[Mr. Wyndham]

I think this is a GREAT time to post this up. GM's not as bad as it seems...you see, media outlets don't EVER tell the WHOLE story. So check this out, Mr. Bob Lutz clears the air:

(found on the GM Fastlane blog)

One More Thing About January ...

By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman

You’ve already heard about our financial results for 2007. Yes, we posted a sizable loss, but it was not a surprise. As Rick Wagoner noted this morning, almost all of that loss was attributed to a special charge in the third quarter.

Right now, though, I want to share some little-noticed facts about our January sales.
As you may or may not know, General Motors was one of the few automakers to show an overall sales gain in January, 2.1 percent. However, the big story to us, and it’s one I’ve not seen widely reported, was our 11.2 percent in retail sales.

We had a large, and planned, reduction in fleet sales, most of that to daily rental fleets. And yet to do what we did on the fleet side and still see an increase in overall sales means only one thing… retail sales are up. And that’s exactly what we want to see.

I haven’t read a lot about it … in fact today I just read a story about how Impala sales are “sinking” because of the reduction in sales to daily rentals. While that may be true, technically, the real story, I think, is that in January, Impala retail sales were up 44 percent over last January. That’s an astounding number, one that bodes well for Impala and for Chevrolet.

That’s not all … Cobalt retail sales were up 65 percent, and so were Aveo retail sales. Those numbers represent good quality sales, and good quality market share.

And what they really spell out to me is the simple fact that Malibu (up 58 percent overall and 198 percent retail) is driving Chevrolet showroom traffic, probably including a good number of folks who have never set foot in a Chevy showroom before, or at least not for quite some time.

They come to see this new Malibu everyone’s talking about, and they look around, and they see the Impala, and the Cobalt, and the Aveo, and they see what a great value those cars represent, and they’re buying.

And it’s the same story across the board… Malibu, CTS and Enclave are all selling almost as soon as they come off the haulers. The traffic they’re bringing in is contributing mightily to this overall retail sales boost. It also helped make our January inventory levels the lowest since 1983. There’s an imbalance there, of course, because our truck inventory is high. But overall, our passenger car sales are helping to offset that.

This is a direct result of changing our approach to the market. We used to grab every sale, including daily rentals, no matter how unprofitable or ultimately deteriorating to the value of vehicle and brand. And if we wanted to go back to that, we could probably boost our share back up to 27 percent or so tomorrow.

But we’re in this for the long haul now… to reestablish our brands, to boost our residuals, and to improve the value and image of our vehicles. That’s why the retail sales numbers are so important, and that’s why I’d like to get the word out there about them. Somebody has to.