Drew Dowdell

In trying determine if a car can benefit from more speeds in the transmission, all you have to ask is three questions:- Does the car have enough torque to smoke the tires in 1st gear? Is the cruising rpm in top gear low enough? Between shifts, does the rpm fall too far below the torque peak? If the answer to all the questions are NO. Then the car does not need more speeds in the transmission. In fact, more speeds in such instances will make the car slower with no benefits to fuel economy. For the Corvette, the objective is for enough torque to break the tires lose in 1st, keep top gear rpms at around 1600~1700 rpm at 60 mph and make see to it that when shifted at the redline (6600 rpm) the rpm drops to within 800 rpm of 4,600 rpm. If it is already doing that, then giving it more gears just means more shifts during acceleration (slower), more smoke during launch (slower) or a top gear that cannot be used until you are seriously over the speed limit (pointless). Do we have details on what gear is being added? Can they be putting an even more over, overdrive in?

New Cadillac commercial I like... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSVK8s-gfo

it's not about mpgs expecially, it's about keeping current. If the C7 comes out without a 7-speed and all of it's competitors have them, yet again we'll hear about how behind the times GM is... and when will GM catch up...

I the steering column, and some of the interior door panel parts are from an S-10 "parts car" That one is actually spruced up a bit. I sat in the blue one.

F-100 They are going to move the Ranger up in size to be more like the Dakota (R.I.P.)

Late and still a better plane than the oft delayed and fuel sucking A380. I can't wait to ride on a 787, but it will be a while till it begins serving routes that I typically travel.

I've sat in one. Absolutely wretched interior......Imagine J.C. Whitney had a yard sale... then imagine there was a pile of stuff that didn't sell..... THAT is what ended up in this thing

Why are you always against GM making a version of a car that will make them money and improve perception with non-car-people?

No to the Eco, that is what the e-Assist is for at Buick. Possibly for the GS, Welburn asked us what we thought of the possibility.... however, he stressed that it could only be FWD and not AWD.

What would the power curve on one of these look like? I'm all in favor of lower RPM anyway, so even after your explanation, I see it as a good thing. A 2.0 S/C 2 stroke should make roughly a little less than double the power ( taking into account supercharger losses) at a given RPM than a 2.0T 4-stroke. Knowing what today's 2.0t engines are capable of doing.... I am perfectly fine with a 5,000 rpm red-line. Any reason these couldn't be done in V configurations? I imagine the cylinder angle would have to be different than what we're used to with V6 and V8s today.

Simple reason you should care. A successful Malibu pays the bills so the Camaro can be even better. The reason we lost the F-body in the first place was because GM couldn't even make the Lumina/Impala sell well at at profit. If they can't get "bland" right for the target market, there is no hope for "EXCITEMENT!!!!"

Question: Reduced RPM verses what exactly? Reduced RPM verses a traditional 2-stroke I could see as being a good thing rather than a detraction. Even Honda owners don't want their engine buzzing away at 8,000 rpm all the time.

my friend Dominic "wholelottabuicks" on here wants one also.

The Civic is "all new" but any Jack on the street can't really tell the difference unless you park them side by side..... even then, it is seen as "just an update" It took Honda a good 5 years to get their 5-speeds to function properly in the first place..... even today they lack the smoothness that even the old GM 4-speeds have. Unless there was a press release that I missed, none of Honda's current offerings have direct injection. VTEC has fallen way behind as far as VVT technology goes. When Chrysler is leaving Honda in the dust on engine technology, you know the world has really turned upside down. They've done close to nothing to address the loudness of their cars over the road where Chevy, Chrysler, and VW have all made great improvements.

I didn't know it actually went into production.

I like the engine idea Dwight, but the 2.5 isn't even going to be here in time for launch, I don't think they could have incorporated your idea too. The reason they are putting BAS in right now is that the 2.5 isn't ready yet. Chevy was going to wait to launch the car till the 2.5 was ready, but Akerson said "Why? Why should we wait?" so the engine that is available now gets launched with the car 6 months earlier.

I think that was the single biggest botch right there. Not that Plymouth was a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or even a Saturn... they had a place in the lineup. They should have continued to be the cheap end of Chrysler and could have had the PT Cruiser as their unique vehicle. Instead we ended up with a muddled, directionless Chrysler that couldn't decided if it was super cheap or nicely luxury. Think of this, instead of a 2.7 powered 300 with felt seats and awful plastic wheel covers, it could have been a Fury. The Sebring could have been sold in only the loaded version and probably not taken so many knocks for its interior. Let Plymouth keep the Breeze in sedan form.

Well not entirely true. The Regal was always planned for sale in China. The Saturn was just going to be the Insignia we see today with the name scratched off. With the death of Saturn, GM just took the Chinese fascia and put it on the Opel.

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I've seen the interior in person, and I love the design.

The amount of errors in that article...... 1. No the 2.5 doesn't fill the role of the V6, GM never claimed this 2. Yes a turbo is coming. 3. Yes we can expect a price drop 4. A Malibu LS is $22,700, so the e-Assist would be additional over that, not the 1LT price of $23,300

We have a lot of Sprinter ambulances here. The non-sprinter ones seem to run Topkick or F-series SD cab..... so maybe the Econoline will be supplanted by greater chassis cab availability when really heavy duty is needed.

They are 0.4 inches different in length. But they aren't that comparable since the Regal is quieter, more comfortable, uses much higher quality materials, handles substantially better, and will last longer. Agreed totally!

As I thought this out, there are very few cars right now that don't fit this chart. The Challenger being one that jumps to mind first.... other than that... this is pretty much how it goes.

get another similar vintage... sounds like you already have a parts car lined up for your next miata.