This improvement however was short lived. The short boom in the auto industry only increased the size of each American company. They created new brands and expanded their old ones covering pretty much every niche in the automotive market. By1999 GM consisted of twelve different brands. Each one of these brands produced a different type of car. For example, Cadillac was GM’s top of the line luxury brand and Saturn was a made cheap compact cars. The problem was that these corporations spread themselves out so much with all of their brands that it was impossible for them to develop new designs and technology for each one. As a result, the quality was terrible and the technology was antiquated. By the early 90’s foreign companies began to take over each individual niche in the Auto industry. For example, the luxury car market that was once dominated by Lincoln, Cadillac, and Chrysler was being taken over by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus. These foreign companies were able to dominate because they specialized in only one type of car. For example, Mercedes-Benz devoted itself to creating the best luxury cars and Porsche devoted itself to creating the best sports cars. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were being beaten in every different direction. In GM’s case they resorted to creating one chassis and modifying it for each of its brands. The cars looked only slightly different then their counterpart from a …show more content…
The executives of GM and Chrysler turned to the government for some kind of financial aid but they were turned down. Faced with no other option they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A revitalized and restructured “new” GM free of its debts as well as a hungry and motivated Chrysler emerged from the ashes. Both companies did not solve all of their problems on their own. GM received a good chunk of money from the government in hopes that they would be a promising new company. Chrysler on the other hand received less money from the government. Instead, the got their financial backing from Fiat, who now owns a good percentage of the company. Ford decided to not accept a bail out because they were in a better position then the other two companies to begin with. They did not have all of the burdens the other two companies had. Ford decreased the number of chassis it produced so it could make more new cars a lot faster and with much better quality. Ford took the correct route instead of seeking government assistance. Either way all three are still here today. GM’s quality has drastically improved, Chrysler is creating innovative designs, and Ford revamped its lineup to gear towards fuel efficiency. We will all see how these bailouts panned out in the future. For now it looks as if it worked and people are happy with the products being produced. As long as each American company focuses on being the best in