Its lineup of mostly unremarkable cars (362,000 sold in 1998) almost completely overlaps Hyundai's.
Between acquisition fees, business losses and product-development expenses, GM has only a weak-selling line of unremarkable cars to show for the billions it's invested.
Inbred and unremarkable, the cars rolled out bearing badges of Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Pontiac, many of them ending up in corporate fleets and rental-car lots.
But the engine, while smooth, remains unremarkable for a car in this class, whether in horsepower, torque (at a peak of 258 pound-feet) or stirring sound.
Although critics found the first Saturn cars unremarkable, the brand was brilliantly marketed with a customer-friendly, no-haggle sales strategy.But Saturn has gradually lost its lustre.
In Europe, Toyota is seen as offering unremarkable if reliable cars, such as the Corolla and four-door Avensis sedan, says Gilly Filsner, an analyst at the automotive consultancy Ludvigsen Associates in London.
Mr. Bonilla's zeal for such an unremarkable model might puzzle car enthusiasts who look down on Corollas of any vintage as prosaic.
A subsidiary of Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries (fiscal 1998 revenues 1.3 trillion, $10.6 billion), Subaru found that its cars had become unremarkable, even boring.
There, in an unremarkable garage the length of three or four cars, sat a half-dozen or so middle-aged and older men.
But no defects were uncovered in any of the vehicles, and the rate of incidents was considered "unremarkable" in the context of the millions of cars on the road.
