Cortazzo

Ahh, i'm glad GM is finding the turbo-religion! I'm not a big fan of the supercharger quite as much. I think the turbo gasoline engine is what is going to carry us forward until we get to hydrogen. You get the big boost of power when you need it, and the 4-cyl economy when you don't. Plus it's much lighter weight than adding a 6 or 8 cylinder. I personally feel that pontiac should have a motor similar to this in the G6 instead of a big 3.9l (that gets pretty poor mileage, even for a performance application).

This being the tip of the iceberg sounds quite ominous to me, now i'm really curious. If GM finally consolidates it's 8 million platforms to a few like Nissan with fewer better engines and transmissions maybe they can be the turnaround story of the decade too.

All of the recent popular mechanics sketches have been very ugly, but fairly close. Think of the really ugly buick and impala sketches

I can't picture a chevy lineup with a fwd malibu and impala, and THEN a rwd sedan somewhere inbetween. My guess is that that chevy RWD sedan will be an Impala, as the refreshed version ends production in 08 or 09, just in time for the oshawa plant to convert to RWD. Both the 'camaro' and a rwd impala would be built on the same line replacing the fwd impala and monte carlo. OR If they didn't need the chevy sedan to be terribly high in volume (and keeping both the malibu and impala FWD), they can convert spring hill to full RWD production to produce a camaro, 'chevelle', and rwd buick and pontiac sedans. Spring hill has more than enough capacity, and by 2009 Vue production will probably move, leaving both production lines available, with about 400k unit capacity available for RWD goodness.

The jobs bank has got to go, that is the biggest problem i have with the UAW, that and not paying anything for healthcare. Their salaries aren't rediculous when taken without benefits. Once the jobs bank goes, and they renegotiate the contract, Delphi comes out of bankruptcy as a lower cost provider of GMs parts, and their new cars and trucks replaces the age old trucks they are selling right now, I bet GM can comeback and be profitable for the future.

The problem with the auto industry is that you can't tell that improvements are being made until the new products reach production, which can take years. All of GMs new products are doing relatively well, G6, HHR, cobalt, LaCrosse are doing as well or better than their predecessors. I'm confident the t900s will own what's left of the large SUV market, and the pickups will probably steal some share as well. The current SUVs are where most of the incentive dollars are, so once the new ones are out, GMs total incentive spending should plummet (so they'll stop most of the bleeding). GM just needs to get rid of the rest of their 'dogs'. Namely the Grand Prix, it needs a complete redesign yesterday. I've already mentioned the old trucks. I'm not 100% the new impala and monte can hold their weight beyond a year or two. I don't think they have enough visual appeal to stand out in the market. Hopefully they'll be moved to a RWD platform by the end of the decade, and the redesigned (and supposedly very hot) new malibu can pick up the slack for chevy. The new crossovers will be huge i feel, and saturns new lineup will be a winner. So, i think if GM can hold out for 2006 limping along on the current product, the big introductions in the next two years should bring them back.

GM can and very well might go bankrupt. 10 years ago no one ever thought Toyota would overtake GM globally in sales, and it could happen next year. Ford and GM need to cut serious capacity, and toyota is building new factories every years. This isn't a pretty situation for our home team. If GM sells off 51% of GMAC, it loses it's excuse to not be profitable making cars. It's going to be really hard for GM to stand a grand turnaround when they are shedding staff like crazy, do you think anyone with half a brain is going to want to stick around and wait for a pink slip? And no new young talent is making its way to 'the tubes' either. I think GM needs to give up the ghost on being the largest producer of passenger cars in the world. What it should do is create a large parts bin of flexible parts and systems, and give each brand a great deal of autonomy to bolt different combinations of them together to meet market needs. Example, pontiac (the 'sporty' brand) has fairly bland engines in most of its lineup. How about using a parts bin turbo-ecotec instead of a 3.5 HV engine? Turbos are generally considered to be sportier than a mildly tuned 6, and it could give a little more credibility to the g6 lineup for example. Buick should have access to the general's wealth of high feature 6's and v8's of all sorts because most luxury buyers expect effortless acceleration in their rides. GM has a large global pool of platforms to use, from large to small in all drive configurations. We should be able to build a basic chasis anywhere in the GM global empire and ship it to any global facility for final assembly. RWD's should be shipped from Australia, sporty FWD chasis should be sent in from europe, and we should be sending pickup and SUV chasis globally. GM has squandered their global size advantage up until recently, hopefully they'll wake up soon and take advantage of their resources.

I think the rake of the sides is too great to be that of a BoF SUV, it just looks like it was styled off of a car platform. It looks fabulous BTW. That interior could easily go in a lexus. As far as the need for the gmt360s, i agree that they seem almost superflous at this point if we're having v8 powered lambdas. But chevy doesn't get a lambda (right now), so they would still need the trailblazer. If they can redesign it, make it lighter with a 6-speed and greater fuel economy i don't think most buyers care if it's body on frame or unibody based. I'd just think GM would be better off getting more economies of scale by just giving chevy it's own lambda and leave the body on frame people with a tahoe or a silverado, or a colorado if they want something a little smaller.

Right now GM is seriously undervalued considering the assets it owns. Kirk is smart to move in in a big way here. Each new car out of GM is getting better and better looking, hopefully market share will stabilize and they can adjust volume accordingly.

I really think the current gen tahoe is one of the niceset looking SUVs out there, so I will admit I am dissapointed with the exterior style, maybe the z71 package will imporve things or a different color perhaps. Like everyone i thought it would be 6-speeds across the board, but they still manage to get 20+ mpg COMBINED. And there is very little economy cost to get the 4x4, (20.1vs20.5). Hopefully, once production of the 6-speed is fully ramped up it can spread to the rest of the line as well and further improve MPG. One thing Chevy knocked out of the park is the interior, it makes anything but high end lexi and the like look cheap in comparison, not that an LTZ is a cheap vehicle by any means. The killer interior with the far and away class leading economy should be able to keep full-size SUVs tenable money makers for GM in the short-medium term. Ford is in big trouble it seems...

This is beautiful, and to think that Toyota was going to RAISE their prices on new cars to HELP GM out. Toyota is such a compassionate company... java script:emoticon(':P') smilie

I could see a camaro being as little as 22k (for a real stripper car though), i betcha that GM's cost on either a 5.3 or 4.8l smallblock is a lot cheaper than Ford's 3v OHC v8s for starters. GM also has better productivity than ford (don't know about the auto alliance plant where the stang is built in particular though), especially in its newer plants that could keep costs down. And don't forget the total value promise, or whatever they call their lower MSRP strategy. If they wanted to keep camaro production low, they could concievably build zeta chasis's in australia and send them over for final assembly in the USA.