80s. These hardworking, 6.6-liter engines made GM's heavy-duty pickups contenders against Ford's top-selling Super Duty models.
