This earlier post on General Motors’ descent into a possible (probable?) bankruptcy case speculated that car buyers would be relunctant to make a long-term purchase of an asset from a bankrupt company. Related posts on GM’s financial problems are here.
Backing up that speculation is this Autoblog post noting that only 26% of those polled in a recent Directions Research Inc. survey of over 1,000 randomly-selected adults said that they would purchase or lease a new car from an automaker that had gone into the tank. Lower-income buyers said that they were less likely than more affluent buyers to buy a car from a bankrupt automaker as just 20% of those earning under $25,000 a year would buy or lease a car from a debtor-automaker while almost a third of those earning more than $100,000 said that they would do so.
GM appears to be lurching to that most unfortunate position of needing to wash through a reorganization case, but not being in a position to afford the cost of the financial cleansing.
Meanwhile, the “B” word is a prominent part of this recent interview with GM CEO, Rick Wagoner.