Z-06

I do not like General's averseness to Manual Transmissions. Seems like they cringe after knowing they have to put one in a car. Yet irony is they do not offer automatics on the high performance machines although that seems to be subject to change in some of the performance vehicles.

Guys, back to bashing Gramp Flint, rather than individuals. The point is every Flint article represents something which he archived in the past, and now been released. Is he alive or that he left a will saying release one article at a time from the archive?

I think that was a fair review. Audi seriously is the underrated German. I loved the A5 at the Detroit Autoshow (Granted the chick was too nice to me much to my Fiance's dismay, not that she cares). Like you said the CTS is a good car and to give the benefit of doubt the previous Gen was General's first try. Now I did not hear your rambling for five miles.

I do

Like PCS his job was done but he left without notice. Toyota just gave him a bonus check for bringing in good data.

Good FWD proportions. The hood is somewhat longer, reminds me of the Zcoupe BMW had.

How about an option that says "None" and another option saying, "No abortion, the brand needs sex with a fertile female to deliver more babies"?

Good one.

I want Lumbar support standard because of my lower back problem. Everytime I build a BMW they have it in the premium package. I honestly do not care for the leather and just like O.C. said the leatherette is pretty good. I prefer the home link, but I can put the big dong for the apartment opener on the sun visor. In that way I like the TSX that it comes with everything standard. You really appreciate the value for money but with the wrong set of wheels turning the car.

True, if you can live without two boombox subwoofer, leather, and other crap like homelink etc.

That makes three of us. May be we should drive to brooksville and pick these babies up. A 350 small block would be good for them.

Sure they can, if they can have Chevrolet, Cadillac and Holden versions of it.

Linkity What's difficult to understand is why Detroit's automakers lose billions of dollars making cars and trucks here, while competitors like Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes, who build them here too, make a fortune at it. They're all building new plants or expanding production at the old ones while Detroit is shutting factories. General Motors, for example, reported a loss of $39 billion for last year, and my guess is that Toyota will have an operating profit approaching $20 billion for its March 31 fiscal year, with the North American operations the greatest contributor to that. Here's my explanation: Rebates. Detroit has to pay buyers to take its products. If you pay $3,000 to $5,000 in rebates or other bribes to customers to take your cars and trucks, there goes the profit. For example. If GM sells 4 million cars and trucks and spends $3,000 in giveaways on each, that's $12 billion in lost profit. Toyota and Honda give away a few hundred. Efficiency. The brands I mentioned are building at capacity, while the Detroit companies aren't. A great cost in this business is the tooling, the factory, the overhead. When you build a capacity you lower the cost of all this per vehicle. When you aren't building at capacity, these costs per vehicle go up. And Detroit is continually cutting back, closing factories, paying off workers. Any money in Detroit seems to go into these payoffs to get workers to quit and go away, or now, in billions to dollars to be paid to the union to take over medical care costs. Legacy costs. Those heritage costs, meaning the cost of supporting former workers who aren't needed, or the army of retirees. If the Detroit companies were running full blast, these burdens wouldn't be as heavy, but since they are always cutting back, the burdens grow except when they pay out huge sums to get workers to go away. The foreign companies have younger people on the payrolls, practically no one retired on pension, and better medical care systems because their employees are mainly non-union and it's easier to dictate than to bargain. Is there any answer to this? So far there hasn't been but we can always hope. Even the three problems mentioned above are just symptoms of the real problem. The car business still is a product-oriented business. The customers turned against Detroit's product. After all, if the product is right, the producer needn't pay the customers to take its cars and trucks. Production levels will rise and the producer will operate at capacity. And the heritage costs won't grow because the company will be hiring instead of pushing workers out. For years the main recovery action in Detroit was cutting costs. But it is difficult to make cost cutting the route to prosperity. Instead, it became an endless cycle of cost cutting, even killing brands: Oldsmobile at GM, Plymouth at Chrysler, Aston sold at Ford, Jaguar and Land Rover to go, and Mercury seems doomed unless a member of the Ford family steps forward to save it. And, of course, assets get sold off, as GM sold half of GMAC, or put up as collateral as at Ford. But finally, some good news: the product has come out into the spotlight. Every Detroit carmaker talks about improving the product, and there are signs that they actually mean it for a change. We do see signs of great improvement at General Motors. I personally feel that GM will be gaining market share this year, not much, but enough to show that the turn is underway. At Ford and Chrysler, as they say, "the issue is still in doubt." And it takes more than just building a better car and truck. The buyers aren't angry at Toyota, Honda, BMW or Mercedes. They like the cars they bought from the foreigners, so getting our people to switch back is almost impossible, or a long, year-after-year process, winning customers among the newer generations who don't carry a grudge going back 20 years. So winning them back will take a decade or more, so it means continual improvement of the product and the marketing, too. GM, and Ford are doing better overseas, making profits in Europe, in Brazil, in China. But they aren't enough. The new contracts with the union will reduce the heritage costs, and even the wage costs as new lower-paid workers are brought in to replace the veterans. That will no longer be an excuse for the failure here in the U.S. We'll see if these Detroit executives understand that it is the attractiveness of the cars and trucks that will determine whether their companies live or die, and if they have the talent to create such vehicles.

The idea of RWD Pontiac was sign of relevance. Mixed Pontiac is nothing but rebadges. If that exists, GM Euro Boys will try to influence to kill it. The next G6 should not be a Epsilon but an Alpha. Like you said, make them a 4-5 RWD car brand and keep it. If Pontiac can bring successful 300k volume it will be a nice niche brand. It should be Performance of Germans at price of Koreans and quality of Japanese (perceptions wise) with DNA of America. I had started a thread for what the next G6 should be a while back, and most of us agree it should be similar to the concept of old 3er with more performance. I do not mind Alphas having four bangers all the way to GXP version to save cafe. But they should be fun and performance oriented.

+1

Yeah. But with the current models the list has even become longer........... I asked about it to Troy Clarke when Fly and I met him at the Miami Autoshow. He said that expect something from GM soon, unless Euro-Gang killed the Alpha from that time to now.

Talk about ground clearance!! That thing sat lower than my Lumina. I could not stop laughing my ass off when I was behind this, on a two lane road. Then the dude cut me when the road became 4 lane.

A fully decked out 135i costs $50,740. It seems like BMW is tacitly adapting America to European Flavor. Size of car does not matter, what matters are the comforts. Which is fine. Then BMW should reduce the price of the cars by $10k.

Sorry Empowah, I feel like being a jackass.

And ZL-1 will soon start shagging as Geneva show nears. Are you gonna replace your Mini-D with this? Looks wicked.

That Pontiac is awesome.

Gotta give Toy some credit to bring a small concept that does not feature golf cart sized wheels.

Now I am confused. You shaved something else and your back is itching? I would expect the shaved portion to itch.

Writing rules is different and putting pieces of different games is another story.