regfootball

that looks like 90's/00's GM style plastic.

http://www.autoblog....n-five-flavors/ Fugly with a big capital F!!!!! at least the coupe is. look at that horrible front window execution. look at the ghastly dash! 2012 compact rankings tier 1 Focus, Cruze, Elantra tier 2 Jetta, new Impreza, Mazda3, Kia Forte tier 3 Lancer, Sentra tier 4 Corolla, Civic

crossovers are hot sellers. audi, mercedes, lexus, all drive a large if not the most business through crossovers. mini even has them now. you are not an automaker if you do not have crossovers. Porsche.

it's already a second gen model! maybe it will be held captiva to return to its roots!

i worked in what was supposed to be a creative industry and i was constantly amazed at how creativity was muzzled, either in a work sense or a management sense. the ones that ascend are indeed like as the article describes. people who recognize those with creative smarts, seek quickly to squash them and in the process make themselves look good.

yeah, i've run across plenty of this too.

I do believe the current gen thumbs their nose at education, but part of the fault lies with the parents providing them every distraction and tons of bad examples in terms of not demonstrating the importance of it. but give the kids credit, they already know that all the education in the world can turn out to be a bag of $h! in terms of actually helping you for your position in life in the future. After seeing their parents lose jobs despite trying to do the right thing and be continuously educated.....and after knowing that there are no jobs for them even if they go to school and live with parents til 25....they may still be working at Smart Tech or schlepping pancakes at iHop while others coast in their careers because of every other factor besides how educated and capable they are. Our collective capacity for education is boundless. Our corporate, economic, political, and cultural system in the US can't begin to absorb, utilize, or reward hardly any of it. I almost don't blame kids for thinking their time is better spent playing video games sometimes.......or watching movies on their 20 dollar Walmart DVD players made in the far away land in sweat shops with underage labor. How cheap will Blu Ray players be soon?

http://www.cnn.com/2...l?iref=obinsite it's not rewarded or valued and it won't get you anywhere is GM the poster child for this? LOL

renderings per vince's site. not sure who did them http://www.burlappca...ustrations.html mods may post the pics when they get them accord meets current malibu + some lacrosse in the greenhouse

DEATH TO THE MULTIFUNCTION STALK

minimum standards evolve

'he owns his Mig and is not afraid to use it' the jet flies in, the jet flies out.....

Buick is now sport injected, i fail to see how a 5000 pound barge fits the mold. meanwhile, GMC has a long history of this type of vehicle, big and bulky. no one fears any conflict between the yukon and acadia now. this is GM tripping on its multibrand feet again. of course if the enclave was downsized to an SRX sized vehicle plus third row then there would be issues with that also. i suppose this means cadillac will get a third row lambda now, messing this up even more. part of the issue that is being addressed here but not spoken about is how 3 row vehicles will take a big hit in the market with the economy still in the crapper and epa / econazis forcing smaller vehicles down our throats. this isn't a problem if they just limit production of either the enclave or acadia. i would limit enclave production to something small and just make it more exclusive.

oh hey, i am very interested in hearing how it turns out on the cobalt. i like the zippiness of the cobalt but anything that can uptick the mpg these days is worth a look.

you can't fault the GM lifers for patting themselves on the back thinking they did a major upgrade over this......

the Enclave is the one that should be downsized, the Acadia should remain on Lambada. GM is being stupid again. As far as the Terrain, the next iteration of the Terrain will likely be downsized even though its a nice size right now.....at least in weight and pork. Why can't we just get a long wheel base epsilon crossover?

the spenders in the market have expressed a preference for true crossovers over wagons........ i doubt the 9-5x would be much less heavy than a 9-4x is. what Saab can do to make the 9-4 really distinct is put a nice turbo four diesel in it, or just a no holds barred 4 popped gas diesel here.

i will assume these trucks will be made elsewhere with slave labor and wages and thus neither volume of units or price will be a huge factor as far as production. my concern is the design will not be American truck enough and will lose sales either being inadequate, or looking foreign or dorky or something like that. My preference would be to resurrect the love and upgrade the S-10 / Colorado to a Dodge Dakota size or a tiny tish smaller. on the single row trucks, make it spacious. In fact, I might even just sell the extended cab standard (not a true extended cab with jump seats, just a cab with more leg room and more space behind the seats) and not bother with a cramped regular cab. 4 door cab is the lone option. I would offer the 2.5 4 pop and a v6 and that would cover it all. two tranny options. 6 speed auto, 6 speed man. AWD optional. I suppose you'd have to offer a short and a long box. I do like step boxes. The 2.5 would have an mpg pacakge, i may even be tempted to make it a 2.0......... I would Target a 2wd work truck at 15k........add automatic and A/C and maybe its at 17k.....after that you could tweak the pricing to make your money. You'd have to have a couple versions of the truck to advertise as fleet or loss leader trucks.

