OK, G.M. & Ford Aren't Going Bankrupt....Has Anyone Considered a Merger?

Implications: How desperate are U.S. automakers getting? Burning cash, cutting production, trimming white collar jobs, unloading some brands, others on shaky ground. Believe it or not, there have even been rumors of a merger between GM & Ford.

Analysis: With both companies burning cash and considering their options as $4-a-gallon gas and the economic downturn create a free fall in auto sales, nothing is off limits as they struggle to find traction.

An automaker merger isn't unthinkable. Decades ago, Ford nearly matched up with Fiat. GM flirted with the idea of buying Chrysler before Cerberus Capital Management got involved last year. In 2006, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian , then a GM shareholder, tried to get the automaker into a tieup with Renault-Nissan.

A GM-Ford merger would have huge pros and cons. It would create a combined company with over $350 billion in revenue. On the one hand, savings from overlap in massive overhead costs would save the combined entity billions. Its combined cash hoard of over $50 billion would help the combined company survive what most analysts expect to be a year or two of weak sales.

But a deal would also double down on the companies' existing problems, such as an excess of vehicle plants geared to build gas-guzzlers, weak brands that need repair, and continued losses in North America. The company would have twelve brands altogether, selling overlapping lines of pickup trucks, SUVs and bread-and-butter family cars.

Putting something like this together would be incredibly complex as well. There are powerful shareholder blocks on both sides, including the Ford family, to be considered. Kerkorian is now Ford's largest independent stockholder. And the United Auto Workers would want a say in what happens to all those factory workers.

Not to mention, what would you call the new company? "General Ford Motors" just doesn't have much of a ring to it.