Success Quote by Rick Wagoner

“Most of the model consolidation we’ve done is behind us” is corporate reassurance dressed up as logistics. Wagoner isn’t talking about cars as much as he’s talking about institutional pain: fewer platforms, fewer nameplates, fewer factories, fewer sacred cows. In the auto business, “consolidation” is a polite synonym for amputations that management insists are “streamlining.” Saying it’s “behind us” signals to investors and dealers that the disruptive phase has peaked, and to employees that the worst cuts may be over - without actually promising anything.

The second sentence does even more work with even less commitment. “There will be some fine tuning” is the classic executive hedge: it concedes that problems remain while framing them as minor, technical, and controllable. Fine tuning suggests a mechanic with a wrench, not a boardroom wrestling with structural decline, labor costs, or a product strategy that may be out of sync with consumer demand. It’s a way to keep the narrative in the realm of optimization rather than survival.

Context matters here: Wagoner’s era at GM was defined by the slow-motion realization that legacy scale can become legacy weight. Consolidating models and platforms was a necessary response to global competition and rising development costs. The subtext is confidence management - a bid to stabilize expectations. He’s selling the idea that the company has moved from chaotic surgery to calm recovery, even if the patient is still in intensive care.