The View from Motown: Mucking the Alliance Waters
Motor Trend's Detroit Editor Todd Lassa provides additional information on what Kirk Kerkorian's proposal means for General Motors
By Todd Lassa
Photography by the Manufacturer
Kirk Kerkorian's proposal that Renault and Nissan establish an alliance with General Motors probably should have blown over by now. For one thing, no car guy can help but laugh at seeing the words "Renault" and "alliance" in the same sentence.
Last Friday, GM chief Rick Wagoner and Renault/Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn met for dinner to discuss the matter. Ghosn had already told the press he doesn't want Wagoner's job. Automotive News speculated on Monday that the deal is all about Nissan buying GM's shuttered factories. Wagoner was quoted later this week saying he has no plans to step down as chairman and CEO of the world's largest automaker. And next week, GM will release second-quarter financial results, which analysts expect will be much-improved, save for the special costs of buying 35,000 workers out of their UAW contracts ("other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?").
But a turnaround is a turnaround. Things seem to be improving for Mr. Wagoner and company.
Automotive News' analysis doesn't make sense. If Nissan needs GM's closed factories why make it public? Best for all parties to do it quickly and quietly. Nissan buys a factory and turns it non-union, like its other U.S. plants, and GM perhaps takes competing bids from Toyota and Honda.
The whole thing is looking less savory, as Kerkorian needs to recoup paper losses from buying GM stock at too high a price. And Ghosn's and Wagoner's comments look like backpedaling of sorts, from Kerkorian's grander plan. This all may go away after next week's financials, although Kerkorian has shown a propensity to cling to his grand ideas.
Speaking of firing executives, Ford Motor Company is taking some mild umbrage at my profile of Mark Fields, president of the Americas for the automaker, in the August Motor Trend. In it, I wrote that "one of the first 'people' issues he dealt with was to fire Phil Martens, director of product creation..."
I must disclose that "fired" is my word, not Fields'. And I stand by it; all the evidence points to Martens being asked to leave, which is a firing in my book. He immediately took a job as chief operating officer of Plastech Engineered Products, an interior plastic parts supplier in Dearborn, Michigan. Late last month Martens left Plastech after nine months. He "left to pursue other opportunities," according to a published report.