April 14, 2003
General Motors will be letting customers take new cars and trucks home for an overnight test drive, hoping to boost sluggard U.S. sales.
The program starts tomorrow -- April 15 -- and continues through July 22 and yes, it includes the Hummer H2 and Cadillac CTS. Sorry, the Corvette is excluded. The company's targeting the 60 percent of consumers who don't even think about GM when they're shopping for a new buggy.
Test drives will be offered at all 7,400 GM dealerships and will include models from all the automaker's marks -- Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saab and Saturn.
Prospective buyers will be allowed to take the car or truck they're considering home with them overnight but they'll be limited to 100 miles and won't be allowed to take it out of state. GM will pay for the insurance.
GM's sales have been anemic of late. During the first quarter, the company's market share fell 1.6 percentage points to 26.9 percent while rivals Ford, Toyota and Honda all inched upward.
The General already spends a king's ransom on incentives, more than $3,000 per vehicle on average. Last week, GM introduced a no-interest loan program that covers all but two models for as long as five years, in response to a 3.2 percent slump in March sales.
