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GM Europe may not always have it so good. The company's managers express serious concern about growing competition from Japanese car companies, which are now gearing up major "transplant" factories as they did in the U.S. during the past decade. Auto analysts say the Japanese market share on the Continent is likely to rise from its current 11% level to 25% by 1994. "The battleground here will be every bit as bloody as in the U.S. in 1981-82," says Angel Perversi, managing director of General Motors Espana. "The Japanese are going to add excess capacity. The only question is who is going to lose."
The influence of GM's European experience is likely to become stronger in Detroit when Chairman Roger Smith, 64, departs later this year. The leading contender for the job is President Robert Stempel, 56, who as managing director of Opel from 1980 to 1982 gave the green light for the redesign of the successful Kadett. And a likely candidate for the president's job is John Smith, 51, who from 1986 until his repatriation in 1988 was president of GM Europe. The two executives would be likely to push GM toward faster, less centralized decision making. Domestic GM has a long way to go, but if it takes a cue from its European sibling, the company could become a much sportier machine.