Camino LS6

From today's Globe & Mail newspaper. GM's move south a blow to Ontario Rear-wheel-drive cars scrapped or moved to Michigan; company blames new fuel economy rules GREG KEENAN January 24, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST General Motors Corp. has scrapped plans to build some rear-wheel-drive cars at its giant operations in Oshawa, Ont., a move that could threaten the long-term future of the largest vehicle assembly plant in Canada and thousands of jobs. The auto maker has scuttled the rear-wheel-drive version of the Chevrolet Impala, which was scheduled to represent half the output of a leading-edge flexible assembly plant now under construction in Oshawa, industry sources said. Production of rear-wheel-drive Cadillac and Buick sedans originally slated for Oshawa will be shifted instead to Lansing, Mich., the sources added. GM will begin producing the reborn Chevrolet Camaro as a rear-wheel-drive muscle car in Oshawa later this year. The move comes as GM prepares for crucial contract talks with the Canadian Auto Workers union this summer and seeks government financial help for an investment in St. Catharines, Ont., on top of $435-million Ottawa and Ontario have already agreed to give the company as part of a $2.5-billion plan to upgrade its Canadian operations. Much of the $2.5-billion will be spent consolidating two Oshawa car plants into one flexible plant that will turn out the Camaro. The two plants assembled 470,016 cars last year. The next-generation Impala was designed to be heavier and larger than the existing front-wheel-drive version and would have been based on the same platform or basic underbody as the Camaro – GM's Zeta program. The new plant would have cranked out a combined 500,000 Camaro, Impala, Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS cars. The heavier Impala has been doomed by new U.S. fuel economy rules requiring auto makers to reach an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, industry and union sources said. The new rules mean “some of those [vehicles] have been stricken from the future product program,” GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz acknowledged in Detroit last week when asked how the regulations would affect the Zeta cars. Mr. Lutz did not elaborate on which models were cancelled. General Motors of Canada Ltd. spokesman Stew Low said yesterday that no vehicle beyond Camaro was ever approved, “so you can't cancel something that wasn't there.” GM doesn't know what vehicles will be assembled in Oshawa beyond Camaro, Mr. Low said, in part because no one knows yet how the GM fleet will have to adjust to meet the new fuel economy requirements. “Impala and the Buick will stay for the time being,” he said. Scrapping of the proposed rear-wheel-drive Impala reduces the planned output of cars in Oshawa by 250,000 a year, industry and union sources said. Separately, GM promised the United Auto Workers union during contract negotiations last fall that it would build two Zeta cars in Lansing, where it already assembles rear-wheel-drive vehicles for its luxury Cadillac division. Shifting production of the Buick and Cadillac models subtracts another 100,000 vehicles from the planned output of 500,000, so the Oshawa plant could be producing as few as 150,000 Camaros unless GM finds another vehicle to build there. Producing that number of vehicles would mean considerably fewer jobs than the approximately 3,000 positions that exist at the car plants now and likely would prevent GM from meeting job commitments it made to Ottawa and Ontario when they originally agreed to provide the $435-million. Whether GM will find other vehicles to build in Oshawa or continue with a front-wheel-drive version of the Impala beyond next year likely hinges on the talks with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union on a new contract, industry sources said. “It all depends on what happens in these discussions come September,” one source said. CAW president Buzz Hargrove rejected the notion that GM will tie future products for Oshawa to bargaining on the new contract. “It would be impossible to imagine” that GM would be unable to find other vehicles for the plant after the huge investment it will make to build the flexible plant, Mr. Hargrove said. Canadian Auto Workers members in Oshawa have already agreed to outsource janitorial jobs and to more flexible work rules in order to win the investment for the new Camaro and other products, said Chris Buckley, president of CAW Local 222, which represents workers at the plant. “If the decision gets made based on the number of trophies on the shelf, Oshawa wins the prize,” Mr. Buckley said, pointing to numerous quality and efficiency awards the plant has won in recent years.

http://blogs.motortrend.com/6227157/editor...-e85/index.html

I'll make one point and ask one question in this post and leave it at that. Regardless of the merits of Acura's cars, they simply seem to be passe. I don't hear about them, I don't see them, I often forget about their existence. For Acura, I'd say that's a problem. On to my question: I've never paid much attention to the brand so I have no idea how well they sell or what sort of market share they have. Anyone know?

For July. Last I heard, the IRS can't handle all of the returns and deal with this at the same time.

I don't really disagree with what you've posted here, save to say that the flavor/approach of the Vette and 911 are apples and oranges. Hope that clarifies what I'm saying. As for the six, I don't think it will ever happen nor that it would succeed if it did.

That's all well and good for a 911, but I believe it would tank in a Vette. The Vette is an alternative to cars like the 911 and has its own, different, recipe. A six in a Vette would be as wrong as a V8 in a 911. Apples and oranges.

Well, they got smart in '55 :AH-HA_wink: My thinking is that with Corvette, there is no need to ever offer a six. If you can justify buying a Vette, the V8 comes with the turf. I would guess that the Corvette team would see it as a net negative in its effect on Corvette as a whole, and therefore veto the idea.

I very much doubt that GM would allow a six-cylinder Vette to be available anywhere in the world.

...and I never said it was.

Could be. One thing of note: compare the shots done at different times and check out which car has RHD and which one has LHD.

C'mon now PCS, you know full well the tounge-in-cheek nature of that comment of mine. What I do hate is what you say is true, and the cars that come from it. We've all seen what european management does to American car companies before, and it isn't pretty. What good is a warning anyway, if the decisions are already made? I fully intend to fight this and make my feelings about it clear in any way I can. As for the car in these pics, it appears as an anonymous, me-too sedan with nothing to even say what brand it might be nor its country of origin. It comes across as the definition of non-descript. I have no reason, by looking at it, to give it any credit as a design that shows even the smallest unique attribute. Perhaps that will change once the cammo is gone, but it does not look promising.

Inevitable? No, I don't think so. As I've said before, this will be a contested position for the forseeable future.

Don't keep that in your head too long.

After all, that's what trucks are for. :AH-HA_wink:

I really don't have much argument with what you have posted here, with the exception that I take the T-bill (and other investments by China here) a bit more seriously than you seem to. I think it is a bad situation for both countries and a potentially dangerous arrangement for a variety of reasons. I believe his 6 Trillion number must be the federal debt, but IIRC it is actually higher than that by quite a margin.

The description was enough for me... I can only imagine what the reality must have been like.

Damn.

The bottom line for me is that the government has been "giving away the store" in trade agreements for a very long time, allowing unfair advantage to pass to other nations with nary a whimper. These same fools now mortgage the future by borrowing staggering sums form the very worst places possible. If that's not bad enough, they set up tax advantages for our own corporations which reward the outsourcing of production to other countries. Our government is now indebted deeply to China, much of our financial industry deeply influenced by partial Middle Eastern ownership, and corporations and real estate in the hands of Japanese owners. We are taking a huge plunge toward irrelevence in the world.

Blind Melon Change

Supertramp School And the rest of the Crime of the Century disc.

"I smoke old stogeys I have found"

I still have lots to do, but I'l be posting pics when I make progress.

" no phone, no pool, no pets"

Steely Dan The Royal Scam Seems appropriate for the times.

That's one boring looking car.