People familiar with G.M.’s deliberations said that the company had considered earlier this fall a plan to put the Saab and Saturn brands up for sale. But those plans were dropped because of the lack of potential buyers. With a market share so far this year of about 22 percent in the United States, G.M. is struggling with the costs of filling showrooms with eight separate brand lineups.
“Cutting Saab and Hummer are no-brainers because each of them has 0.2 percent of market share, so they’re irrelevant,” said Jerome P. York, who was a member of G.M.’s board during 2006. “Beyond that, Pontiac looks very suspect to me.” But shutting down a brand is a complicated and costly effort that requires buying out dealers protected by state franchise laws, as well as scaling back production of vehicles. In 2000, G.M. decided to eliminate its Oldsmobile brand after its sales fell from 1.1 million vehicles a year in 1985 to about 265,000 a year. But the process took nearly four years and cost G.M. more than $1 billion.
Rick Wagoner, the automaker’s chairman, has repeatedly cited the problems of closing Oldsmobile as a prime reason to avoid eliminating more brands.
