regfootball

i wonder if pontiac and saturn will become clones as GM fades both brands away. Dodge/Plymouth Neon anyone? the death of pontiac to me is dispicable. yet, to me pontiac is needed as the altar ego of buick and the only way to keep buick showrooms from being relevant to anyone who can still pee by themselves. Seriously, everyone I see driving Enclaves is as geriatric as Lexus and Toyota. Side note, Hyundai is going to eat toyota's lunch some day a lot sooner than everyone else thinks. Hence, if Pontiac is going to die, and Buick is going to be non-believable, just call it Opel and get it all over with now.

i'll sell you the Aztek. That's close to what I'd want for it. fetchin young lad would do well cruzing the world in an asstek.

point being, this would carry them about 2 years until they get an all new one rushed to market. what, can't GM get a car to market in 2 years like Ford and Toyota? i would axe buick if opel was a no go here. saturn or pontiac would survive as the opel in NA cars. I just don't see the brand equity for buick with anyone besides old people. Pontiac at least would have a chance. Saturn too. But I do think introducing the Opel brand here, albeit slow and painful, could have a chance over time. I am wondering if we will see a crossover backlash by the public as well which could dramatically turn people towards sedans again. In that case I do not see much more for GM crossovers than the Lambdas, and the Equinox, Antara, and SRX. I just don't see Buick as being fully parallel and compatible with Opel. But basically China needs Buick and so what needs to happen then is basically Buick China and Opel need to be in full sync because I doubt there will be funded Buick NA exclusive products too much longer........ They probably can pull off the Insignia / Regal thing and have it be believable. Corsa and Astra however, there is NFW they can make them into Buicks. The only version of the Astra that is believable as a Buick would be a sedan. Both the Corsa and Astra need to be here, IMHO and they cannot be Buicks. This is why it needs to be Opel in NA or else it needs to have a deathmatch to see if these become Saturns or Pontiacs. Buick Corsa? I think not. Currently they say Pontiac is 'niche' now. Also we know the G6 and G8 will probably die. If this is the case, let's just get it over with now. Rename the G6 'Grand Am' and rename the G8 'Grand Prix' and at least let them die in dignity. Personally though I see no problem in letting grand prix and grand am live on in their next lives if they invest and do a good job making them. Whatever chassis GM comes up with to replace the zeta needs to be kick ass and needs to be AWD capable. I seriously feel Opel needs a flagship car too, and I would go so far to say it should be a global serious ass platform that is the next DTS / flagship Opel / volume Chevy or Buick large car chassis. And I am not talking Epsilon. I am talking serious hardware here. Buick Sky? um, NO. I am still failing to see how GM will remake and repair Buick to align with the product qualities of Opel. I seriously think they are not capable of making this work.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/06/oregon-...rket-car-parts/

in this scenario, i would vastly expand Chevy's lineup. The G8 would become the new Impala. The Holden Caprice becomes Chevy Caprice. Chevy would get a deluge of new models and products pronto. Cadillac gets more models too.

so, really, what if? Could GM make do globally with 3 brands? These are the three I propose. Chevy Opel Cadillac

ford has a future and a plan. ford will not fail. gm might.

Saab is so toast unless it gets autonomy from the swedish whatever. saab cannot exist alone without techlogical allegiance to some sort of large borg. flipside. you cannot give the NA brands autonomy. it would be making bad situation worse. GM someday will be just chevy and cadillac and a niche middle brand. I want to see opel fill that role. i like buick, i like pontiac, but i think the public has moved on and the GME has so much to offer GM as a whole.

Look at how fast Nissan high tailed it out of there. I want someone to clarify exactly how many auto related jobs are in CA....what i want to know is HOW MANY AUTO ASSEMBLY PLANTS are in california. I don't need to know if some doofus has his feet up in his office in the Lexus or Mazda building, or if some subservient American is taking whippings in the dark room from the guys sent over from Kia in Korea when they didn't meet sales targets. I know GM has the NUMMI plant where they build the chick wagons (Vibe/Matrix). CA is 'the largest auto market'. What I want to know is, what percentage of the cars they consume are MADE IN CALFORNIA. Seems rather stupid from a business perspective to consume all those cars and not build any of them there. That is an imbalance that the Pelosis of the world should feel embarassed and negligent about.

