hyperv6

What gets lost in the VW deal is they were told to make the cars work and with them failure is not an option. The leadership just expects results and that is what they gave them. I figure they knew they were going to lose their jobs anyways so they assumed the risk. I do not think the engineers expected as much trouble from the different regulating agencies and to be honest I think they expected to be retired before anyone caught them. The German mind set in business and failure is much different than many places.

Many states are losing money on gas tax and there are many plans on how to recover it. Oregon wants to charge you by the mile and the system is already sorted out. It is only a matter of time they will put it into play. Other will just keep raising the plate fees and other deals. Get used to it as CAFE goes up we will see more of this.

Sorry but Audi competes with Cadillac on some models but others there is no match on many of their global models and some here. They do offer much more in the low end more basic segment. If anything they compete more with Buick in price and image. Then the more expensive models come into play at Audi vs Cadillac. The Vette is the Vette and not a Cadillac and will never be a Cadillac. Just let that go. It has become its own deal but it at least in America will remain a Chevy. BMW was working the cheap end for a while but now appear to be making smaller cars but keeping the price up. Even in Europe you do not see the cheap models like the hatch 318 they used to make anymore. Benz still makes the cheap basic cars you see in fleet use and the low end market that never make it here. The CT6 is a nice car but with compromises. The car was build under duress of GM looking over their shoulder and was compromises just as the ATS and CTS. Also the size is way too close to the CTS and I think that hurts both their sales. I wished the CT6 was just a little larger. The Germans have stumbled as they have gotten comfortable with their place in the market. Now is the time to take it to them as the door is open just a bit. But it will take time to earn back the image and continued investment. What many missed on the move to NYC was that this put space between them and GM. No more board members popping into the design studio to offer opinions or snoop that lead to unwanted changes. It also provided space so they could hire their own staff of designers and engineers that only work for them. These are key elements that will help change the image and improve the product.

Well with Benz you can not judge their marketing based on what we see here as they market differently in different places globally. We see them only as a Luxury car here in other placed they are a Taxi with many models. They were only ever treated as a luxury brand accept in the early Studebaker years. They did have some basic models then that are forgotten since they are not worth restoring. Now here in the stated people use Benz and BMW as a statement of success much like Cadillac used to be. when I used to work in the bad part of town we had many people driving new Cadillac's that were worth twice the price of the homes the people lived in and they did it for image. To me globally Cadillac is at an advantage as they do not have to be the be all do all brand and can focus on one thing and only one thing only Luxury. But every market is different and there are no absolutes to any of this. Hell China treats Buick like royalty and here it is still struggling to change their image and a old persons car. We are not one world and we are not all alike in out taste and desires. Marketing needs to take this into account and each market is a brand new game. As for the Cheaper Porsche that did more damage than good in the long run. That is why the Boxster today is much higher priced than the 944 was. It is still the cheaper model but it is not more Corvette Stingray priced vs. Camaro. It is easy to compare Chevy to Honda to Toyota to Nissan to Ford. But move up the scale an the markets and companies operate much differently in much different volumes and circles. I am grateful that Cadillac is just focused on the mid to higher end things for their segment and not as much focused on the low end as they have Buick and Chevy to play clean up. This will make the image rehab a little less difficult as it is difficult enough now.

