GM Must Make Only One "Car For Every Purse And Purpose"

Re "Running out of gas" (News: The United States, Mar. 28): Your observation about General Motors Corp. (GM) making too many similar vehicles under too many brands is to the point, though there are 11 brands, not 8, if you include the international operations (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, and Vauxhall). In some countries the GM network also markets vehicles manufactured by GM Daewoo, Isuzu, Fuji (Subaru), and Suzuki.

This is where GM's strategic thinking has gone wrong all the way since the early 1960s: too many brands with too many similar products. GM abandoned the brilliant and simple approach that Alfred P. Sloan created with his idea of "a car for every purse and purpose." In the Sloan way of thinking, no in-house brand competed directly against another except to serve as the next step in the customer's climb up the ladder -- ending with Cadillac at the top.