Feds' Cash in Hand, GMAC Kicks Credit Into High Gear

Now that the Treasury Department has pumped $6 billion into GMAC, its lending arm, GM, along with its dealers, is rushing out new financing deals for credit-strapped consumers, the Wall Street Journal reports. “The minute the news hit, we began contacting customers,” said one Michigan dealer, whose employees have been emailing and calling prospective buyers.

The car giant is now offering 0% to 5.9% financing on dozens of 2008 and 2009 models, drastically lower than even Monday, when one would-be buyer says, “the best deal I could get was 14.5%.” The loan reduces GM’s chances of bankruptcy, but the automaker still must undergo a stringent corporate makeover, and auto sales aren’t expected to return to normal levels until 2010, the Washington Post says.
(More General Motors stories.)