97regalGS

exactly what is a 2009 CTS-D?

cadillac is starting to be a bit of a disappointment. the NG CTS is awesome, BUT, the STS is bland, the XLR hasn't done as well as it could have, the DTS is an old, tired FWD platform Deville with a new nose and ass and the SRX is a complete dud in the market, espite winning C&D Luxury SUV for 3yrs in a row. the disappointment, is the lack of continual new product and expansion of the brand. NO alpha car yet. no BRX yet. no ULS yet. a teaser with the Cien. No coupe yet. No kappa. I mean really. get your brand strategy sorted out, develope the product mix and get on with it...... oh wait, Cadillac is not an independent company, they are part of GM who, unfortunatley has several other fires to deal with right now that are taking the necessary resources away from Cadillac. Pontiac, Saturn and Buick are all in various stages of product refreshes. end result, Cadillac is not getting where it needs to fast enough. it will be a decade before Cadillac has a line-up that starts to rival MB or BMW.

i think the Cien should be supreme supercar at GM and the corvette should be, well, the corvette.

that article, while amusing and an interesting read, doesn't provide one stitch of evidence about the future of alpha. i love when writers just throw one line quotes and then folks latch onto it like it is gospel.

Alpha is the rumored small RWD architecture that will spawn vehicles for Cadillac and Pontiac, maybe others. specifics aren't known, but 3Series size seems reasonable.from a cadillac perspective, it will lineup their vehicles more closely with their european competitors. an alpha cadillac will help push the cts up market, while at the same time the 2008 CTS itself 'pulls itself' up-market, with more content, a brilliant interior and less polariziing exterior.

clearly adding those little GM badges to all the cars is working!

interesting. let's wait another 6months and see what kind of impact this has on sales

you want smaller RWD? wait for alpha! (not direct at you northstar, just a comment on the 'HOPE' of alpha!)

wait 10yrs til you guys get married and have kids. then you need to drive your kids and a friend of theirs or two. voila, 3rd row req'd. as northie and croc have said, it's not for daily use. just like the ability to pull 400lbs in an Envoy isn't a daily req't. but when u need it, you need it. and by the way, that's why the third row is OPTIONAL.

i have no idea what you are trying to say.

BRX

it is not ending production. it is being 'Shelved'.

i'm no mnfg expert, but don't think there is such thing as 'modular' platform.however, recognize that the strategy go forward is to become a truly GLOBAL company, with competency centres for specific platforms located around the world, with minimal to no changes for each region. vechicles may be produced in multiple locations, but aside from sheet metal and interior bits and suspension tuning they are the same. the scenario you describe "platform could be in the works: something to accomodate several body styles, sizes " sounds like Epsilon. Malibu, Maxx, G6, Aura, 9-3. two door, 4-door, and wagon with 2 discrete wheelbases. however, epsilon was bastardized by each region that produced them so that there were signifcant cost overruns on the program and epsilon, in the end, was not a GLOBAL platofrm. epsilon 2 will address and correct that.

please go back and re-read posts by hudson, evok, chazman and northstar for production quantities at oshawa and predicted volumes.then come back and tell me you want GM to invest MILLIONS of dollars in the Pontiac plant, or any other plant for that matter.

yes, some potential overlap between chevy and pontiac. where else could alpha vehicles go that would have less of an direct impact to chevy? hmm, i wonder. maybe a little start-up brand that has completely re-done and updated their line-up in the past 18months, to include a roadster, a hatch, a family sedan and a crossover, but no rwd sedans. Say a brand that despite lacklustre product, still has an amazing, untarnished brand image(unlike Pontiac) and makes it on the shopping lists of Toyota and Honda. Yes, Saturn. I'm not sure of plans, but if kappa merges with alpha, then Sky could co-exist with a sedan at your saturn dealer. Solstice moves to chevy or perhaps SAAB. add a folding hardtop and mabye a baby XLR for cadillac. G8? again, Saturn. gives saturn a nifty car line-up.

