No, no-one is resurrecting that old Oldsmobile mid-size sedan.
(It actually wasn't bad...).
It's just that the car industry over here (I am in Stuttgart as I type) is even more
confusing than it is back home.
Right here in Stuttgart, the battle between two branches of the Porsche family for control of the sports car maker and gigantic Volkswagen continues.
The main players are both grandsons of Ferdinand Porsche who, among other things, designed the VW Beetle, and the world's first (as far as we know) Diesel-electric hybrid four-wheel drive vehicle (away back in 1904, give or take - nothing new under the sun).
There's Ferdinand Piech, chairman of the supervisory board of Volkswagen which Porsche tried to take over in a controversial stock deal last fall.
Then there's his cousin Wolfgang Porsche, who is backing current Porsche CEO Wendelin Wideking.
You'd need to examine the entrails of several slaughtered chickens to figure out what's going on here, but as near as I can figure, the Porsche family (Wolfgang's allies) owns 53.7 percent of Porsche, while the Piechs have 46.3 percent.
But there are various rules, pooled voting rights, unanimity agreements, etc., which render decision-making at the top strategic level very difficult for Porsche, and understanding the corporate structure nearly impossible for outsiders.
The other main player on the Volkswagen side is the government of the German state of Lower Saxony, where VW's main factory (Wolfsburg) is located. It owns some 20 percent of Volkswagen shares, and always seems to toss that support in favour of whatever is best for the workers (who vote in elections, dontcha know), not necessarily what might be best long-term for the company.
But there are more types of shares in this organization than Italy has types of police. Whenever anybody wants to do anything, it appears that some cryptic covenant rears its ugly head and says, "No Can Do."
Or however you say that in German.
It would seem that both sides of the Porsche family want to merge VW and Porsche into one giant car maker - in effect, return the two companies to their common root.
It also appears both sides want their man to be in charge.
How will it turn out?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Which for the moment is - confusing.
***
Up the river a stretch in Russelsheim Germany, the future of GM's European arm Opel (and the UK division Vauxhall) may be settled as early as tomorrow morning (it is 'way too far after midnight here as I type).
As noted here earlier, there are three main contenders, two of which have significant Canadian content.
Magna of course is a huge Canadian car parts supplier, whose boss Frank Stronach has always wanted to be a bigger player in the industry - he made an unsuccessful pitch for Chrysler when Daimler-Benz off-loaded it a few years ago.
But to assuage concerns about 'foreign' takeovers, Magna seems to be stressing the Austrian roots of both Stronach and the company's current co-chief executive Siegfried Wolf.
Fiat, which is also pitching to acquire Chrysler in an effort to challenge Toyota as the world's biggest car maker, is run by Toronto-raised Sergio Marchionne. He doesn't mind pointing out that Magna's bid is at least partially financed by Magna's Russian partners, with the implied threat that German jobs would migrate eastward, never a politically wise move in Germany. He also claims Fiat brings greater technical and whole-car manufacturing expertise to the table.
The third bidder is a Belgian parts making conglomerate called RJH International. I don't know if they even know where Canada is on a map.
Both General Motors and the federal German government headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel appear to be favouring the Magna bid. She gets to make the choice because the German government will be lending 1.5 billion euros (that's, um, a LOT of dollars...) to the winner.
But all should be revealed later this morning as I type, early tomorrow as you may be reading this.
Never a dull moment.
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