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Radar pretends it's 1979

April 07, 2009 10:08 am ET by Eric Boehlert

Its big, Drudgy, anti-GM scoop is that lots of GM employees drive "foreign cars." In fact, Radar launched an "exclusive investigation" (complete with photos!) to snoop around employee parking lots and oh my, what it found:

BMW. Toyota. Honda. Acura. Nissan. Those are just a few of the foreign cars that RadarOnline.com discovered filling the parking lot at the GM Technical Center in Flint, Michigan.

Here's where the whole misplaced, 1979 angle comes in: I'm pretty sure BMW, Toyota, Honda, Acura, and Nissan all make cars in America. (Y'know, by employing American workers.) So the whole buy-American angle is lamely out of date.

If the point was to show that not every GM worker drives a GM car, that's one (irrelevant) thing. But Radar's angle that GM workers are thumbing their noses at a taxpayer bailout by buying "foreign" is just plain dumb.

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    • Author by magnolialover (April 07, 2009 10:19 am ET)
         
      Something that these guys fail to mention though is this. If you work for say, GM, and you don't drive a GM product, you have to park way far away from wherever or whatever building you work in. Same for Ford. Same for Chrysler. Believe me, I know. When I've visited the assembly plants for the big 3, or been to their tech centers (which I have), and I had the misfortune of renting a car that wasn't a product of the company that I was visiting, I got relegated to the farthest lot away from where I was going. Sometimes up to a 30 minute walk.
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    • Author by carlileb5935 (April 07, 2009 4:40 pm ET)
         

      Wasn't it just a few years ago that GM was praised for the kind of cars they made? And they had amazing profitability?

      All of this criticism lately-- they don't make cars people want, they don't make good cars, they're all gas guzzlers-- are cliches straight out of the 70s-- and untrue now.

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    • Author by shaggles (April 07, 2009 5:29 pm ET)
         
      All that tells me is that GM cars are so crappy even the people who make them don't want to drive them.
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