smk4565

It's good to see toyota fall, but they still have Scion and Toyota in the top 5, and 5 spots ahead of any domestic. It isn't like they fell behind Ford and Dodge, it isn't really a big deal. And Consumer Reports recommendations aren't based on how a car drives, I never listen to them anyway.

Since it was the first 8 speed automatic in a car, it makes Lexus look like the technology leader. The LS460 gets 16/24 mpg which edges the 15/24 from the STS with 60 fewer hp, it beats the BMW 750i also, so the transmission must help in some fashion. It is likely that the 8 speed offers almost no advantage over a 7 speed, and only marginal over a 6 speed, but it is perception. People see 8 speed or 400 hp and they want that more than 6 speed and 320 hp. The 5-series is getting an 8-speed, so if the CTS is a 5-series competitor, they will need an 8 speed also, otherwise there are in the Acura, Lincoln, Volvo luxury tier, which are all going more towards a premium brand, not a luxury brand. I am just saying GM has to keep up with the market, whether it makes total sense or not. They neglected mid size sedans for years, now the Malibu is 100,000s of sales behind the Accord and Camry. They neglected minivans and didn't match what Honda was doing, now they are down to 1 bad minivan in it's final model year.

Bowtie Dude is right, GM is really late to the party and they don't even realize it. They don't realize they don't have a choice with what they make anymore, they have to build what others are doing. Lexus, BMW, Mercedes have 7-8 speed so Cadillac must do it. Accord and Camry are all DOHC so the Malibu has to be. They are chasing the trends and standards set by others. I don't remember the last time Honda, Toyota, or BMW saw some thing GM did and said, wow we have to copy that. Aside from making a pickup truck maybe. Of course Toyota went with 381 hp and 6 speed automatic vs the Silverado's 315 hp and 4-speed, at least the Silverado is really good in so many other areas to make up for it.

Hopefully they get them on the market semi fast. But they do need to get rid of all the 4 speeds first, even the cobalt and Aveo should get at least a 5 speed auto. The GMT900s need a six speed. Cadillac is going to need 7 or 8 if they want to keep up with the market. The next 5-series and 7-series will be 8-speed automatic. I hope they act fast, Cadillac is a follower right now, and Lexus and BMW are dictating what goes in the market, and setting the standards. Even with an 8 speed automatic on a Cadillac (in 2010 or so), they will just be equaling what Lexus did on the 2007 LS. It would be nice for once for Lexus or BMW to be chasing Cadillac, but I am thinking that is becoming more and more unlikely.

The car I was thinking of was the Subaru SVX, the 2 door sports car with the plastic line through the windows. It was an odd looking car, I forgot the name of it.

Bad idea, it will get confused with the V-series, and drag the V-series cars down. Maybe they should not use RX, since RX is a Lexus, there is already the SRX, it will just get lost in the shuffle and people won't know what it is. VRX sounds like an 80s Japanese sports car anyways, wasn't that a Subaru already?

I really like the exterior styling of this car, but interior and gas mileage won't compare well to the Accord, and the Accord has more power. They better not forget about the Altima either, that has become a sales winner. I just hope they don't do "this is our country, this is our car" ads with John Mellencamp. I read they are going to limit rental fleet sales to 20% (down from 40% currently) on the new malibu. The Camry and Accord are closer to 7%, so I think the Malibu will still seem like a rental car when 1 out of 5 is a bare bones silver one on the Enterprise lot.

Decent, but not great mileage. I am still most impressed with the Escape hybrid that gets 34 mpg city. Motor Trend just had a hybrid comparison with the Altima, Camry and Aura, they finished in that order. The Aura had a 10.5 second 0-60 time which is really lousy, this thing may be slow too. The Altima was 7.1 seconds 0-60 and 33/34 mpg I think, both were impressive numbers, GM needs numbers like that.

February 09 seems like a long time away, I wish it were summer 08. The positive will be that Transformers 2 comes out in the summer of 2009, so they can tie in the Camaro with that. Chevy needs some excitement, their car line up (aside from the Vette) hasn't had any in a while. The 3.5 V6 is bad now, it will seem really bad in 2010. I think the 3.6 is even a little unrefined and could be improved, especially when it comes to fuel mileage. The Impala's base engine needs to be Accord V6 level. A 6.2 liter V8 seems like a huge jump up, there is no middle ground, like the 5.3 liter. I wonder how much gas that engine will use also. The Chrysler 300 SRT sucks gas and that is a 6.1 liter and I don't see many on the road. I am all for offering the big engine, but they need something smaller I think too.

