Maryann Keller was one of the most astute automotive analysts of the last half century. A short passage in her 1993 book, Collision, arguably sums up as well as anyone the primary reason why General Motors went into sharp decline:
“Human beings on the whole are resistant to change — an irony when you consider that change has always been one of the most consistent features of life. As a corporation, GM developed a finely tuned behavior of self-protection. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, it maintained a conviction that the cars that made it great were the cars that would continue to keep it great. There was, from the 1950s on, an almost pathological resistance to the glaring shifts in American life and values — and how these changes might translate into automobile purchases. Serious market research and long-range planning were practically nonexistent, although it was not for lack of committees. ‘The worst news you could hear was that a task force had been assigned to study the problem. Task forces were the black hole at GM.
Although General Motors was a global car company, it never occurred to the leadership that other companies, from Europe or Japan, might grow into global car companies, too. It has been said that the eye cannot see what the mind does not believe. On the Fourteenth Floor of the General Motors building, where executives were cushioned from the influences of the outside world, they remained blind to the change that was occurring in society. Foreign competition was viewed as a nagging tic, not a major assault. The fiction was reinforced every day inside the bunker as General Motors kept building its big, gas-guzzling cars.”
— Maryann Keller, Collision (1993)
RE:SOURCES
- Keller, Maryann; 1993. Collision: GM, Toyota, Volkswagen and the Race to Own the 21st Century. Doubleday, New York, NY: p. 116-117.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- oldcaradvertising.com: General Motors (1967)
Also see ‘Bigger didn’t prove to be better for General Motors in late-70s and 80s‘
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