Drew Dowdell

And when was the last time you saw an Olds ad before their death. Maybe once or twice for the Intrigue, but nothing else. GM didn't even try. They simple expected to know to go to the Olds dealer. You know I've never ever seen an advertisement for the second gen Aurora? I see the same freaking Passat commercial 5 times in an hour TV program. Advertising the Intrigue with the X-files? They're going for the 28-34 male geek segment and wondering why they can't sell cars. No, there was nothing wrong with Oldsmobile that wasn't also wrong with the rest of GM. They had the best of each platform. Olds was simply neglected by the GM marketing machine.

What your co-worker is experiencing is disappointment through misleading advertising. What Toyota and Honda are doing with their upper end hybrids is using the hybrid system in place of a supercharger. It's a way for them to get better 0-60 performance without any sacrifice in efficiency. Honda even admits to this when talking about the Accord. They are giving the customer what their cake and letting them eat it too.

Well lets see at it's death Oldsmobile was widely regarded as having: The best of G-bodies in the Aurora, also thought to be GM's finest at the time. The best of the W-bodies, the LaCross only comes close in it's highest levels of trim. The most luxurious of the vans and GMT-360s. Just try telling me that the 9-7x and Rainier combined are outselling Bravada. Oh and splitting the vans from three models to four models.... splended idea. The best of the N-bodies, though admitedly, the Grand Am didn't set the bar too high.

Of course they didn't. Olds had a unique position within GM. They weren't "Grandpa" like Buick. They weren't "Boy-racer" like Pontiac. They weren't "lower-class" like Chevy and they weren't "too expensive" like Cadillac. They were tastefull and understated. There was, and still is, nothing to directly replace Olds in the lineup. Put it this way, if Ford killed off Mazda, would the former Mazda customers automatially start buying "sport Mercurys"? I don't think so.

or like that Camry (SE?) commercial with the car racing around the city like it's the General Lee.... except no one is chasing it....

The most the Ridgeline did was put another nail in the Baja coffin.

It's a truck not a sports car. It's ment to haul things. If it can't do that it's not much of a truck is it?

Edited for clarity.

R-Class, Raider, Eclipse, Passat <won't do as well as planned>.

I've seen a number on the road here. I've driven one and I really liked it for it's purpose. No, it's not as nimble as my CTS, but it's not ment to be either. That said, it's still handles well for such a large car <just as the Lucerne is reported to by Edmunds>. It will suit it's target market well.

Something else rarely pointed out. After GM "pulled the plug" on the EV-1 they tried to round up the vehicles out there. Many of the owners didn't want to give up the car. Some resorted to hiding them and GM had to threaten legal action to get a few of the cars back. There was an association of EV-1 owners that petitioned GM to allow them to keep their cars and waive GM of and liablity regarding them

GM might be later, but their final product is cheaper and simpler. GM was slow with VVT in their engines, but the final product is simple and elegant in it's function, so much so that it makes the iVTEC, VVTi and VANOS look like Rube Goldberg machines. GM was not the inventor of front wheel drive. I'm not sure who first, but Cord had a front wheel drive in the 30s. Cord's was quite complex and quite unreliable. GM took the idea simplified it and made it work so well that these days we have to listen to most of you dolts whining about it!! :P :P :P The IMA in the VUE looks like it will follow this same pattern.

I've been buying GM stock regularly since it tanked. They are still paying $2 a share dividend, and I have a good feeling they'll be back.

Actually a Civic hybrid is only about $1,600 more then a loaded Civic <previous generation's numbers>. With the tax breaks figured in, you hit break even somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 miles depending on fuel cost.

Pontiac doesn't have the pretentiousness of Acura. If they made a Delta based Cadillac that was a badge swap, then you'd have a case.

I can't believe they get away with that.

Oh yeah!? Well Saab spends about 75% of their ad budget on advertising cars. The rest is spent on advertising they were once an airplane company.

Northstar Have any of you heard a CTS-V light one up? It's sweet music to guys like us.

Oh yeah, I've seen a bunch of them too. They're so commonplace here, I forget they're that new already.

I would like to attend

I see more Milans then Fusions <never have seen a Fusion on the road, only at a dealer>. Milans I actually see driving around. I've never seen a Zepher. I see 500s and Montego's about equally. I've seen 5 or 6 DTSes. I've seen a 2 or 3 of the "new face" malibu. I've seen only 2 Avalons and they've been out a while. Only have seen 1 new Civic, but it was being driven by dealership service department staff.

Perhaps I missed it, but they didn't mention the flip and fold rear seats at all. I think that is a wonderful selling feature over the competition.

When are ya getting one Chris?

Much of his analysis is flawed. Point 1: If you're looking to replace a paid off car anyway. You don't compair the price of the new car to the price of the paid off car. The paid off car will always win! Even if it's an '81 Delta 88 Diesel. Point 2: You always compair the hybrid to the non-hybrid version of the same model. In the event that there isn't a non-hybrid version. One must compair to a car in the same EPA size class Which in the case of the Prius is the Camry, not the Corolla. Point 3: You always compair cars with similar equipment. I've seen compairson where the Civic hybrid is compaired to the base Civic, while completey ignoring the fact that the Hybrid civic is fairly well equiped. Point 4: You always calculate cost advantage over milage, not time. How many miles will it take you to break even. If that number is 20,000. It'll take me one year while it will take my grandmother 3 years to hit the same number.

Aye..... the joke sensors are offline captain, I canna give 'em any more power or they'll blow apart! </scotty>