gmcbob

Yeah, when I saw that most of the Auto Panel Advisory Board drove foreign cars, I sort of started laughing (inside). I don't really know that much about these people, but what little I do know of them, this doesn't really surprise me. Lets just say this is going to be a real nail biter for fans of the domestic car industry. A very painful nail biter.

I got the letter too and I basically just chuckled as I read it. Saturn is the next Oldsmobile - the only difference is that there isn't as much cool heritage. Saturn will most likely not be bought by another car company. GM is simply (and understandably so) just blowing sunshine up Saturn owner's asses. Most Saturn owners are not really "car people" (and I'm not being offensive to those people, they just simply aren't car people, nothing wrong with that at all obviously). But most Saturn owners simply don't follow the industry very closely, and can probably be told anything like this and truly believe it. The car nuts like us who post on these boards, used to drive Z28s, and have 68 Impalas in their driveways have their heads around just how much "deep $h!" the entire industry is in. With that said though, I do think that maybe, just maybe, a Chinese start up could be interested in buying the brand and dealer network to get a jump on the market. Maybe. But if that happens, I'll be personally kind of pissed. Even though I'd be driving a 2008 model built by GM, it would suddenly be associated with some $h!ty Chinese company. I would assume at that point that if it needed parts and it was still under warranty, I could take it in to a Chevy dealer. Personally, the thought has crossed my head to get rid of my Vue this weekend and get something that's more my "speed" like a Silverado, a G8, (or wait and get a Camaro if the Camaro actually comes to fruition). I mean, I really like my Vue for what it is (a decent running V6 SUV that I can haul things around in with a nice interior) and my wife totally loves it (although I catch flak for that from my friends that think I should have just got the Silverado I looked at the same day I bought the Vue). But I have this feeling that I'd be taking such a huge hit on it now that it just simply won't be worth it financially - at all. Whatever, at the end of the day I'm totally fine with it because the car is nice and it's still so new. It's interesting that Saturn does really bring a totally different type of buyer into the GM family (I'm not talking about me either). I think Saturn attracts buyers that don't typically buy other GM brands like younger professional women (or guys too) just starting out with a decent job after college who also look at foreign brands (like Honda and VW) too. Those are important customers that GM needs to attract. I think it may be harder to do that with Chevrolet going forward- not impossible, but just harder than it probably is with Saturn. Saturn does more or less have a positive image associated with it. I think GM still would have had a shot at proving their "viability" with Saturn still in the mix. They could have thought more outside the box with it - make Saturn the "brand" or division that sells nothing but E-Flex vehicles and hybrids for example.

I like this new CTS Coupe - and I must say that I also really liked those old 92 and up Eldos too. As a matter of fact, I think a really nice 1993 first year Northstar Eldorado would make a for a somewhat cool "classic".

So does this mean there will be no V8 Camaro?

I agree too - I think a Sky Turbo will probably hold on to quite a bit of it's original value long after Saturn is gone (esp. if it never gets driven). However, my Vue will completely tank in value. I will say though that I do like my Vue for what it is and it sucks that GM has to do what they have to do now. And if it is going to be completely worthless, it will stop me from doing something stupid like trading it in on a more expensive Camaro SS or G8 or something later this year (which crosses my mind periodically). At this point I guess I'm just going to drive it until the wheels come off. I'll just have to keep telling myself that it's practical and drives well for what it is and I'll be happy. I'm going to also safely assume that I can get warranty work done at existing GM dealers after they close Saturn, so I'm not worried about that aspect of owning it either.

Whether it's CH 11, or total downsizing of the company or whatever, it's looking more and more like Saturn truly will be history now. Nice. My Vue is now going to be totally worthless.