I agree, they haven't been a performance brand in a long time, I don't know why they keep saying they are. I am not sure why it is the goal even, they don't have the products (or money) to achieve it. I read the Solstice sales were dropping, while the Sky had been rising. I also looked up used Skys in my area and they sell for the same as new, sometimes even more still. The Solstice however is selling for a few thousand less than new, I think having a Pontiac symbol on the front hurts it because Pontiac is a "damaged brand" and Saturn is not. The Grand Prix was 78% rental fleet sales in 2006 or 2007, the G6 I think is around 30%, just like the Malibu and Cobalt are. The G5 and Vibe are probably lower, but they sell for such low cost, and with incentives. None of those cars are image or profit boosters. If GM is serious about Cadillac, Pontiac, and Buick they need to cut fleet sales to 8%. GM's corprate average is still 23-24% despite them saying they are going to reduce fleet sales. Or if they need a fleet and economy brand, make 3-4 Pontiacs that are cheap and mainly fleet cars. G8 can be the Taxi/police car, G5, Vibe and G6 go to rental lots. Especially the Vibe, they should fleet the heck out of it, and hope it drags the Matrix down too. Then they can cut the rental car sales on other brands all together.

Looks like it got hit with the ugly stick. Gotta love Toyota's massive 128 hp engine. Yet another reason why Pontiac is a rental car brand, not a performance brand. Even if the G8 does well, and Solstice does well (although sales and resale value are dropping, while the Sky rises), the volume cars are the G5, G6 and Vibe, they are selling more fleet junk than good cars, and that will hurt the image of the good cars, it is already happening with the Solstice.

Front engine, rear drive has worked for 50 years, I say stick with it. All wheel drive will add weight, and the Corvette's main advantage over it's competition is it's low weight. The ZR1 will has more than enough power, if they can make that work with rear drive then they are good. I think rear drive only will give them the best handling. Really the Vette doesn't need over 500 hp, it is plenty fast in Z06 form. Doing the ZR1 as a low production bragging rights thing is good for image, but I don't think they need to focus on the 500-700 hp range for the Vette and then adding all wheel to control it. Porsche still uses the 3.6 liter engine and doesn't need tons of power to make a fast car. The C7 should focus on increased gas mileage, handling, braking and interior.

Holdens just seem to look dated or bland for some reason, the GTO interior suffered form that. They look kind of European, but European of 10 years ago. I think the 300C or Accord have a better interior, MKZ as well. All of those have flaws too, but I think they are better than the G8's.

Obviously the engine has to be developed with the car, I meant that the future midlevel and high end sedan, along with the XLR should be engineered to fit a small V12. The 3-series has been on the Car and Driver 10 best list about 16 times, CTS, zero. What magazines say isn't everything, but mags like Consumer Reports (who I don't like) Road and Track, etc, they never say the CTS is better than the Germans. Enough people read that and form the same opinion and keep buying BMWs. The 3-series sells over 120,000 a year in the US, 500,000 units worldwide. What they are doing is working. I have driven the last gen CTS (and the front drive caddies), it handled pretty well, but I thought acceleration could have been better and the interior I thought was bad. My step-dad has a BMW 540i, driving wise it crushes the CTS in acceleration, braking, steering and handling. I don't like the BMW interior though, too utilitarian, that is the downside to German cars. I may get a CTS as my next car, but I'd only get it if the 2 year old used ones sell at a huge discount.

My point was about what 2001-2004 BMW 3-series or Lexus RX sell for. $20k for a 2003 version of either is pretty common, that's 50% value held and almost 5 years old. Cadillacs often hit that 50% mark within 3 years. My other point is even when a Lexus has 90-100k miles on it, that doesn't scare buyers away like it does with an American car. People have a belief that that L on the front means it will run for 300k miles. Cadillac needs to create that.

I hope they get this right. The BLS/BTS needs to be smaller and better than the CTS, priced about the same, 33k base. I fear the CTS will shift to $36-49k, BLS will be $29,900-36,000 and the zeta car will be $48-60k and 200+ inches long and basically be the DTS converted to rear drive.

Luxury brands rely on perception. The Deville and Ezcalade pickup hurt Cadillac. They've needed to change their perception for years, and it has changed a little, but they still have a dressed up Tahoe (oddly enough it has a good image) and the geezer DTS that dates back to 90s and the bland STS. Mercedes has a $150,000 sedan, BMW has dozens of 10 Best and Car of the Year awards, those brands have image and status and appeal. Cadillac still relies on parts sharing with Chevy and undercutting the competition on price. It also doesn't help that American cars in general have a poor reputation. No one has forgot the 70s, 80s, and 90s of bad cars form American brands. This scares buyers away still. Cadillac needs to go above and beyond to fix the perception gap. It will cost GM billions to get them to where they need to be, I want to see them do it, but I don't think they'll invest the time and money, because they need to give Saab, Hummer or some other brand product, so a new Cadillac gets bumped back 2 years.

It's their main market (2/3 of sales), but they sell them worldwide. Worldwide sales will be over 500,000 this year, up from 394,000 in 2004, and they sold their first car 18 years ago. So they are growing fast. I think Toyota saw the US as the market to attack first and Europe is next. BMW has even said "we have 2 competitors, one is in Stuttgart, the other is from Japan." Worldwide Lexus isn't on par with Mercedes, but they are growing. Cadillac has sold 240-245,000 cars the last couple years worldwide. Only about 10k a year are outside of the US-Canada market. They need to do better than that, and kill that BLS, that is hurting, not helping.

