A Horse With No Name

http://tunersource.gmblogs.com/blog/archiv...obalt-ss-anyone Nice to see them win half the races AND the championship. Chris

Cool Story, and since you brag about being able to bring old GM Muscle cars back to life... here ya go...fix this http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2977864 Chris

I've seen it in Cadillac white, its awesome! Chris

...(drumroll)...and your better looking suggestion is???..... Chris

At the VW club meeting today one of our members, Mark has decided to put his Cutlass up for sale. It's a 1972, his brother bought it from the original owner in 1980, he bought it from his brother in 88 and has owned it the last 20 years. Mark is buying a new Harley Davidson and wants to get rid of the Cutlass. It's pretty much a garage queen, it needs a headliner and carpet but it's really solid. It's a bucket seat car too. If I had the 5 grand he wants, I'd buy it. I'd love another Cutlass in the garage. Chris

I remember beer can collecting, for sure. Chris

The SUV and NOT the clubman was the one I was thinking about. Toyota is bad...and even the Lexus SC 430 is just plain wrong on so many levels IMHO. Chris

The Nitro is esp. bad, imho. Chris

I'm with the rest of the crowd, the color is just killer, esp. with those wheels. Chris

turbo, I do get what your saying...I do find the VW product to be much more attractive. But the Saturn product isn't that bad. It should be doing MUCH better than it is. And even if it had more up to date styling, it would do nothing with GM's current marketing. Chris

I would agree with you 100%, DF. Chris

Very well written, DF! Chris

This actually looks better than half of the stuff built today, IMHO.

Like Car and Driver once said, most GM cars run poorly longer than most cars run at all. I can beat his cost of ownership. We had a guy they paid to clean up our construction sites who bought one for $1200 with 90k miles. He now has about 260K on the same car...other than tires and brakes he has done nothing. This stuff just runs forever. Chris

What do you consider "up to date" in small car design? I don't consider the Astra to be out of date, I consider it underpowered with the automatic and poorly marketed. Chris

Better Ideas yet: 1. Fire whoever currently promotes this car and HIRE whoever has the ad contract for MINI. This should happen before the close of business Monday. 2. Spec racing series, similar to the TDI Cup that VW has or the MX-5 cup for the Miata. Minor race prep on a few cars, recruit some young hot shoes and go to work. Make sure you get coverage on speed channel. Really, this would result in free advertising that would pay for the cost of the cars and the series. How? every website and carmag seems to mention/discuss the TDI Cup/MX-5 cup once in awhile, and it would give the Astra some street cred amoung the tuner types. They could even partner with someone by throwing in cheap sponsership for the series. MX-5 Cup is partnered with Playboy. Partner with MTV or whatever for the Astra. 3. Good creative advert. on prime time TV. Get a military firing squad for the person inside GM who makes this just pretty video's of an Astra running through a Colorado Canyon. The stuff needs to be CREATIVE and on target. 4. Saturn had good marketing for awhile while it was still Saturn. Start the whole Saturn owners club thing up again, and copy Scion's underground marketing campaign. Free music you can download and other events are very cheap for Toyota to promote Scion, and they bring huge results. Biggest issue here-the Astra is MUCH better than anything Scion dreams of building...so once cars got in people's hands, they would most likely enjoy them. Likewise, sponser local rock concerts or other small stuff. I don't know what exactly, but Scion is popular with gen Y because they show that they care about their "scene". 5. Bring other models over. GM marketed the Opel's this way in the early 70's and it worked wonders. We had friends growing up that had Opels and loved them, and I know people in the SCCA that are huge fans of the 70's Opels almost 40 years later. Unique is going to sell to gen Y...which is why the SMART will sell and the Astra will sit on the lot. There is just an element of originality and funkyness that would be easy to add to the Astra marketing and isn't there. 6. Donate a dozen Astra's to Bondurant or another driving school. Honda does this here in Ohio with the Mid Ohio drivers school at Mid Ohio. Some Dusche-bag from some car mag goes and has fun lapping at speed in an Astra and he's not going to be likely to trash it when he writes about it. Ford and Chevy have gotten lots of exposure this way, why not Saturn? 7. Donate Astras to driving schools, or provide uber-cheap leases, so new drivers get comfortable with the product before they even get a lic. to drive. This would be cheap and simple. Dodge did this back in the late 1960's and had some great ad's about how much they cared for people's kids and their safety and so forth. A pic in Time magazine or in the local paper of a GM employee handing over the keys to a good accredited driving school would be priceless for the image of GM. Doubt me? Our local GM dealer gave a free lease on an Olds Cierra to my drivers ed dept. You would be amazed at the number of parents who at least checked out cars at the local Olds/Cadillac dealer as a result. Just my random thoughts... Chris

It's a wonderful car...but we need somehow to sell Americans on driving it. Chris

I wonder what ole Sixty-Eight would think of this....ugly as sin, but it is taking a FWD car and making it RWD. It is ugly, but for a home built car IMHO it shows some good craftsmanship and construction skill. Chris

It's better than the civic and just plain different than the 3, but it is a huge step in the right direction. Chris

Like I said before, I've got a good friend with a first gen SVT Focus. This is EXACTLY what GM should be building right now (without the blue oval badge, of course) Chris

People could get loans if they had jobs. The economy is much deeper in the craphouse than people think that it is. Chris

"Just good enough' has been a recipe for disaster." I couldn't agree more. Chris

They'll still bitch about American Iron. Chris

Congrats! Chris

The thing that makes me sad is that we bitch about the economy but very few ever want to learn about why we go through economic cycles or how the economy works. Complaining without educating ourselves, and blame shifting this whole thing to other will only make our nation poor in the long run. Chris