This is why most avoid the change. Dagen H http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dagen-h-sweden-1967/ Sweden had a large number of LHS cars already and even then old habits were hard to break. In the many places with the RHS now they have few LHS cars and the change would only be multiplied in difficulty. Who knows since most are small markets MFG may work to get them to change their minds but I just don't see it happening. The return of Cadillac will take time. First to get the new product in place and then working to change hearts and minds about the brand. It will take time as nothing changed over night like this. Some folks on the web think one car and one year will do it but that is not going to happen. They need to sell the brand image and how the self reflection of owning such a car puts the owner in a better light. Lets face it we could all live with a Impala but people go out and buy cars like BMW and Benz just because of the image it cast on them. Many feel it makes them look successful and well off even if they are just barely covering the lese payment. Selling these products are not unlike Cigarettes. I just saw a show the other day and how the Cigarette MFG all were selling the same tight tube of tobacco but needed to set them all apart. Hence we got things like the Marlboro Man to macho up the brand to appeal to men. The product was the same but the selling of an image people would reflect back on themselves is what changed. Cadillac today is building better products and even better are to come but to convince people to change their opinion will take investment and time. This is why they do all these odd Art Shows and fashion deals. While it may be a waste to us the enthusiast it puts the product in front of the people who set the trends in the circles that care [or superficial enough to worry about what they drive says about them]. They also have worked the business market as they want to cultivate that if you are successful you drive a Cadillac. They used to own this segment till people that were not successful began to drive their cars and it lost all meaning sitting in the Wal Mart parking lot as the owner was inside buying lottery tickets vs. brokering a big deal for the company. A classic case of marketing was cars like the 944. Not a bad car but it became a joke that if you owned a 944 that you could not afford the 911. The 924 was even worse as it said you really did not get it.

Let me translate. We are not going till the new updated vehicles firs arrive in America in the next few years and then we will go down under once we have them converted to RHD. Between the rebuilding of Holden. The arrival of the C8 in 2020 and by then Cadillac should have some RHD products that would do well. They are going as that is why Holden has no choice of their product and the fact nothing from Cadillac can or will be rebadged.

Here is what everyone else is reporting. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/marchionne-suggests-trump-might-support-merger-with-rival-gm For him to even bring it up suggest strongly he has not totally given up on this. If given any support this mental case would go down this road again. As for rushing product like the Dart into production? How long is long enough? GM had already brought out how many products since the chapter 11 that both went through and even when GM missed it was fixed pretty quick. Now we are even on to the second new platforms not just models. The fact is Sergio screwed Chrysler and Dodge on their cars and at this point he is looking for ways to fix it now that his Alfa and Maserati plan has failed. Just go back to where he predicted like 380K Alfa sales by last year and we are no where even close to 1/3 of that. This was to have saved FCA and right now if is in trouble. I just do not see how you can not be beside yourself mad at the lunatic running the company. My Mopar buddies would love to lynch him right in Auburn Hills. The whole Mustang/Probe deal was GM and Ford was looking to go all FWD in the 80's. GM First and then Ford was going to match them. In the end the Mustang was saved by high volume sales and they just could not kill the car. The enthusiast saved it not Ford. In the end after the deal with Mazda they just changed the name to the Probe and it served it's few years and faded away. GM in the mean time had the GM 80 FWD F body replacment. It was to have been built on the line with the Fiero as the plant was way under capacity. So GM was working on it to match the FWD Mustang. Well once Ford moved back to the Fox and planned to keep it GM did the same killing the GM 80. This in turn gave the Corvette guys the ability to point out the under capacity of the Fiero plant and nothing to move to that line and it was killed even with prototypes roaming around and they still have one and I have parts from it. The funny thing is the 1990 Fiero was used to style the 4th gen RWD F body. They up sized it and moved the engine but the lines are all there as well that is how some of the body panels ended up composite. There is still a lot more to all of this as it was a very intertwined deal. I have been lucky to speak to many who were in on this and hear the story that could not have been published,. The UAW and Pontiac were at odds for years as well as Pontiac and GM/Chevy too. But the Mustang end I remember very well as working in the performance industry we were making a lot of money from this and with our connections to Ford Motorsports we had some insight to all of this. They even were nervous on the move to the new Ford engines leaving the 5.0 behind. Many still regretted it till the Coyote came out. I would love to see someone write a tell all inside story on the performance cars from the 80's and 90's as there was much inter brand rivalry but there was almost internal war inside each company. The fights at Chrysler with Lido. Gale, Lutz and Shelby were amazing. At GM the divisions did more damage to each other than Ford or Chrylser. Ford also had their internal strife. They learned that you can let Chrysler can make a compelling design but slapping it on a poor Lancia or Fiat based platform was not enough. There is not cheap easy way out of this issue. They needed to let Chrysler do the platform just as the styling and do it right. Then they would have had a back seat with leg room and not had to squish it on a platform that was not bad but not great and too small. The Dart was just too little in a segment where it is tough to measure up even with a very good car.

