97regalGS

will you be driving that red LS7 test mule?

alpha caddy needs chevy volume. alpha camaro coupe adds volume. what about alpha Impala sedan????? as for buick vs pontiac, i suspect buick a well done buick can command a higher margin than a pontiac, not to mention buick has a market (china) outside america whereas pontiac barely has a market IN america. on that note, has a NG G6 even been confirmed yet? cause the solstice is getting stale every day that passes with a NG kappa on hold, the G8 can't survive long term in this market of high gas prices and will only be imported as long as it makes financial sense and that just leaves aveo and cobalt clones (and a matrix clone).

what percentage of GM sales was that?

wow. i agree with PCS. i tend to agree more with the editorial comment in MotorTrend that suggested a new era in American Muscle cars. the Camaro is a throw back and will sell in the first year (when is that again) and then sales will wither and dry up like a pail of water in the Arizona sun. the times, they are a changing and the Camaro would have been great in 2005. not so in 2009.

for an interesting read, pick up this month's MotorTrend. full article on handling. cobalt is one of the 12 cars.

the Delta BLS will also kick some serious ass.

The V8 is dead. Or don't you recall that hotly debated thread a while back.

shouldn't the same be said of Cadillac? Shouldn't the world's largest automaker be there too? Should a brand whose motto was Standard of the World be there? just asking. I'll agree the probably have their best lineup of late, but I'll argue that when you actually dig into it, it ain't all that impressive. CTS - fantastic. Interior design is brilliant, front end is brilliant, rear a bit bland... engine is great. But for me, I will tell you that when you sit in it, it just doesn't 'feel' as great as I want it to. However, when you compare it to the similarly sized 5 Series, it uses price as a crutch. STS - lame ass styling, a sales dud. V8 is antiquated. why would anyone buy a STS over a CTS??? SRX - brillant vehicle, but sales failure. prob looks a little too wagony compared to competition and was priced to high out of the gate. DTS - left over FWD boat that sells well in Florida XLR - decent car for a Cadillac, but gets destroyed in comparison to the SL. Escalade - caught a break with the rappers and the bling factor. but really, it's a huge ass truck that has the driving dynamics of a huge ass truck. and it's not a global product. Mazda has a better lineup for Mazda than Cadillac does for Cadillac.

wasn't referring to u

when you guys get done arguing about how the valves get opened, why doesn't the topic move towards the above comment. I can assure you, the answer is not where the cam is located.

i see this thread went down the CIB vs OHC rat hole and is being argued by two guys who aren't exactly engineers. I'd leave it like this. each architecture has their own pros and cons. R&T had the CTS-V beating the M5 around Monticello by .5s. seems they were dead even the entire way. clearly, on that day on that track there is not much between the two. what got passed over quite quickly and should be more alarming and concerning is the fact that Cadillac does not command the price premium of MB and BMW. end of story. as for the the fact the XLR-V sells for over a $100k, well given the number that roll off the lots and the pathetic re-sale value should give an indication of that the market thinks of a $100k cadillac. there is still much work to be done for the cadillac brand.

there is one sad truth in the above post. Cadillac can not charge $90,000 for the CTS-V, or the STS-V or XLR-V for that matter. The brand just does not resonate with the buyers at this point in time and does not support the same price premium as the other brands in this segment. It will take continued focus from GM to stay the course, and invest heavily in order to change the perception of buyers. it is not an overnight process. of course, the abscence of a true 3 Series competitor to draw in the younger clientele, and a larger true 7/S/A series competitor to aspire to doesn't help matters. (I'd take the 2009 CTS-V over the M5 and E63 any day of the week.)

funny, given that it is on delta, I always thought the HHR was nothing more than a Cobalt Wagon. I don't really think anyone considers it a crossover or an SUV, anymore than the PT was a Neon.

without doing any research, these others popped into my head Celebrity 6000 STE Astre Phoenix Vega Monza

you're criticising my username? well, in that case you'll be happy to know I got rid of that car 2 years ago. I do demand fantastic, no excuse product from GM. And I don't see any evidence that GM plans to give Pontiac the product that it needs to survive. To that end, I think it's time to move on. Think about this. Every dollar that GM spends on Pontiac or SAAB or Hummer is a dollar that can not be spent on Chevy or Cadillac.

ditto

That does not explain... Corsica Tempest Beretta Cavalier J2000 Skyhawk Skylark Somerset SL2 L200 Sunbird Sunfire Bonneville Achieca Alero Calais Chevette Acadian Tran sport Montana Montana SV6 Venture Uplander Traverse Envoy Acadia Blazer Trailblazer Intrigue Century Regal Lacrosse Allure Firenza Omega Citation Cimarron And others that don't come to mind

you sure about that? Wal-Mart bought Woolco to get a foothold in the Cdn market..... according to wiki Zellers bought K-Mart in '98

those cars are a great illustration of how sad GM has been for decades. not only were those cars crap, the fact that Corsica and Tempest had a short run as brands illustrates GM's complete lack of marketing savvy. While Honda has had the Civic and Accord for decades, each GM brand has had a dozen different monikers that have come and gone.

if you were my client, i'd give you a 1983 Pony for free, and charge you $800/week for parts and service. and the best part is, all you'd talk about to your friends is how you got a great deal on a car!!!

hey grif, a serious question for a moment. How much does it really cost OEM's for platform development. Cause your suggestion that a brand new Cobalt would cost $5B to develop sounds, to me at least, to be a touch higher than I would have expected. Perhaps you can shed some light that. It might give the readership a better appreciation of the costs that OEM's, like GM, face from a business point of view. (I mean, if a brand new Cobalt, which would draw from existing platform experiecne were to cost $5B, I have to belive that Alpha would have to be greater than that!)

some interesting thoughts, but at the end of the day just another armchair quarterback, making wild musings about what could be, based no more on the reality of the situation than the folks who thought the Camaro was going to be on dealer lots by the end of 2007.

you're too late.

you may want to spell check that post

i don't have a problem with that, but a lot of GM purists do. I meant another G6 coupe or are they moving away from coupes? A G6 coupe and an Aura coupe is not needed. I didn't say to stop making the G8. However, it cost a $h!load more to ship a Holden to the USA than it did when GM decided to do that. Tooling up Oshawa to make it here would be a good idea, given Camaro and such, however, GM needs to figure out how many big, heavy, thirsty zeta cars it can sell in today's market before spending the dollars to do it now. And my point was that the G8 could be sold as an Impala just as easily. And for the historians, I'm sure you'd prefer it be called Impala instead of the ludicrous name of G8. Oh, I'm quite sure that instead of the 500 ST's that will get sold that GM could have sold 505 if it was an El Camino. I'm sure there is a ton of $h! going on in mgmt meetings and killing pontiac and any other brand and/or platform is definitely on the agenda. In fact, I'd say there is nothing that isn't on the table. Pontiac as it sits today is doomed to failure. Half assed products and marketing strategy won't cut it. Business impact and financial considerations notwithstanding, ah-ha's concept of turning Pontiac into a 'boutique' Mini type brand of unique vehicles was a really cool idea that, sadly, was not possible to execute given GM's structure and organization.