After visiting Detroit and Dearborn in the great state of Michigan the last couple weeks, have to admit to being a tad confused.
There still is a General Motors headquarters and the signs are printed in English, not French or Japanese.Rick Wagoner’s picture hangs where the chairman’s mug is displayed, rather than the smiling face of Kirk Kerkorian or Carlos Ghosn.
And Hummer still has offices in the building. Wasn’t it sold after GM went bust and Ghosn stepped in?
At Ford’s place in Dearborn, Bill Ford’s smiling face greets visitors–not Ghosn, who was going to take the wheel in his spare time while also piloting Nissan, Renault and General Motors when not washing would-be kingmaker Kerkorian’s car.
Though many analysts said Ghosn was going to cure whatever ails GM and/or Ford (though his Nissan is stumbling), the poor chap doesn’t even have an office, much less a chair, in Detroit or Dearborn.
There still is a Mercury division at Ford. Wasn’t that sold when Bill Ford took the company private after peddling Volvo, Land Rover, Mazda, Aston Martin and Jaguar?
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Only thing that looks out of place at the Glass House, as Ford’s HQ is known, is the Boeing 757 in the executive lot where a guy named Alan Mulally, president and CEO, parks.
Even with the death knells that didn’t sound, 2006 proved to be as wild and wacky a year as any in the auto biz. We offer: