FUTURE_OF_GM

Argen, obviously by your purchasing history, you would fall into the first group. Despite being let down by GM, the fact that you're posting on a GM website means that you're still somewhat of a GM enthusiast that at least considers the company. But I'm no expert. shrugs:

Focus doesn't always mean smaller. Focus means setting a goal for the division and making BETTER products. And keep in mind, just because the cars are marketed as different names doesn't mean they're really all that different. The Buick Lacrosse, Riviera and Invicta for example would all be basically the same car with a different bodystyle and slightly different styling. The idea behind the different names is to build exclusitivity and aid in marketing and targeting certain markets. What's going to make a bigger impression on the buyer? Pontiac G6, G6 coupe and G6 convertible -or- Buick Lacrosse, Buick Invicta and Buick Riviera?

Yeah... What was it; Obama spent something like 4 million touring the world to talk to people that can't even vote for him, yet people like you and I can't even make our f**kin' house and car payments. Yeah, he's all for change alright. Instead of feeding the masses , his 'change' is to blow smoke up your ass instead. A politician is just that; a politician. Just like the popular kids in school, they aren't really good at anything other than sexual favors for people with power and smiling for the camera.

We have a Rock Bottom here too. usually the food is pretty good! I love me some Shoneys breakfast. Never eaten at a Red Robin, always wanted to. God I loved Don Pablos. It was probably my favorite chain, but our location closed. Alas, I have compiled a list of my favorite local eateries here in Charlotte, some are mom 'n pops and some are small chains. (Asheville to come later ) 1) Cabo Fish Taco. This is good place here in NoDa that has excellent food. It's always packed and It's not a lot of food IMO. But for lunch, it's great. You can find more at Cabo Fish Taco 2) The Penguin. Legendary hamburger joint that was featured on Diners, Dives & Drive Ins. It's cool, the food is good if you don't mind a little grease and the environment is neat. It's really my style. They have the BEST fried pickles in the world The Penguin 3) Fuel Pizza. The original Fuel Pizza is actually right beside the Penguin and hence right down the road from my house. It's called Fuel because it's in an old gas station. (Esso) It's very cool and the pizza is second only to Mellow Mushroom IMO. Fuel Pizza 4) Mellow Mushroom. I got spoiled on this one in Asheville, then when we moved to 'the hood' here we found one in Charlotte(!!!) Too bad it closed a few weeks later. The Shroom 5) Zada Janes. This place is right beside Fuel and The Penguin and it has some of the best pancakes I've ever eaten. If you want breakfast, this is the place. I've never had their dinner though, so I can't speak for it. Zada Janes 6) Ri Ras. This is an irish joint up town that has really good food and is 'pretty' reasonable. It's cool, but small. Ri Ra 7) Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery. (As mentioned before) Another up town place to get that uptown feeling. It can get a bit pricey, but the food is good. Rock Bottom 8] Macs Speed Shop. This place is a biker bar themed restaurant with REALLY southern food. (Therefore I fit right in) It has some of the best and freshest hush puppies I've ever eaten. Really cool place. Macs Speed Shop 9) Phat Burrito. This place is a 'hole in the wall' but it's clean and the food is excellent if you're in the mood for some mexican. The website isn't much, but voila: Phat Burrito 10) Punchy's Diner. This place is pretty good and it holds significance to me because it was one of Dale Earnhardts favorite dives. It has homemade banana pudding that is to die for. I would reccommend eating somewhere else (if you want fancy) and going here for desert. NO WEBSITE (Those of you that have watched "Dale" the documentary will see the owner, Punchy Whitaker interviewed in the extra footage. Earnhardt's first job was working for Punchy in his shop right next to his diner) 11) 304 Pontiac Pointe. The food wasn't that good when I ate there, but that was a holiday and the place was miserably packed. It's in Albermarle (45 min away -- on the way to our local drive in theatre) and was a Pontiac dealership beginning in the 30s. As a result it still has the authentic vertical Pontiac neon sign, with indian head, that's lit every night. NO WEBSITE 12) Showmars. Quick serve food, but the lamb gyro is frickin' amazing. Showmars 13) Old Hickory House BBQ, founded in the 1950s and still family owned, it that smells amazing everyday and the food is equally as good. NO WEBSITE 14) Brooks. This is a VERY small place that is right beside our mill. It looks pretty sketch, but everyone that has lived here says it has the best burgers in town. Not to mention, EVERY morning it is packed with tons of trucks, police officers and people, so breakfast must be really good. NO WEBSITE 15) Landmark Diner. Here in Charlotte, if you're hungry and drunk at 4AM, greek is the way to go! At Landmark you can literally pay $7 and get enough food to feed a horse. And FWIW, it has some of the best 2 layer cheese cake I've ever eaten. NO WEBSITE. 16) Boudreaux's. Cajun cuisine and some of the best breakfast I've ever had! http://www.boudreauxs.com/ Anyway, what got me thinking about this thread (despite me for some reason deciding to post my favs) was P.F. Changs. What a freakin' rip off this place is!!!! I went there this past Saturday... 3rd time I've been, mind you and it's been horrible ALL 3 times. Horrible service, small amounts of food, crappy food, and they're not very flexible in their offerings. (They wouldn't even sub sides for my vegetarian friend) 'Appleslease' is on my short list of crappy restaurants as well along with Bonefish and Carrabas.

It seems pretty cool... Not HHR cool and I could never see myself in one, but cool none the less. As for NUMMI... My guess is until the plant is closed. (So, forever) Look at it this way: it's a useful path into GM when Toyota buys them out of bankruptcy and kills all of the remaining divisions.

I the spirit of the 'bands that suck' thread, I thought I would start this one. I'll post some of my selections in a little while.

I've always wanted to check this guys book out ("Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course In Brain Surgery") I think this article (pertaining to the release of Death Magnetic) is a very cool read! I often get MANY responses when I tell people how adamant I am about metal, particularly thrash, death and black metal. I get everything from "Don't kill yourself, it'll be okay" to sneers of disgust and comments like "Unlike you, I don't worship satan." to people even calling me ignorant. Well, this article is one of the best things I've found that explains HOW I view metal and WHY I'm such a big fan. When your life is a daily struggle to survive (Like mine was at one point) all of the "motivational" speakers in the world can't inspire like a good dose of MetallicA or Pantera or Dimmu Borgir. To me, metal teaches us to get up off our asses and fight harder than ever before. And that's why the heavier it is, the better. Because fans and others alike FEED from that energy, negative or positive. Enjoy! 'Death Magnetic' and Metallica's redemption By Bill Irwin | Special to The Morning Call September 20, 2008 In 1985 Metallica saved my life. Listening to the suicide song, ''Fade to Black,'' while rain fell on hopeless high school nights, I felt I wasn't alone, that someone else knew my pain. Listening to ''Creeping Death,'' I knew I had brothers in rage. The music was not easy to listen to and the lyrics provided no easy answers. In an age of whiney political rock stars, Metallica challenged me to think for myself, to focus on the ''struggle within.'' Last week Metallica's most anticipated album ever, ''Death Magnetic,'' was hailed with acclaim as it went straight to No. 1 the Billboard charts, iTunes and amazon.com, and sold nearly 500,000 copies in the first three days. But the title begs the question -- if Metallica is so life affirming, why is it so obsessed with death? The existentialist philosophers understood this paradox well. To acknowledge death is to accept freedom and responsibility. ''Through black days/through black nights/through pitch black insights'' we must all decide whether, why and how to live. ''Death is the elephant in the room,'' frontman James Hetfield muses. We're all terminal, but most of us don't act like it. Death's imminence should impart an urgency to the now, as the galloping tempo of Metallica's music mimetically reminds us. Metallica does not glamorize or celebrate death. Rather, the band elicits the inspiration and desperation that nearness to death evokes, a constant theme throughout its discography. Its second album, ''Ride the Lightning,'' is particularly effective in this regard, presenting first-person accounts of a prisoner about to be electrocuted, a soldier dying alone on the battlefield and a man contemplating suicide. The years and albums to come would bring the brutality of ''Battery,'' ''Damage Inc.,'' and ''Dyer's Eve,'' followed by the cerebral depiction of a limbless veteran deprived of his senses, begging his caretakers to kill him in ''One.'' With all this gloom, we must wonder: what does consideration of death tell us about the meaning of life? Perhaps there is no objective meaning, as suggested by the empty universe that stretches out infinitely before and after us in time and space in ''Through the Never.'' To give up is too easy, though -- not the Metallica way. Thinking about death isn't meant to paralyze us with reflection, but rather to spur us into action. The ideal life as Metallica portrays it in songs such as ''Of Wolf and Man'' involves acting naturally and with a heightened sense of consciousness -- as we do when our lives are literally imperiled. The meaning of life is to be made in the moment; no matter what the circumstances, we can ''redefine anywhere.'' Metallica has been surpassed in morbidity by the metal subgenre it helped to inspire, death metal. Indeed, in the past 10 years, with a change in sound and a related decline in sales, Metallica has barely been metal at all. But ''Death Magnetic'' finds the band playing with the speed and verve of years gone by. More than a comeback album, ''Death Magnetic'' is a resurrection. Hetfield has experienced a personal and creative rebirth in recovery from alcoholism -- a condition that left him ''living dead inside,'' as he sings in the new song ''Cyanide.'' As ''Suicide and Redemption'' indicates, even the greatest sins of inauthenticity need not go ''unforgiven.'' With ''Death Magnetic'' the prodigal son has returned. Let's slaughter the fatted calf and celebrate life. William Irwin, Ph.D. is the editor of ''Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery'' and professor of philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre SOURCE: http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/music/a...0,5061370.story

True, but unless they're well behaved or caged, they'll sure as hell have fun putting "the number 11" down your driver door while waiting for you to get out of the car.

I've been fiddling on the roof so much lately.... But i guess I can go back up there. LOL. For years I have sat on this site and ranted about this very doomsday scenario and how I would laugh when it all falls apart. I feel like the freakin' Joker since I've been laughing so much. Maybe, just maybe americans will wake up and see that there are more important things than Paris and her latest stupid sidekick. I really hate to see the honest people brought down with this economic crisis though. As for me... Well, I already struggle to afford to eat, so bring on the recession, it can't get much worse.

Bob Lutz... That's what happened. And I think that's why PCS hates Uncle Bob as well. It seems that professional jealousy runs rampant among the OFTEN overshadowed and OFTEN forgotten execs of GME.

My only hope is that the people who ACTUALLY run the company, instead of posting on message boards, have a better grip on reality. I think the key is still Holden... If Holden gets an Alpha to supplement or replace the Commodore (as rumored) then I think Pontiac will be fine. Either way, I think we're in for a rough and embarrassing few years at Pontiac, if the division survives.

Yes, but that's a product of the market and legislation there I figured (Zeta is way too heavy to meet the regs) Nah... Pontiac just hasn't been given the best rifle GM has to offer. BTW, some sources are saying that Pontiac actually Opted OFF of the Alpha platform in favor of Epsilon (for volume sake) And last I heard, Epsilon was technically a GME product. How ironic that an Opel will basically underpin the best selling Pontiac in NA. Why do you and GME dislike Holden so much? Is it because Holden stole global RWD work from GME (Wasn't the Catera and GTO a GME designed architecture?) It's a good thing GME isn't developing Alpha then I don't understand your logic... Pontiac is GM's performance division and GM doesn't WANT more than one volume division. The logical way to go was all RWD (Lutz probably had a lot to do with this) and global RWD was at Holden. You talk of Pontiac alienating buyerts like yourself when most of their line up is STILL FWD cars that you can buy and you have admitted to a future purchase of Alpha a RWD platform (The one that Pontiac was set to benefit the most from) I'm not buying it. It seems that someone ruffled someone elses feathers. Maybe the execs at GM should grow some balls and stop the estrogen therapy so that they don't fight like a bunch of sorority girls at a handbag and sunglass sale.

Nah... Until Detroit is given a complete free ride and americans are FORCED to buy american cars, I can always find something to b*tch about. Yes, I support communism, as long as I'm in charge.

I still remember all of the POSITIVE media headlines of how it was a 'merger of equals' and how Mercedes would HELP Chrysler. What a load of I still remember in one of my psych classes how my professor made the blatantly ignorant comment; "Well, now that Chrysler has bought Mercedes, Mercedes quality is going down." --- From a VERY successful Industrial Psychologist that owns his own VERY successful consulting firm (i.e. He should have a basic understanding of the business world and who owns/controls who) I certainly hope Chrysler can recover and I wish them the best. Now that they have talent from Toyota and deep pockets at Cerberus, the sky is the limit!!!

So, it's all about politics and not what the company needs to do to sell more cars (or even survive) Typical GM... BTW, what got CPF's Victoria Secret specials in a twist about Holden/Pontiac anyway?

LOL. He is a mess!!! It's always fun having the "good dog/bad dog" thing around the house. We have a Jack Russell Dachshund mix... EXCELLENT, smart, well behaved dog. Couldn't ASK for a better low maintenance dog! But we recently adopted a Chihuahua Dachshund mix and she is the devil incarnate. The JR/D mix will often look at her like "you freakin' idiot" when she's doing something wrong and not listening to a word I say. Look at it this way, at least Arkus keeps life interesting.

I don't care what anybody says, this car STILL looks like an effing Malibu rip-off to me. Whoop-te-do... It's a Malibu with a melted euro ass and a glued in Lincoln grille. The actual MALIBU looks better, and hopefully the 'second ever' G6 will too.

Beautifully stated... Not as much as they do now...

Oh, and as far as what powers what... Well, I haven't thought that far ahead but I guess it could go one of two ways. 1) If CAFE really is that big of a concern, then we could stick a beefed up Turbo 4 in the Malibu SS. 2) But the better option IMO would be to stick a hi-po V6 in the car. And, since the Camaro is technically supposed to be the Malibu's coupe counterpart, if the Camaro SS carries a performance V6, then idealistically, the Malibu SS would carry the same high performance V6. The concern with that is; how many Camaro loyalists are willing to accept that the only V8 Camaro they will be able to purchase will be the Z28 trim?

I loved the Ultra trim, but i think Super conveys more of an 'american class' sort of thing. That's just my opinion though and I guess the fact that I'm a classic Buick fan had a lot to do with it. I even toyed with the idea of bringing back the WILDCAT trim in some form or another.

Not at all! I'm the same way (with sunglasses and my bike) With the sunglasses, I think it depends on how much you use them. Folks who don't use sunglasses that much can't/won't justify the expense. I have very sensitive eyes, so like you I'm always in sunglasses. As far as the bike goes. Well, after a childhood of destroying crappy Wal-Mart bikes on trails and roads, I decided to buy a Trek and it has outlasted everything else I had combined. EDIT: And BTW, thanks for reminding me that I never want kids.

I will never buy a Camaro without a V8. End of story. And yes, I would be perfectly happy with a very light, very nimble 4.9L (302) equipped Z28

LOL, for some reason I thought this thread would be about an obscure piercing or something.... Anyway, glad to see you succeed! As for college and what you want to go for. Just remember, there is more than one way to skin a cat and endurance determines success.

It already is TICK TOCK for the whole shebang IMO. Forget about saving Pontiac (If GM continues to be this inept) the corporation as we know it will be gone within 10 years.

The way I classify it, there are 4 types of buyers in the market (in relation to GM) It's nothing technical, just my opinion based on observation. (But keep in mind, my background is in exactly that; observation and environment) 1) GM fan and loyalists. That's us, traditionally we will buy or at least consider GM regardless of what is going on with the company. 2) Average buyer. This buyer is not too car savvy because they view a car as an appliance. However, that ambivalence is not a bad thing because since they're not into cars, a lot of them haven't formed the negative feeling for domestic producers that are so common now. These are the people that might like a Honda Accord, but then see a Malibu ad and are interested enough to look into the car despite it being from a domestic producer. ** I think Chevrolet and Pontiac can still appeal to these people if given the right product. 3) Import buyers. These people purchase strictly imports 90% of the time. But it's not because they hate Detroit, it's because imports are all they've ever known. Maybe mom and dad brought them up with imported cars or maybe they, based on something like Consumer Reports only shop imported cars. They know about the stigma Detroit carries, but at the same time they don't necessarily buy into it. But since imports are the status quo purchase now, they're not very likely to buy a traditional domestic brand either. 4) Anti-GMers. These are the people that OPENLY criticize and try to sway others opinions about domestic products. These people have polar relationship with GM fans in that they are exactly what we are not. They buy imports because it's fashionable and conveys good taste and they justify their decisions with excuses like their moms crappy 1972 Vega or GM's 'commitment to destroy the environment through gas guzzling SUVs' A lot of the buyers in category 3 and 4 have never even been exposed to GM vehicles, and that's the sad part. Saturn (on a volume level) and Saab can appeal to these people whereas Chevrolet an Pontiac cannot. Chevrolet and Pontiac have strong brand identities (for better or worse) and these fashionable people DO NOT want to be associated with that identity. Saturn however, does NOT have a strong brand identity and even when it did, the identity didn't represent tradition and typical Detroit characteristics. Instead it celebrated independence, small business practices and efficiency. That was the door opener, all we have to do is parlay that into something more dynamic. Something that represents a 'lifestyle' and not a company. I hope that clears it up a bit.