The original Oldsmobile Aurora, there were two, went out of production at the end of the 1999 model year. With only about 110,000 copies of the car made during its four year production run, they weren't, much to General Motors consternation, exactly commonplace. That's why it was very unusual to find two, let alone one New Year's Eve morning in a parking lot near my home. What's more, those two very rare Oldsmobile Aurora were parked in the same row of that parking lot.
GM's rocket division was fading fast by the time the Aurora was launched. Oldsmobile had moved more than a million cars in 1985 but had sold fewer than 400,000 by 1992. Introduced for the 1995 model year, could the Aurora turn around the Rocket division?
No, the Aurora could not. Oldsmobile introduced the Aurora in a (suddenly) very crowded segment (near luxury) and sales were underwhelming. Had Aurora been introduced 10 years earlier, before Lexus, Infiniti and Acura would Oldsmobile be around today?
General Motors closed the Oldsmobile division in April 2004.
No comments:
Post a Comment