It will be interesting to see how the Obama Administration handles this situation with this company. I don't think he wants to alienate all of the blue collar union GM employees who voted for him. But on the flip side, he had soooooooo many people who voted for him that either completely despise GM and the "old school" industrial base that it symbolizes and/or don't give a $h! about the American auto industry, that he doesn't want to piss them off either by giving GM any more dough. What a pickle to be in. Ah, the joys of being a politician. I wouldn't want his job right now, that's for sure. I really have no definitive gut feeling on this per se - but I wouldn't be surprised if Obama and his Administration tells GM to basically go and f@#k themselves when this is all said and done if GM comes asking for more money. (unless of course GM somehow makes it "worth their while" financially in a very personal kind of way- kind of like how most everything else works in Washington). But I'm under the impression that GM doesn't really have the political and financial clout they had say, 30 or 40 years ago to pull this off with Uncle Sam and keep getting cheap loans. At the end of the day, you can ultimately thank our lax policies on letting the Japanese and Koreans move in an set up shop here for that. In Washington, money talks and BS walks - the import car companies had the money and political savvy to know how to win this market and ensure that Washington didn't stop it - and now they're laughing all the way to the bank while GM and Chrysler are basically f@#ked. However, despite our Govt essentially letting Japan Inc. do business here with very little in the way of restrictions, GM still had plenty of opportunities to stomp them into the ground - and they didn't. GM screwed up - and I think despite what them totally collapsing could mean to the already fragile economy, I just don't see Washington coming to their rescue beyond the money they already loaned them. I kind of hope I'm wrong, but Obama may decide to let GM go under. He doesn't want to lose the votes on the coasts - and those are the people that probably really don't favor giving any money to what they consider (wrongly in most cases) an antiquated, out of touch company. I like Obama (and I'm a tried and true American muscle car loving motor head) - but I'll bet Obama wishes deep inside that this "GM problem" would simply just go away, and I don't know if I'd totally blame him if he did feel that way sort of. I don't know - maybe they'll give them more money to continue to "restructure" out of CH 11. But when you sit back and not let your passion or love for the automobile and GM's history and the history of the industry cloud your head, you really start to realize just how stupid GM has been over the recent years and wonder if they really deserve to be around anymore. All of us who regularly (and not so regularly) post our thoughts and opinions on this website can go back through the years and instantly come up with dozens of things GM could have and should have done differently to stop Toyota and the rest of the competition from getting so many of their customers. Whether it was failed product, messed up pricing, poor marketing, becoming a truck company, letting Cadillac rot on the vine, I mean, we could come up with so many reasons why GM is where they are that it's actually quite insane they're even still a going concern. We're all fans I guess - but we must be just a bunch of hopeless romantics at the end of the day. There's good product now, but I'm afraid it really might be a little bit too late.

Wow, this is pretty ugly. What's real crazy is how GM only sold about 12000 more units than Toyota last month. Obviously this has a lot to do with our bad economy, people losing jobs, and many buyers (including rental car companies) who need or want a car not being able to get it financed. But if you really look at these numbers and begin to realize just how badly some of these mainstream models like the G6 and Impala did without the benefit of fleet sales, it really starts to sink in just how badly GM was positioned to weather this kind of a storm when it came to their cars. Nothing bothers me more than when I hear or read people making that infamous comment that "GM builds cars people don't want to buy" - but in a way there is a little bit of truth to that statement unfortunately. When you look at GM and compare them to Toyota for January sales, you start to really see where they totally aren't competitive in the small and mid size market. Yes, the new Malibu is nice, and I have a feeling that the new Cruze (and Volt) will probably be pretty nice little cars, but where in the hell were these cars five years ago? Times are awful for the entire industry, but I think it has really exposed how truly weak GM is in some very critical segments. What a disaster.

Maybe the fact that my Vue will take a huge hit if they decide to kill Saturn in the next few months would make a good excuse to just say "screw it" and go trade it in on a new 2009, Black, 6 speed manual G8 GXP?

Wow, I'll sort of miss this Caddy - but I think it was always the wrong direction for Cadillac. Instead of investing in this car, GM should have spent the money on a Caddy styled Zeta rear driver (called Cadillac Fleetwood or Cadillac DTS perhaps?????) to compete with the LS460 and 7 Series. It would have sold better, and would have made more sense keeping in mind what most people think of when they think "Cadillac". I know personally I would have been really, really excited about Cadillac having a true, large rear drive flagship. Let's face it guys, compared to the large luxury rear drive imports, the current DTS totally sucks. GM could have utilized the Zeta platform at Caddy- making a truly competitive large sedan which would have made waaaaaaaay more sense than the XLR. At the end of the day right now though, I'm worried about Caddy too - I want Sigma to live on and I want an "Alpha" someday too. Caddy needs to continue to have a couple of good, sporty, powerful rear drivers for years to come to remain competitive. No matter what happens with CAFE, there will still be high end rear drive imports that Caddy can compete with. If GM goes too far with depriving Caddy in the future, and drops Sigma too, this brand will totally falter.

Don't kill Saturn, I don't want my Vue to completely tank in value.

After seeing it in silver with black stripes, I think I have to trade in the new Vue.