had a longer post, but somehow nuked IE and lost it!my point was, GM wants to produce vehicles locally on global platforms, as much as it makes sense. reduce plants. the capitall assets are a huge drain on the financials. build large, flexible facilties than can deal with swings in market demand/supply. so, zeta should be a global architecture. but the benefit of that is not the ability to shift production for the markets where those plants are located. it would be a nightmare to manage Impala production between oshawa and AU. the benefit is to (a) streamline and minimize development costs as it would be only 1 architecure globally (not 4 like epsion turned out to be) (b) supply export markets with vehicles from two different plants. ie. Don't build zeta in europe. but, holden could produce 4-door zetas for Opel and oshawa could produce 4-door zetas for UK -- or something along those lines. but you won't see camaros rolling off the line in AU anymore than you'll see Ute rolling off the line in oshawa. the markets for those vehicles is to small to justify the additonal cost of local production. they'll just ship them back and forth. if G8 can sell in enough quantity to justify the aditional cost to tool up oshawa for a 5th vehicle, then they will do it. and that would be a good thing, assuming all 5 vehciles were hot sellers and had their release dates staged correctly. supply could be managed appropriately to keep demand at the right level. that is of course assuming two of the things that evok described occur - (1) the public WANTS the cars and is willing to PAY for them and (2) it is not cheaper for GM to make the damn cars and discount the $h! out of them than to pay the UAW to sit on their ass and read the newspaper. finally, perhaps not directly related to the option to produce G8 in oshawa is the future of Pontiac itself. I'd say that brand is still not out of the woods. if G8 fails miserably, then I'd say Pontiac is in trouble. while the rumored alpha program could be a godsend for Pontiac, the reality is GM has a bunch of other brands that could benefit from the vehicles that would come from that platform (SAAB, Saturn, Chevy, Buick, Cadillac could each have an alpha vehicle in their line-up). If G8 flops, that leaves Pontiac with the Solstice, which will see sales slide to some degree, the G6(GXP coupe is disgusting) and I don't think there is a NG G6 confirmed - is there? the Cobal.. I mean G5. The GP is almost gone, the SV6 is gone, the Vibe... no idea, and the Torrent likely goes to GMC. I mean really, the brand is in taters, held together with binder twine and chicken wire.

well they could. but don't lose any sleep waiting for it.

the only difference being that Holden already had a RWD platform that could be used/modified, and, there was a ton of discussion/speculation amongs the 'insiders' about what was really going on with RWD for NA. neither of those two things exist at at this time as it relates to Chi. (lambda was supposed to have other applications - minivan specifically, but in typical GM fashion the they missed the timeline and over-spent the budget. i don't think that lambda was ever considered as a FWD car platform). maybe when Epsilon 3, the swiss army knives of vehicle platforms, debuts with it's FWD, AWD, RWD possibilities and wheelbases stretching from 90" to 135" a large FWD car will once again adorn GM dealers.

all i'm saying is that it is a non-story. there are no more firm plans to move G8 prod'n to oshawa than there are for lutz to retire tomorrow. it might happen someday, but it certainly isn't decided yet. i'm no insider, but i do have some common sense and hang around here often enough to get the jist of what's going on. and today, Feb 13 2007, the comments that make the most sense and hold the most credence are those from evok, northstar, chazman. re: your comments about oshawa and AU both able to build zeta. ya, that makes sense. however, the ability to shift camaro prod'n to AU to handle increased demand, while interesting, is extremely difficult to manage based on a whole bunch of variables. the most obvious being, it cost a little bit more to put a bunch of camaros on a boat and sent them across the pacific and then to load them on trains, than it does to just load them on trains in the first place. not to mention exchange rates, etc etc. seems more likely to me that it would be far easier to manage production variabilty by increasing/decreasing additional shifts within the same plant than trying to manage two plants 10,000 miles apart. or even just changing the production mix within the plant. camaro hot, throttle back on the Impala for a couple days. i don't know the specifics of oshawa capacity, but based on the numbers bandied about, but sounds like all 4 cars would have to be huge runaway successes before a second plant would be needed for NA demand. want to get really funky with efficiency then build a plant that assembles multiple cars on multiple platforms on the same line. impalas one day, malibus the next. is that constructive enough?

another classic C&G thread a couple of folks speaking truth. there are no plans confirmed at this time. and a bunch of others creating a frenzy around wild commentary and speculation by lutz that doesn't in the least, address any specifics the hypers, i mean hypesters would hope to portray. (the G8 coming to oshawa)

BRILLIANT!!! anyone on here drive a pickup and live in Alabama?

WHAT??? 2010? That's even worse!!

This car would be more successful as a Saturn than as a Pontiac! Why? Brand Perception in the marketplace. Pontiac doesn't have it. Saturn, despite the lousy product and lack of product in the past 15yrs, does.

Summer 2009? So another 2+yrs. And the Blue Devil has been seen in various mule formats (according to Josh) for years!! How long does it take to get this thing to market?

i think that design direction was nuked. (pure speculation) i belive the volt contains a lot of the look, especialy the front end, of the new impala. (pure speculation)