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GM program sees dealers taking on way more loaner cars

Given the volume of vehicles we're talking about, this is a significant development for GM's bottom line. Bring your car into the dealership for service, and you may need a loaner car in exchange. And with so many recalls being carried out, that means a lot of loaners – especially at General Motors dealerships. That could be one of the reasons why GM is massively expanding its loaner fleet program. While many Chevrolet and Buick-GMC dealerships have an on-site rental car location operated by a third party like Enterprise (which may or may not provide a GM vehicle), others manage their own loaner fleets. But while the range of dealerships operating such fleets was once small, reports Automotive News, the number has been growing rapidly: from the locations responsible for only 20 percent of those brands' sales two years ago to about 90 percent today. The impetus for that growth comes down to a massive expansion of GM's Courtesy Transportation Program. The initiative encourages dealers to ramp up their loaner fleet to a maximum size determined by GM, with a mix determined by the dealer itself, so that a showroom in Texas can be bolstered with a fleet of pickup trucks and a dealer in California can employ more Volt and Camaro Convertible loaners. The dealership gets a $500 credit for each vehicle its puts in its fleet, and can use those vehicles as loaners for service customers, as multi-day test drivers or to rent out separately. The vehicles remain in the dealer's fleet for 90 days or 7,500 miles, then they can be sold as used, but with new-car incentives. The dealer gets a fleet of loaners, customers get to use the loaners, try out a new car overnight or buy a barely used car with attractive incentives, and GM gets to clock more sales. But therein lies the kicker: the automaker counts the dispatch of the loaner new vehicle to the dealership as a new-car sale, which could end up distorting its sales figures. Counting loaner vehicles as sold vehicles is something of an industry-standard practice, but given the volume of vehicles we're talking about, this is a significant development for GM's bottom line. One dealership - Paddock Chevrolet in Kenmore, NY, for example - had no loaner fleet two years ago, but now runs a fleet of 50 vehicles. Multiply that by the 4,000 or so dealers GM has across America and you're talking about the potential for hundreds of thousands of these sorts of sales.

Sunday Drive: Trucks and SUVs of all shapes and sizes

The American automotive marketplace is dominated by trucks and SUVs, and so was the last week of coverage on Autoblog. By far, the most popular story of the week was our First Drive of the 2018 Lincoln Navigator. It may look like an old-school lumberer, but in reality Lincoln's flagship is a thoroughly modern, turbocharged-V6-powered, three-row, luxury people mover. The Jeep Wrangler is the world's most recognizable vehicle. So it's no surprise that the next version looks a whole heck of a lot like the last one, and the one before. It's all in the details, which is why we were so excited when Jeep decided to unleash a trio of images showing both two- and four-door Wranglers for us to dissect ahead of the SUV's official debut at the L.A. Auto Show later this year. Past that, spy photos of the next Chevy Silverado and Ram 1500 were predictably popular. See both of those below, and the cap it all off, check out the entire week's worth of SEMA coverage – including the bonkers Hennessey VelociRaptor 6x6 – in our mega image gallery at the bottom of this post. Enjoy! As always, tune in to Autoblog next week for a front-row seat to all the happenings worth following in the automotive industry. 2018 Lincoln Navigator First Drive | From black sheep to flagship 2018 Jeep Wrangler revealed: First photos released before L.A. Auto Show debut 2019 Chevy Silverado looks slim and clean beneath the camo 2019 Ram 1500 gets vertical touchscreen infotainment system 2017 SEMA Show Mega Photo Gallery Chevrolet Jeep Lincoln RAM Truck SUV recap sunday drive

The Volt Dance had precedent; meet the Chevy Footlockers

Marketing in the auto industry can get weird sometimes – really quite bizarre, in fact. For example, remember the Chevy Volt dance from the 2009 Los Angles Auto Show? If not, a group boogied to a song about the electric car, and it was every bit as awkward (and hilarious) as that sounds. In fact, that innocent bit of promotion lives in infamy, as some pundits grabbed hold of it during General Motors' bailout and asked why America's tax dollars were going to such things. The Chicago Auto Show has been digging through its vault of vintage videos, and it has come up with something that might actually be worse than that Volt-themed routine. They're called the Chevy Footlockers, and they're a dance troupe somehow promoting the Cavalier at the 1988 Chicago show. The connection between the car and their routine is unclear, but it's gloriously cheesy in a Chippendales-meets-AC Slater sort of way. Also, there are props towards the end, but we aren't going to spoil them for you, because you just have to watch for yourself. As a bonus, there's another (brief) clip below showing a female dance group with the Geo Tracker at the '91 Chicago show, and they sing, too. Scroll down to watch both of these oddities. News Source: ChicagoAutoShow via YouTube [1], [2] Marketing/Advertising Chicago Auto Show Chevrolet GM Classics geo