DETROIT -- If General Motors Corp. were forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company would end up being liquidated because a long bankruptcy would scare customers away, CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

Speaking at a breakfast in Washington, D.C., Wagoner said restructuring the company out of court would accomplish 99 percent of what could be achieved in bankruptcy, but without the risk of losing customers or the huge expense of Chapter 11.

Critics of GM and Chrysler, which have received $17.4 billion in government loans to stay alive and have requested a total of $39 billion, say the government should let them go into a short, prepackaged bankruptcy that would let them restructure debt and void costly labor contracts.

But at the breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, Wagoner said a 30- or 60-day prepackaged bankruptcy might not work.

"If it doesn't, you'd need in the end a long period of bankruptcy which I believe would result in liquidation of the company," he said, adding that GM research continues to show that customers would shy away from buying vehicles from companies in bankruptcy