Very funny and true. You can get an 06 STS-V for about 50k, I've even seen $49k and these are for models with 8-13,000 miles, nearly new cars, but $30,000 off original price. The XLR-V is the same, I've seen those for $60-65k for 2006 models, big drop from the 100k sticker price. BMW and Lexus have some unreal ability to hold value, people decent money for them even if they have 100k miles. I just saw a 2005 STS V8 with 30k miles for $23,000 (originally $55k) in the Cleveland area if anyone is looking for a car. Cadillacs make great used cars because of their low resale value, but they make bad new car buys.

That is a good price. They have to price it above the G6 and forget the range the Grand Prix was in. $27,000 is a V6 Aura or Camry, so that is on par. I shutter every time I see the Holden interior, itis so bad. People looking for a cheap V8 will like this car though.

I don't prefer the BMW M engines, they have no torque. BMW's best engine is probably the 3.0 liter twin-turbo I6. But a twin turbo DI V8 is coming too, that should be another winner. The Mercedes V12 is twin turbo, and only a 3 valve per cylinder SOHC. Ford put two Duratec V6s end to end for Aston Martin, if they can get a 6.0 liter V12 in that little car, Cadillac should be able to fit a 5.6 liter V12 in something. The current CTS doesn't go into a price territory that they could justify a V12, but at some point they have to make a car above entry level. Then they could use that engine and the XLR could use it right now. If I were them I'd do 3.6 DI V6, 4.6 DI Ultra V8, 5.6 liter V12, and make a turbo or supercharged version of each. Then they need a V6 2-mode hybrid and a diesel V6 to cover the fuel efficiency end. The 8 and 12 cylinder need displacement on demand obviously to try to keep mpg numbers semi respectable. Cadillac isn't on the radar screens of BMW, Lexus and Mercedes right now, they aren't a world player, sales are dropping with the current product mix, while the other 3 rise. Cadillac needs to shake it up, and make some world class product. They should at least match the 3-series (beating it is probably impossible for anyone), I think the 5-series/E-class segment they can lead with the right car, and they should be able to match the S-Class and LS460 and beat the 7-series, although a new 7-series is coming next year, so maybe it will be the new benchmark, but for now, the S-class is it. The XLR with the right interior and engines should be able to lead that class.

Ford's model lineup is terrible. They are dead in the water basically. The F150, Escape and Edge are doing well, the Mustang does kind of well due to no immediate competitor and 40 year history, but that is about it. I see a fair amount of MKZ's, but I don't think any competitor fears them too much.

Good news, I'd like to see the fleet sales drop even more, it will help them in the long haul. Isn't every month at GM a "truck month" sales event? 13,000 Lambdas a month works out to 156,000 per year. Will they sell 250k Chevys? 156,000 a year is nice, but it's 3 vehicles doing that, while the Honda Odyssey does well over 100k, and the Trailblazer had some 200,000+ years. They need one minivan and one midsize 5 seat SUV, and a compact SUV. CTS should break the 60,000 mark they hoped for. I think 60-70k is very realistic as STS sales sink and the CTS is improved over the last model. Cadillac needs more winners though, that is their top selling car, and still selling half as many as the 3-series.

Cargo capacity and number of seats are not the most important thing when it comes to SUVs. The CRV, Rav4 and Escape are the top sellers, Edge, Explorer and even Trailblazer (with the discounts) are still doing well. The 5 seaters and small to midsize do well, and GM has the Vue and a dated Equinox. They need to replace the trailblazer with a midsize SUV and they need a real minivan. I think they are in for a wake up call when they dump the Trailblazer and those that want a 5 seat SUV flee to Ford or Toyota. The SRX is 0-60 in 6.4 seconds, let's see a Lambda do that, or pull .80 g on a skidpad. The SRX is the best SUV GM ever made, shame on them for giving it a wagon look and not marketing it right. The SRX is in it's 5th model year and still better than the Enclave or Acadia.

The old CTS couldn't fit a Northstar, I think this one was made to be able to, plus the Northstar is 15 years old and too big, they should be able to get dimensions down with the Ultra V8. Even the little M3 fits a V8 under the hood, the M5 and RS6 no bigger than a CTS and fit a V10. If they can make it work, Cadillac can too. Mercedes has a 5.5 liter V12, it has 612 lb-ft of torque at 1800-3500 rpm. The Z06 has 470 lb-ft @ 4800 rpm, so where is the pushrod low end advantage? The 6.0 liter's peak torque is 4400 rpm. I picked 5.6 liter, because GM has a 2.8 liter V6, if they doubled that they get 5.6. Turbo charging it might get too expensive, and it probably won't fit in the CTS, but in an STS sized car they should be able to make it fit. I just hope the Ultra V8 is around 4.8 liters and makes 380 hp, then with a twin turbo they can get near 500, and that can be the new V-series engine. Cadillac would be so much better off with an engine like that.