longtooth

I still think that the bat-wing spoiler outshone the whale-tail look of that last year Firehawk spoiler. What a beautiful car.

Just bought a G8 GXP. Next I'd consider a Camaro SS or Z28 (should they build one) when the availability issue is 'fixed'. It's been a long time since one could go onto the lot and just pick out an F-Body. But by the time the shine wears-off of the G8 I might be considering a CTS-V coupe. And this is from someone that up until a few months ago was dismissive of cars. [edit] Link to a Huffington Post tribute article to Pontiac. The comments are mostly sympathetic. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-parker...omment_23530986

Huh? I forgot Solstice. Those two, G8 & Solstice, would suffice. Have to find way to bring Solstice to market being produced alongside something else to make/keep it economically viable.

Were that the case they'd keep the G8, perhaps the next-gen G6 (vastly improved as criticism would have it) as boutique offerings. By necessity it would require the continued importation of the G8 and the G6 would become a sourced product given the likelihood that Lake Orion assembly would ultimately close. This would be done to keep Pontiac in the consciousness of the consumer and remaining faithful to those that have embraced the G8 in all of it's forms. This is only what I would do.

And this just crossed the wire: GM to pull the plug on Pontiac The brand credited with originating the muscle car will not be part of GM's future. http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/24/autos/pont...rce=yahoo_quote Now if you want muscle, from GM, it's Chevy or Cadillac.

My Dad had, up until several years ago, had an '81 GMC, favorite workhorse of his, that tallied over 330k in the role of brick-mule and doer of odd-jobs. It had a salvage-yard tranny after the original died at 225,000 or so. The original motor went bye-bye at the 250,000 mark. (I'm relating this remembering what Dad told me and accessing my own recollections) The reason for scrapping it was that the cab-mounts were gone and he felt that if he applied the brakes too hard that the cab would separate and continue on by itself in a shower of sparks. I told Dad, jokingly, that if he tied some string around it that the trash men might take it if he parked it at the curb.

Early '90s. Weren't sure that Corvette would survive then either. Camaro redesign was delayed for three or four years. Much was made of Robert Stemple's leadership style at the time. I think he's a New Jersey native.

GM's Been on the Brink Before—Many Times This isn't GM's first brush with death. Since 1910 the company has nearly disappeared three times—and come back stronger every time By Ed Wallace The executives at General Motors (GM) knew they were in trouble: Their negative cash flow had become intolerable, and their lending institutions had locked up. Bankers refused to lend the corporation any more money, fearing that they'd never see GM's current loans repaid, much less any new funds they might advance. New car divisions that had opened only a few years earlier were now huge money pits. And even those divisions whose sales had once shown incredible potential now had virtually no sales at all. GM put some divisions and parts operations up for sale, but potential buyers showed little interest. GM cut the size of its workforce repeatedly but could not lower expenses quickly enough to match the fall-off in demand. Finally, GM's lead creditors met quietly at Chase Bank in New York, seeking to find out whether they could salvage any of their loans if they forced General Motors to liquidate. The bankers hammered GM executives: Why did they insist on keeping different divisions, when it was obvious they were simply money pits? One GM executive explained that if the company failed, it had the potential to set off a nationwide panic, which could damage the improving consumer confidence just starting to take hold after the massive downturn in the economy. He also pointed out that the vehicles the bankers were calling foolish had been some of GM's most profitable vehicles just two years earlier. It couldn't be helped, he said, that the public had become so fickle and tightfisted, not when a massive economic contraction had just scoured the country. The bankers had their doubts. But after looking at the facts they decided that if GM would dump its losing properties, effectively fire the CEO, and allow the bankers to elect the new board of directors, then GM would be advanced the funds to get past its current financial problems. Boom and Bust Welcome to September 1910, when the bankers revolted against Billy Durant's General Motors... http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/cont...ampaign_id=yhoo [The article does go on and I found it an informative take on the matter]

Well, being a recently retired GM hourly-type person, I will give you this observation. Until the mid-eighties, GM still wielded considerable clout within the Industry. I watched as very inexpensive, and not all that well-constructed, imported cars flooded the market, gained a foothold in the wake of two 1970's 'Gas Shocks'. The Domestic Steel Industry was, at the same time, being systematically dismantled as cheap imported steel found it's way here. I saw textile-jobs, the backbone of many Southern cities, go offshore. All of the jobs which were attendant to these Industries and those in the ancillary industries vanished as imports gradually began to undermine our Domestic manufacturing capacity. Good jobs became supplanted by jobs which did not pay as well as the displaced jobs. A slow erosion of the standard-of-living for the storied middle-class. Labor here, in any form, unionized or otherwise, cannot compete with the slave labor of under-developed Nations, China and India as prime examples, where people are treated as cattle or fodder. We here leverage each other in a vain attempt to do so.

This scenario calls to mind the story: "The Ransom of Red Chief", by O. Henry.

We're primed to discard many of the things that were once regard as repairable. Electronics repair was once a thriving industry. Now, what do we do? We throw it away or stash it in that dark corner of our garage.

No doubt as "smallchevy" alluded, balance is required.

I'd agree. Not a wide-open free-for-all. Sustainable.

Japan's Toyota, to name but one, outsources all 'round the Pacific Rim. Call it a 'Pacific Rim-job'. To inflate the bottom line Toyota's taken to importing itinerant labor from the squalid slums of Vietnam and Thailand. As fragile a house of cards, in a slump as the Globe's tending presently, as our own 'Service Oriented' economy. America works best when we build, earn and spend here. Importing prosperity, on the back of specious credit, to propel us ever upward, is a scenario only Sisyphus would appreciate.

It'll be more in-line with the new, repackaged and re-sized GM.

Fairfax will be starting production of the '10 LaCrosse in May.

Did you ever have a dead battery? Or had disconnected the battery for any length of time?

I'm sorry. What were you bemoaning, just last week, when your spouse couldn't dodge that rock which struck the windshield? My recollection is faulty.

Didn't you buy a premium fuel burning golf-cart? (mini)

To get a different perspective on it, watch Spike Lee's "Bamboozled". Chase that with "Soul Men" starring Samuel L. (motherf*cking snakes) Jackson and the late, great Bernie Mac.

Torque. Good one. Discussing 'performance' coupes with the reciprocating mass of a sweatshop sewing machine. Low expectations. Good grief.

Definitely in the eye of the beholder.

It's a G6 with a grafted-on Sunfire nose. (imo)

Passed Perrine Pontiac this morning on Rte. 130 in Cranbury, NJ and they're stocking 3. Damn. Was it Red/Orange, Black? I can't recall, didn't stop. But they look very sharp sitting there in the drizzle.

Is it still? In the day, say 25 years or so ago, the 'Wildwoods' were bursting at the seams or so it seemed to me. Every other vehicle had the "Je me souviens" inscribed Quebec vehicle plates. Then we more or less shifted more northerly up the coast. I see one or two in Summer and may be even missing more since I must've stopped looking for them.