1955 Buick Roadmaster Riviera 2dr Ht W/factory Air, Ps, Pb, Pw, Pseats Restored on 2040-cars

Auto blog

General Motors shaking up its marketing... again

One of the things that dogs the full comeback of General Motors is the instability of its marketing. That part of the automaker got yet another big shakeup today when GM confirmed what I have been tweeting for a few days - strong rumors that the Chevrolet and Cadillac ad accounts are walking to new ad agencies.
Cadillac, GM's luxury brand, is going into review from Fallon Worldwide, Minneapolis and the indications are that Campbell-Ewald, Chevy's old ad shop, will end up with most or all of it. C-E just announced that it was moving from its long-time home in Warren, MI to a new downtown Detroit office next to Ford Field, just blocks from GM.
The other shoe to drop shortly will be the shift of GM's most important brand, Chevy, from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco to McCann-Erickson of Troy, MI. McCann used to be the agency for Buick and GMC, as well as GM's corporate advertising, and has retained some pieces of business over the last few years. Sources have even told us that it was McCann that did a lot of the creative work on Chevy's new ad platform, Find New Roads. (Not to be confused with a former McCann tagline for Saab, "Find Your Own Road.")

Watch this phantom Buick drive itself down the highway in a snow storm

Years ago, General Motors used Buick cars to test out the idea of a "smart highway" concept. More recently, GM has been talking up its award-winning Super Cruise semi-autonomous technology that will roll out with Cadillac and make its way to Buick. The LeSabre in the video above has nothing to do with any of that.
On Interstate 15 in Utah, a man driving this LeSabre got into an accident that rearranged the front end and set the horn on permanent blare. At the time of writing this, no one is sure what happened next, but the man ended up sitting in the snow in the highway median while his car carried on down the highway without him. Passing traffic stayed well to the right.
The 51-second video below provides a different take on our autonomous future. A local newscast on KUTV covered the story the evening of the incident, but the Utah Highway Patrol didn't have any update on the fate of the LeSabre. We'll take that to mean that Buick's take on Christine could still be out on the prowl... so watch out!

GM recalls over 230,000 more Trailblazer-family SUVs over door electronics

Back in August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a recall on the General Motors GMT360 SUVs (Buick Rainier, Chevrolet Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Isuzu Ascender and Saab 9-7X) ranging from the 2005 to 2007 model years and the 2006 GMT370 SUVs (Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT and GMC Envoy XL) due to potential fires associated with the driver's door module. Initially limited to 250,000 units sold or registered in 20 Snow Belt states (and the District of Columbia), the recall has now been expanded to include an additional 193,000 of these SUVs in the US and, according to The Detroit News, 40,000 more sold outside the US, including Canada and Mexico.
Like the original recall, the issue is still a faulty driver's door module that can short out, which could lead to a fire. The Detroit News is reporting that, out of the 443,000 units being recalled, GM says that there were 58 fires that caused 11 minor injuries, and the expanded recall accounted for six fires and one injury. Despite the lower number of fires, the recall notice recommends that owners park their vehicles until the recall repairs has been performed.
On recalled units with functional modules, the repair consists of a protective coating being applied to the module, while vehicles with modules that are not working properly will have the driver's door module replaced. The official recall notice is posted below, and it includes contact information for customers of all five brands.