I know this particular article is fairly recent, but haven't we all sort of known this was going to happen for a while now? Hell, I was actually fearing he'd say that the G8 is dead beyond this summer or something. It's not even really that bad. The only disturbing part in this article was how he referred to a smaller rear drive platform as a "gleam in their eyes" or some such b.s. I'm really pulling for a slightly smaller, lighter Camaro with a crazy high horsepower V6 or maybe even a small displacement but high horsepower V8. My wife's 2008 G35 is a blast to drive - its almost just as quick as my 98 Z28 was, and its a V6. GM needs a car like Nissan's FX platform in a major way. Sigma II sort of works, but it's a little bit on the heavy side. Although I wonder if GM could just lighten up Sigma for a car like that - and make the NG CTS lighter and use that platform for a Camaro as well? The other thing that has me "worried" is that the NG CTS and STS would be moved to a fwd platform altogether. If that happens, all bets are off for Caddy. It wasn't said in this article, but I can easily see the "brains" at GM looking at how Ford is treating Lincoln and think "wow, we can do that too and sell cars". I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if they change direction at Cadillac and move that brand back over to fwd entirely. Based on principle, I think I'd have to completely abandon GM at that point, even if I was only in the market for a mundane front driver like my Vue. If they do that to Caddy, I'd be pissed. Personally, I don't think this is a CAFE issue as much as it is a cost issue. I'd be willing to bet a fwd Malibu or LaCrosse costs less to build than a rear drive G8 or Camaro. At the end of the day, the bean counters are still going to win. Cheap to build product is going to win over expensive to build product now. Thinking out loud - maybe the only thing saving Sigma/Caddy is the fact that they can get away with charging so much for it. Perhaps getting $45k+ for a rear drive Sigma is better than only getting $35K for a front drive Eps II? Who knows - GM is so goofy sometimes when it comes to product planning and placement that I can't even believe they've made it this far past the late 90s.

Now if I were suddenly brought in to run GM, I would also get the boys and girls working on a rear drive, Zeta based Buick that had the same styling - but it would have a V8 engine as an option. Maybe call it Electra or Roadmaster. Think G8 with this kind of exterior and interior styling to go directly at the LS460. Now THAT would be a Buick to go absolutely crazy over. BPG dealers would have a real "flagship" of sorts then. And I actually don't think it would compromise Cadillac sales either.

I think it was posted earlier, but what would you think of a Chevy version of this same car? I'm not sure if it would sell any more than the Pontiac would or not. And I have no idea about what goes on inside GM, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was or is being kicked around upper management (at least at one point in time)

Right you are.

I don't know - I think the ideal lineup for Pontiac would be this: A Pontiac version of Sigma platform car (Coupe and Sedan) - direct injection V6 and turbo Solstice Alpha Pontiac Coupe and Sedan All would have optional engine packages that pack more than 300 horsepower. They would all be light weight, rear drive and very good on the track and a straight line. All would be packed with a lot of super high technology features with awesome red interior lighting. They would all be just as insanely modern and feature laden as the best Acuras and BMW's, but would cost less.

Oh, C'mon Camino - it was cool but GM has tons of cars that you'd probably have a lot of fun owning in that price range. Well, not tons, but, well - okay - the new Camaro coming out is going to be cool, and the current G8 is cool. Ah, if you want to pay a huge car payment every month, the CTS and STS are cool. Alright - just the Camaro and current G8. Look, GM is in deep sh*t right now. This isn't the type of product that's going to draw huge masses of Joe and Jane Public into their showrooms. While I don't think they should completely emulate Toyota - they need to really focus on making sure they can execute on a well thought out family sedan, and compact sedan. It sucks, it sucks, but they have to really go after the non car people they lost over the last 20 years. BPG showrooms need some solid sedans, maybe a good crossover, and maybe a really good sports-car (Solstice??, G8 Sedan) Actually, I think the upcoming Buick LaCrosse is a good start. But it may be kind of expensive. It's going to be tough to sell if it's too high up in the $30s. So is Buick the American Acura?? What is Buick now? I want a Zeta based Electra - but maybe I'm just nuts. You see, I think many car buyers have become too used to what I think of as the "two brand" strategy that our friendly Japanese competition has. Well executed cars that are for every day people, yet feel nice and generally well engineered (Toyota, Honda, Nissan), or flashy luxury cars that have all the good attributes of the every day cars, but are just really luxurious (Lexus, Acura, Infiniti) - no in-betweens. Just 2 "brands" - 2 strategies. You either get a good every day car, or a really, really nice luxury car (I'm speaking aloud what Joe Consumer thinks of when he thinks of an import brand car in America - specifically Japanese). All of the products are good and give you good "value" (Honda Civic) or good value, luxury and image (Acura TSX). GM- through 25 odd years of not knowing whether they were afoot or on horseback, has fu*ked themselves up so bad, that they had no idea how to capitalize on the great brands they already had, to combat this and roll with the changing market punches. They could have led, but instead, became a truck company, totally lost focus on their product and brands, and let Toyota/Honda/Nissan gain on them in a way that I don't think they saw coming - at all. Now, Joe Consumer has no idea what a Pontiac "is" or should be. Non-car guys (and even car guys) in their 30s think Buick either doesn't exist or is for people that are over the age of 70. Uh, that's not really good for GM. So, bottom line - before I go off on a huge rant about nothing - they probably figured the G8 ST wasn't going to sell that well (and it wouldn't have).

