Agreed 4X4. I was recently talking about this very thing. GM nearly has the same number of cars the "big 3" Japanese makers have:
Buick 3
Cadillac 12
Chevy 17
GMC 8
Hummer 4
Pontaic 7
Saab 3
Saturn 5
Total ~59
Honda/Acura 16
Toyota/Lexus 27
Nissan/Infiniti 22
Total ~65
In the above counts I tried to exclude the variations of models that have sedan, coupe, convertible of the Saab 93, hybrid models of the cars, or 3 flavours of Sierra truck so depending on how you slice it your numbers might be higher, for example you could get GMC up to 17. That also doesn't include the other GM brands like Daewoo, Holden, or Opel sold outside of NA. Similarily the Japanese models don't include those models sold in Japan.
Sort of brings the point home that GM has gotten to the point it's too large to ensure a level of quality which people are expecting. Plus the various product lines have to be adding a certain level of confusion in the marketplace and a certain amount of canibalization amongst the divisions.
I'm all for them reducing their lines down to something more manageable...they've already nuked Oldsmobile so they might as well continue. Sad to see Pontiac go though as they were my Dad's model of choice so I grew up driving them and feel a bit nostalgic about the model...obviously not too nostalgic though since I own a Subaru.
They should just rebadge everything to "GM" and cherry pick the 20 or so most popular models from all the lines and focus on making them better. They could then augment those with the "specialty" cars like Corvette or Hummer and some luxury models which they know will sell well.
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