Drew Dowdell

I have a feeling you'll end up disappointed with the Focus interior once you've sat in it. The Cruze's feels more expensive and is a more fluid and functional design. Cruze is going to have multiple body styles, they've already shown the hatch..... keep writing GM to make sure it comes here. Agreed, the goodwill Ford has will be a major factor in Focus sales. I don't think the Aveo will be "almost as good" as the Fiesta. I think it will actually be better. The Fiesta has a premium pricing problem that I don't know how Ford is going to address. But now we have Reuss. I think he is every bit as capable as Lutz... with less tenancy to run off at the mouth. It's the 2012 Malibu. You realize the current 'Bu has only been on sale since 2008. Four model years and it's being replaced on a newer platform? That's lightning speed for Honda much less GM. Uhm... what? How is it a marketing disaster? It went from being a design concept with a Tide bottle for an engine to a released vehicle on a new platform with a never-done-before-power-train in 4.5 years...

Which car is this? I haven't been reading the WhiteknightFleetWiki lately....

Incorrect. The Continental had a 2.4 liter I-6 turbo diesel option supplied by BMW from about '84 and '85. This engine was shared with the BMW 324d and 524 from 1985 - 1992

Important tip Dodge fan. If someone stops in to buy spark plugs for a 1985 Continental, do not ask them if it's the diesel.* *happened to me years ago

And there's a new Sonata... My point is that the primary looser in the mid-size segment since the Sonata's re-design has been the Camry. Some of that is the fault of Toyota and their Toyotaton of Death!!! earlier this year, but the new Sonata was simply at the right place at the right time when any Camry owners decided to defect.

First things first. The Focus will not "kill' the Cruze... it's simply not *that* much better. I suspect neither of them will light the sales charts on fire, but they'll do respectably. The Fiesta will do very well and initiate some hand wringing amongst the GM Fan crowd, but once the Aveo arrives at, my guess, a lower out the door price, Fiesta's impact will be muted. NOTHING that we can see spy pics of today was started post-bankruptcy. Even the pics in the 2012 Malibu thread are of a vehicle that was well under way when even Wagoneer was at the helm. It's far far far too early to judge GM's fate by the products we are seeing. What I think we could judge GM by, is it's ability to make changes when an issue crops up. Look at GM adding Equinox production to Oshawa to meet unexpected demand.... a move like that is not easy to orchestrate quickly.

Remember when Camry could sell 400k in a year? Here it is with August numbers and they're at 220k?

The problem with the Aura is that no one knew anything about it.... it could only survive on former SL and SC buyers for so long. I don't see anything inherently wrong with the interior in this spyshot, but I'll let you all know my opinon when I see it at the autoshows.

And the award for "Looking up the facts and not rambling off incoherently and uninformed" goes to..... If you look closely, you see who Hyundai is siphoning customers off of mostly....

Congrats! That'll be me in a year or so

Currency is just pre-printed checks... that's all it is.

You know, for all the crowing on C&G for how wonderful the Sonata is, you'd think there'd be more talk about the version that actually, you know, looks good.

So Loki. If I write a check for $10 and another for $100, does the $100 check have to be 10 times the size of the $10 check?

And goodbye Mr. Bot

If anything is an idiotic waste of time, it's trying to explain how currency works to Loki

Well, I think they only have about 250 potential dealers set up... so that's 14 trucks per dealer.

I've seen something similar to that, but on a NSFC&G website..... rhymes with freshflight

And we're done in here...

Fuel Injector?

I think the Tosca is still old Daewoo

yeah, what's up with that bang? Can you describe it more?

Yeah... I can't imagine any reason to want to replace the Daewoo Tosca....

one of Fiero swaps that always intrigued me was the 3.4 DOHC + turbo setup that seems to be common.

Not automotive, but still neat: The Norfolk Southern Executive E-units pulled through Pennsylvania Station in downtown Pittsburgh yesterday. I didn't get a picture of them, but here's one from the net.

Zeta II?