We had one customer who made a Scrambler into a Dually. It really was a neat ride and the fiberglass fenders he used on the bed really blended in nice. It looked factory. I loved that thing till it rusted out. The prime problem with the Scrambler was the cargo room for the time was limited for the size and price. It was unpopular then but today would pose little problem with the mid size trucks today.

Sorry I did not think I had to explain my comment was only sarcasm comment. Well Sergio now is thinking Trump would want GM to merge with FCA now. This guy really needs to put down the meth pipe. Sarcasm. It is a telling comment as it shows he has no one wanting to partner with FCA at this point and may not find anyone that will be willing to partner. Not Sarcasm. It is bad when even the Chinese are not stepping in just for Jeep and the Trucks. Not Sarcasm. As for platforms I would not brag too much about being part Alfa. They have never really been know for durability, long term quality and reliability. Yes they have made some fun cars before they fell apart. Not Sarcasm. Sergio should have just given Chrysler and Dodge Engineers the money and let them do it all. Or do you have an issue with this? Not Sarcasm. I hope you can now follow and not get confused as usual. Sarcasm.

Will they be putting a big Vagina Grill on the Wrangler. Seriously, I am not sure this is a smart move as I have more faith in Chrysler engineering than Alfa/Fiat engineering. Do not disagree unless you have actually turned a wrench on a Alfa or Fiat.

We must remember that performance has come and gone over the years. In the early 70's they all dropped the Muscle cars like the plague. But yet there was a few lingering and then they came back. To be honest the prospects of Autonomous cars proves to be more of a challenge to performance cars as their whole existence is counter to everything a performance car is. Along with much more baggage few ponder as we are being marketed heavily on them. Few consider that you can be told when and were you can go. To control traffic for the common good you may get off work at 5 PM but you will have a slot to go home at 6 PM because that is what you are given. Some one takes over a Government they could control who goes where and when. You may be restricted to travel in your vehicle any time you like. While there are many positives there is also much we will have to give up for this boring generic utopia. To die with out experience is to have never lived.

While I hate to lose a RWD sedan I really just never fell in love with this car no matter how hard I tried. It has a nice chassis and a great engine but the styling left me cold and the weight and ability of the chassis just left much on the table. This would have been a great car in 2008 but now it is old and over weight. Pricing because of where it comes from and content made it difficult for Chevy to sell. It just never had that mean inspired look of the Impala SS of the 90's. It looked like someone took a cop car and tried to make it look nice. They did a better conversion with the G8. My hope is they do a global model for Chevy and Holden on the updated Alpha with Camaro underpinnings. Then toss in the Turbo 4 and V6 for the people just wanting a non sport model at a lower price. Sell it globally down under, N America, China, S Africa, South America and the middle East to leverage out the volume of scale. Replace the Impala with it.

No surprise here. It was only a matter of when not if. Now what will it look like as I do not expect the Show truck they keep showing.

Well you have to look at the people they have to sell to. The goal is to reach the widest number of people as possible and not lose anyone you had. I think they have done that here as it is still more square and male oriented but a little softer to take off that edge that hurt it with female buyers as they do buy over half of these things today. To me it is soft enough for a woman and tough enough so a man does not feel like he looks like his balls are in her purse. It is diverse enough to be set apart from the others in the GM line. Also you have to consider too that most of today's cars are not as good in photos as they are in person. I reserve final call till we see the in sheet metal. I expect this to sell in the same numbers the past one did and GM will do fine. Nothing else out there looks like it and it is less polarizing so they will be fine in the end. Lets face it the Jeep stuff in my opinion is not the most stylish and a coupe are just plain weird but yet they sell decent even with all the quality issues.