Yeah, sorry Camino. I did actually start saying out loud "boooo!" when I read this. I actually thought this was a pretty cool car. Oh well. Although I do think GM needs to really concentrate on high volume stuff right now and really concentrate it's efforts on really nice, affordable, high volume small and mid size sedans. Oh, and an awesome really big rear drive Zeta based uber LS460 fighter that's either badged as a Cadillac ULS or Buick Electra.

The new Caddy SRX looks a lot better than the new RX. The Caddy looks more original and has a much more tasteful interior. I'm curious as to how that new turbo engine will perform (and feel) as well. That said though, I still have this feeling I'm going to see more of these new Lexus's on the road than I will the new Caddy. I hope I'm wrong, but I just have this feeling that I will (especially here in Toyota friendly Houston). I don't know. It'll be interesting to see if Caddy can truly capture some of this fwd luxury crossover market from Lexus and Acura. This appears to be a good start. Another compelling reason to hope that GM can stay alive and remain "viable" (a nice term we've heard a lot of lately) so that the Govt. doesn't recall that loan come March.

I think the Astra is the best small car that GM offers in the US right now. I drove one before I bought my Vue, and I thought it was pretty nice. I didn't drive it back to back against a Civic or a Mazda 3 though, and I'm wondering if that would change my mind. Hey - NAV screens are actually really sweet. I never thought I'd really use one, but they actually come in handy if you're looking for a someone's house you've never been to, or if you're in a new town. Turn by turn is cool, but coupled with an actual map, it would be a lot better. I do like the idea of having Google Maps (or MSN or Yahoo! Maps, whatever) integrated into my NAV screen along with the current weather. I'm surprised we don't have that already in some cars.

I've used the turn by turn in my 2008 Vue once, and I actually thought it was pretty cool. But IMO, I think the NAV screen is a little bit cooler. I like regfootball's idea of having a screen and the turn by turn together.

And what's amazing (from a purely "practical" standpoint) is how many people would choose the Maxima over the G8, without even looking at or driving the two cars. Not that spending $32000 on a vehicle is all that "practical" from a financial standpoint, but you all know what I'm driving at here. The G8, for the money, is more car in a lot of ways. Plus the new Maxima looks like a gigantic catfish with no whiskers - that new front end is just plain stupid looking. Although I do think not having a navigation system or blue tooth in the G8 kind of sucks - especially for a car that you're spending over $30k on. I never really thought I'd dig those features as much as I do in our G35, but once you've used them, you're kind of hooked (or at least I was). GM should have really considered this on that car. On that note, I could see someone choosing the Maxima over a G8. Of course, the real problem for GM and PBG dealers isn't what NAV screens or technological features the G8 lacks compared to the Maxima or 3 Series. It's actually getting people who are willing to spend $30k + on a car like a Maxima or 3 Series to even REALIZE that Pontiac makes a car called the G8! Other than total die hard car fans, the G8 is probably one of the most elusive cars out there. I'd be willing to bet that other than a few of my IT friends and a couple of my more well read motor head friends, that most of the people I know who would buy a mid size, nice car, have absolutely NO CLUE what a G8 is. But they'd instantly know what a Maxima or a BMW 3 was. It will always come back around to GM becoming a truck company in recent years. Shaking that image will be very, very hard.

I think you're right on this - the one thing that all of those companies and brands have that GM doesn't is the fact they aren't GM. GM has a really bad reputation to the 80% of the car buying public that doesn't buy their cars. Toyota buyers generally like Nissans and Hondas, and vice versa. They may even like Fords and Mazdas (in some cases) too. But people who choose to not drive GM do it because they instantly think "junk", or "gas guzzler" or "not innovative" or just fill in the blank with the most negative image possible - GM has a real negative image outside of us die hard weirdos. It's really kind of interesting, but that's the impression I get - and I think I'm right on the money. I still think it's going to be quite challenging for GM to win back customers as fast as they lost them. GM had yearly (car) market share loss because of their growing negative reputation. GM management should have started asking themselves why back in the late 90s - when they started totally losing their ass in the car market while pumping out Tahoes like Keebler cookies.

+1 No doubt - or why not Regal?