The ‘New GM’: Exiting bankruptcy

General Motors is emerging from its short bankruptcy Friday as a “leaner, greener company,” said Jim Puzzanghera and Martin Zimmerman in the Los Angeles Times. But while it shed most of its “onerous” debts in bankruptcy, it’s still “saddled with doubts” about how good a deal it will be for “its new owners, the American public.” GM has a lot of hurdles to recovery, but “wooing back U.S. auto buyers is the largest challenge.”

“It is no exaggeration to say that as goes Chevrolet, so goes General Motors,” said David Kiley in BusinessWeek. Always “central to GM’s fortunes,” Chevy is now its make-or-break brand, and a lot rides on its often-ignored small- and medium-sized cars. Chevy dominates its Asian rivals in the truck and muscle-car category, but it needs to prove to the public that it can make innovative, reliable, fuel-efficient family cars, too.

There’s another obstacle to GM’s success: Congress, said Felix Salmon in Reuters. The House is preparing “an end-run around one of the most successful bankruptcy proceedings in living memory,” with a majority of the body backing a measure to reverse GM’s planned closure of 1,300-plus dealerships, plus the 789 targeted by Chrysler. This “wholly nonideological porkfest” would steer the newly hopeful GM down “yet another road to ruin.”

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