Never said any of them were good just said was worse. The only reason I hold Mc D higher is the fries but even they are not as good as they used to be. Swensons is the only one I like and they are only local here in NE Ohio. There is not a better burger in the world than what they have to offer. They have been around since the 30's and still have some of the best food ever for a drive in. They even still have curb service. they are mostly all around the Akron and Canton area. It is like Walmart we hate em and we complain but in the end we all end up there for something and the bad is the same no matter where you go. When they were forced to change the grease on the fries it really killed it for me.

They all suck. There is no right or wrong here as any choice can be easily confirmed.

It is still a Kia and it is in a segment of the market that is struggling for companies that even lead in this segment. Nice car and all but wrong time and place. Also no self image for the owner as you get with some of the higher end brands. At least not the kind of self image you would really want if you let your purchases reflect upon you. Lets face it that is what sells most German cars.

Burger King Hamburger Station White Castle Rallys Carls Jr or Hardees depending on where you live. Steak and Shake Jack in the Box I could list more as they are all about the same and lousy. If I have to eat at a chain it is Wendys where I get Chicken or Arbys. If I want a Burger I have two places I like. One is Way Back that is a small chain here in the east and Midwest. The best is here in Ohio call Swensons. It is the ultimate burger. Toasted buttered buns. The meat is home grown here and it has a mix of brown sugar in the meat. They are sweet. Even health nut Lebron James goes directly there as soon as the season is over and gets his fill. My only point is that Mc D is consistent and not the worst but yet far from the best. People trust to get the same thing no matter where they are in the world. My point is the Ford like Mc D is not the best or worst but trusted and people will buy it because of that and often the high incentives or cheap fleet pricing.

They made this and the new Acadia to appeal more to the center making one a little softer and one a little more truck like. But yet both are still very much different. I so far like this better than the Nox that appears more as a soft version but I need to see it in person for a final take. Photos have not really conveyed the new designs well. Now we need to know the real important stuff. Did they fix the vents for the back seat? The old one has poor heat and AC ventilation. My son complains all the time it is too hot or too cold. The seat while not flat is more flat with a folding front seat which is good. The shifter while not my choice is not all that big of a deal. The R and D are well defined. That is one problem many electric shifters lack and it has been causing issues with older drivers. The plus and minus is so if you are stuck you can shift the transmission to start in third or second gear. It used to be on the shift handle. That is not really a good move and paddles on the steering wheel would have been a better option. Not for performance driving but winter driving. I just used them on the Malibu the other day as it was so slippery that starting in third gear was needed. They did also well here offering a brown interior. I worried as too often GM offers several really dark colors and nothing else. This is what may make me buy a Canyon as the Colorado as of last time I looked did not offer a lighter interior. The Z71 was black only. What this comes down to is if you like the Nox you should not like this and if you like this you should not like the Nox. If GM accomplished this then they should be fine. Either way both will do really well in the market as even old and with nagging issues they still did very well. If not the Acadia will pick up the rest. Look for a LWB version of it now the Transverse is out.

The issue with Chrome today is it gets beat to hell with chips. Even most paint fairs better and you can touch it up. I change out the chrome on my GMC for winter not to take the blows. Also a little chrome is ok but this is just way too much. FYI scout there is much worse out there.

Not keen on the Chrome nose but the body color one is nice. Now sure why they still keep an antenna. A Car Wash the other day took the antenna and base and left a gaping hole in the fender in a story on TV last week. They claimed $6K for repairs which seemed a little high for just a fender. This truck will do fine as the F150 is like Mc Donalds and even if it is not the best hamburger but it is far from the worse and people will still go there out of loyalty and price.