HarleyEarl

I think it's the new Oldsmobile Alero.

Saturn will not survive. Too much, too late. Perceptions die hard. It can take a generation. GM hasn't the time to wait. The wholesale changes hasn't resulted in many sales. Just import them as Opels and be done with it.

I like these Chrysler vans way better than anything previous. The current generation is so dated, boring, bolbous, beached whale looking. The way they should market these vans is simple. Don't call them mini-vans. That term is slowly becoming poison. Call them crossover vans or something similar. They will do very well with these new vans. Chrysler invented the segment and still does it well. GM never did get it right. The latest crop of near identical clones were a dismal failure. I've never detested a GM vehicle more than this awful group of crap.

I love the SRX, it is transformed by the bigger wheels. It's become very popular here, see so many of them. It always grabs my attention. Congratulations on a great choice.

Good:

Maybe something like this?

Photos don't do the new BMW 3-Series coupe justice. It's a beautiful car in the flesh, especially in white. Great surface details, perfect proportions. Looks good in motion, it always turns my head.

The Sebring has to be up there with the most unattractive cars in history. Terrible profile, shame-on-them fake blacked out area rear side window, tailights that defy any logic or good taste....like two different designs slapped together, distracting door cutouts into the roof, that don't relate, one could go on and on...how does something like this make it through to production?! Who actually greenlights such a car?, there is no end to the ugliness of this vehicle.

I just can't understand why other manufacturers seem to bring on new entry level models so effortlessly and for GM it's always years away, often appearing unsure. This car should have been here already.

The 1961 Pontiac will always be my favorite. Pure Pontiac. Pure General Motors. Pure American. Now this is a two door, pillarless hardtop. Beautiful.

Let's not be too hard on that Volvo beside the CTS. GM cars of that era looked very much like it.

GM needs to stop cavorting with the enemy and end this relationship with Toyota. I just don't get it.

It's a very nice CTS. Acceptable. An improvement on the last generation. But I long for the day when Cadillacs will not be just acceptable, but sensational. I find the rear on this, like the current one to be too vertical and narrow in proportion. I'd like to see Cadillacs return to the the horizontal look with very slim upright tail lights.

Honestly, I'm so confused. First, Saturn wanted to be an import fighter. Non-American in sensibility. Then it started to die a slow death. Now it's becoming an Opel clone, which are from Germany. When did it become 'American'? They need to rethink this. Just because they say something, doesn't make it so. Image and heritage make long lasting impressions in people. They need to stop treating customers like they are stupid. Saturn's image is becoming so incoherent and muddled. If they are to be successful, they need a clearly defined reason for being.

I did a little test of some dealerships in the area, as to their treatment of a customer walking in. Dismal. Honda, Pontiac/Buick, you name it. Infiniti, just the most arrogant, uppity approach. It makes you wonder if customers go to the dealership that is least objectionable and make their purchase there. The best of a bad lot. The only one that made some effort was Saturn. GM could make the perfect car and perfect marketing and still be let down by the lowly, inept car salesman and his mentoring general manager and dealership.

Automobile dealerships. Love-hate relationships. I don't want them to go away, Some don't realize their marketing potential. There is a massive GM dealership I go by each day. But it drives me crazy the way it's so hodegbodge. The showroom is a potpourri of Cobalts, Cadillacs, Corvettes, Silverados, all mixed together, no rationale. No special place for Cadillacs and Corvettes. No spotlighted areas, nothing to entice you in. The lot is no different, immediately around the main showroom. Nothing special to grab your eye. Totally disorganized visually. It sounds trivial, the presentation thing, but I think it's more important than one thinks. There is an older GM dealership in Edmonton, Alberta, north of here, near downtown. They have such a knack of highlighting their showroom vehicles. The large windows are right at the sidewalk level and they spotlight Cadillacs, Corvettes and other special GM vechicles so well....effectively lit, they sparkle, you want to go in, you want that car in the window. Totally sexy, glamourous effect. Many modern dealerships are so ineffective in their presentation of what they sell.

'68'...you are so right, photos of this car are very rare. Tough time finding some. Oh and did I say, I'm a big Hudson fan. They had such a solid, broad shouldered, American stance about them. At one time the Hudson Motor Car Company sold 300,000 cars a year. This is the pillared Club Coupe. Wanted to show it, just because it looks so good. The unique shape of the rear window and a butt that just won't quit. Sexy.

Hey Balthazar, doing ok here...was away for awhile, busy with life, but lurking around here occasionally. Glad to see you and others are looking after things at C&G. Here's another hardtop: The clean and understated '51 Hudson Hollywood.

Sometimes cars do that to me...entering them, driving them....total wood.

...and I wonder if they had to assemble the cars themselves? Some GM in Sweden facts: >GM has been doing business in Sweden for some 80 years >GM constructed a factory in Stockholm and from 1927 to 1956, they built Chevrolet, Cadillac, Vauxhall and Opel

Too funny...I've heard that phrase before, 'hero to zero'....and never a more apt description of a salesman. You might sell the most cars in a day...even set a record for one day sales and then next month, it's all but forgotten. I say, if you want to sell Chevrolets, then do it... even with all the challenges, there are still rewards, like you are always around new cars and trucks all the time, the new car smell, driving them, caressing them, is it hot in here?