the accord i drove recently had a crap interior and honestly was not that solid of a car. plus, its ugly. if you consider that top of class, be my guest. The accord is not that great of a car. A couple seasons of winter potholes and its flimsy chassis will be mush, if you haven't vomited from the style excessively by then. g8 actually can perform on extremely close to on par with the BMW's. the only reason the v6 is currently unrefined is its application which is much smoothers in other GM vehicles, needs some NVH tuning and a better transmission in the v6 version. I have no doubt that a 6 speed DI v6 with some additional NVH tuning for 2010 will address this stuff. Praise has already been heaped on the v6 in the Zeta Camaro predrives. Sonata's interior prior to this year was a joke. Now its simply mid pack. the styling is geriatric and themed off a nineties version ford escort sedan. You love to heap praise on Hyundai, a brand that has made its living off of fleeting most of their product for the last couple years, because the homeland mafia doesn't believe in moderating production...........aided by a warranty that is all tagline and not much real benefit to most customers. You talk about all these great cars that are supposedly prestigious and then you use Hyundai as an example. Hyundai is still faux. The Genesis is the only model they have put out that has any chance of redefining the brand to anything other than what it is. Cheap knockoffs. And the Genesis is merely 'Lexus' 20 years later.

that makes sense then. the 2.4/6 malibu came in at 8.6 0-60 at CD.

door handles are ungodly large and tacky interior is dull and plain and lifeless exterior is ok. upcoming astra is much nicer. exteriors aren't much different but the new astra interior is pretty nice. i also tend to agree this fiat is a bit of a ford clone. the next focus is what i wanna see. that should be the bomb. i'd be looking at the similar peuguot before i'd get on board with the dull interior in this thing. new megane is pretty stylish too.

yup. there are things about 'normal' kids that don't even seem to be a part of my daughter's pysche. She doesn't like to be mean to others, she doesn't get materialistic, she doesn't obsess about material possessions and she doesn't ever seek out chances to hurt other kids. She might live her life on a simpler naive scale, but she isn't the brat that a lot of kids are today. She's sometimes to me like she's already grown up in a lot of ways. And once you learn what makes her tick, all the little routines and repetitions she relies on to get through the day, and you learn how to talk to her, it fun even if its different than how others talk to their kids.

yep. i've read about that too. thats why minerals are added to bottled water.

wife cooked only 6 slices of bacon the other night. i let the pan sit out overnight. OMG all the fat in the pan from only 6 slices. Dear God. EWE. But bacon is so worth it, IMHO.

i wonder if the elephant appreciates his penis baked. or would rotisserie keep it juicier?

hyundai sells because it is cheap. veracruz feels cheap inside. sonata is third tier. the warranty is a come on. its a tag line and people don't read the actual fine print. the reason the genesis works so far is because it sells as a budget lexus. the g8 makes no such pretense. it compares it performance to a BMW, but make no pretense of being a poser car like the genesis is. the G8's only flaws are no available RWD, unrefine v6 powertrain (which is fixed in 2010) and it probably should have an OHC v8 option. the g8's interior should be a little nicer, but its not trying to be a lexus replacement.

GM should be readying the plan for a fully funded remake of a new Malibu for 2012 model year. The new design and cheap interior will become big flaws in the market in not too long. New Impala should be 2010-11. Cruze will help but its too late too. Even the trucks need an interior complete redo.

fleet sales are fine. what GM effed on was fleeting out cars that were 5,6,7 years into production without updates. i.e. GM totally sucks at keeping products fresh. people thought fleeting was what killed resale. UM NO. its old product that reduces showroom demand that kills resale. If I were running GM I would be pounding pavement to make big fleet sales right now to keep unit volumes up and possibly be increasing share. Few carmakers will be profitable in the next year, so its better to gain share with losing some dough than it is to not sell cars. The current demand for used cars will drive the used car prices up eventually, it already has, and resales are holding pretty well or going up on many cars out there. So fleeting and taking market from Toyo and Hyundai and Kia with some Cobalts and G6's and LaCrosses I hardly find a problem.

if half the households in America werent afraid of losing their jobs, people would buy.

Gm's incentives weren't very good last month on most of its models. If they want to clear inventory in a bad economy, they'll have to decide if cutting prices or sacrificing volume is the answer. Note: VW and Subaru, both offer aggressive leasing and look at their sales. Not that affected. Take a hint GM. When you pulled leasing off the table, that's why a lot of your business went away.

i hope the fiat 500 comes here, if for no other reason than to kill mini sales.

yeah, but the water......

'grain of salt' 'salt is bad for you too'...LOL

that car has to rank up there with the funniest things on wheels I've seen.