GM Pitches New Slogan “Cars: Fewer Minorities And Poor People Than The Bus”

Story by Egon Sinclair 

| Published Nov 3, 2009

The startling decline and subsequent bankruptcy of automotive giant General Motors rattled the American spirit in a fashion unseen since Pearl Harbor. Between those irked by the $51 billion of taxpayer money spent to compensate for GM’s blatant negligence and those disillusioned by the sobering evidence that ignoring a problem doesn’t actually make it go away, nearly the entire country was affected.

But Fritz Henderson is trying to move past all that. On Monday, the interim GM CEO announced a new ad campaign he hoped would spur auto sales and get America’s economy back on track.

“Cars: Fewer minorities and poor people than the bus” is expected to appear in commercials and banner ads within the week, simultaneously promoting GM products and demonizing the major competitor, public transit. The new slogan barely beat out alternatives “Cars: The only person peeing in your seat is you” and “The Automobile: Where all your sex is consensual!”

“Most people can't visualize the benefits of a 4.9% APR,” Henderson said. “But not having to make eye contact with someone of a different race or socioeconomic status? Now we're gettin' somewhere.”

GM Research and Development officials warned that without new investments in the country's bloated vehicular infrastructure, future generations of Americans might be forced to develop more reliable, fuel-efficient forms of transportation.

"Look … Even the nicest buses suck. Right now, if you take a charter bus anywhere, you'll either end up at a marching band field trip or doing tedious, unrewarding mission work in a country that probably resents your being there,” said Amelia Carnigee, GM’s head of quality assurance. "Oh, also cycling is pretty big in the gay community. Just, uh … throwin' that out there. We have statistics."

Members of GM’s advertising staff were quick to point out some advantages of buying a car: You have a choice of which raving lunatic you listen to on the way to work, and the only way you can use a bus to move a body is if it has a bathroom and someone dies in it. Additionally, car owners can kick back and relax during their morning commute, as one doesn’t generally worry about missing an exit when traveling 75 feet per hour through gridlock.

“We hope restoring the elitism of the automobile will boost sales,” Carnigee said. “Though, in theory, we could've just founded half a dozen ancillary companies tasked with buying out competition until we were pretty much a monopoly. Then, we would've been able to phase out cheaper forms of public transportation in favor of some lumbering mockery so grungy and wasteful that people would have no choice but to buy a car.

“But we’d hate to go to all that trouble. Y’know, like … again.”

Henderson was quick to point out that same strategy was used to outmode the nation’s electric trolley system back in the 1930s, claiming the gambit to be “kind of why we’re stuck with all these fuckin' buses in the first place.”

Still, GM is running on empty.

“We’ve pretty much exhausted all other options,” Henderson said. “I mean, it’s not like we can make weapons for the Nazis like we did during World War II. Wait ... do you think Somalian warlords would drive Chevy Impalas?”