9-4x was still needed for the bims and buffies of malldom. those richies, that is the only way some of them stay connected to the M/B, BMW, Volvos of the world. Saab Outback....hehe

see I totally disagree. 500 bucks more spent on the car may mean 500 less in incentives to move it out the door. i guess record bonuses serve the customer more than enhancing the product. any improvement on a product has to have a cost / benefit / ROI analysis. Of course they have to make the business case for the improvements but in this case I see management as just being dumb and lazy and lacking foresight and not caring about the repercussions to the brand. I actually never saw PROOF they had to make the powertrain switch. In my mind, it's justified because it improves the product. Not because it satisfied Dan's itch to consolidate engines. I have a hard time believing you can justify the powertrain switch before you can justify changing seat cloth or gauge faces. another example of how completely asinine the decision making must be at GM. they can't even put a real steering wheel and seats in the Corvette, which sells at prices or 55, 60, 70k and up. they put a unique steering wheel in the new camaro but botch the function. So now they put in what is a new Cruze parts bin wheel that has no style match to the rest of the interior. And yet the ZL1 will prob sell for 60k plus. So the Camaro has had (after like a 7 year absence) now two steering wheels, and neither of them are right for the design or the car. GM wasted money on design and engineering efforts both times and couldn't solve the problem. To top it off, there never was a thought of a NAV screen in the Camaro. Even though very few people will spend 2k on it there should have been a space alloted in the dash for a large display.....clearly auto design was trending that direction. NAV had been out long before the Camaro hit production. HHR, they put window switches on the dash, and then they finally wise up and put em back on the door. How much $$$$ did they spend not doing it right to begin with? Cruze, door lock switch is on the dash. What are they gonna pay to fix that screw up? G8 window switches on the console, why didn't they wise up and put em on the door where they were supposed to be? We could excuse this crap for Mitsubishi. How is it the world's largest car company bankruptcy or not has to be continually subject to this sort of management? No wonder everyone used to mock GM all the time. I saw a gorgeous red G8 today that had just gone through the car wash. Why it stayed clean is odd since the massive snow is melting in the 40 degree sun. The car was so stunning and I am like, they couldn't find a way to keep selling this car here some way? Does it really have to go away for 5 years before it comes back? I actually am looking forward to seeing how the Impala moves out with the 3.6.......but I suppose there won't be any tweaks to the ride and handling either.

yet bob lutz said if chrysler had spent 200 dollars more on the interior of the 300M per car it would have been a knockout instead of merely average. VW if they would have spent a dollar more on each door insert in the new Jetta would have made a huge difference. If GM pays 75 bucks for an Impala shifter right now I have a hard time believing to redesign it or at least tweak a bit would could 275 bucks. The Malibu got a new shifter this year and no one complained about the cost of that. To change the stupid looking gauge faces on the cluster would hardly cost them more than a couple bucks. To simply change the seat cloth, and plastics grain and quality and put decent plood in there instead of the garbage that is in there now would hardly classify as a hardship and it wouldn't require little if any redesign. Go sit in a 2010 Mazda6 interior (puke) and then go sit in a 2011. Subtle but significant changes and now its not barf anymore. Chevy needs to take the same approach. Everything sensory needs an overhaul. the seat fabric, the plastics, the gauges, the radio and CC, the shifter, the steering wheel. If Hyundai can ante up the funds to choke out a whole new interior on maybe a couple hundred thousand cars on a dying exterior design, then GM can certainly choke up a little bit of dough for an interior makeover to go along with the powertrain revisions. GM is the world's largest car company this is a project that their middle managers and their summer interns should be able to do in their sleep.

Avenger and 200 are tweeners as the old Sebring and Stratus were. Something like a Kizashi or a TSX is probably a tweener. They did an ok job making lemons out of lemonade with the 200. I just hope it drives better now. The Sebring I drove at a ride and drive about 3 years ago was complete barf.

cruze LS residual is set absurdly high right now, like 56% and it has cheap interest. there is also a lease subsidy. And according to info elsewhere, it seems like on the LS model, GM is waiving the down payment for some folks too off the advertised lease. BUT YOU CAN'T GET CRUISE on the CRUZE LS! Dealer i was at a couple weeks ago said Regal resid was 50% however there is a 3100 lease subsidy plus cheap interest. Both cars are HEAVILY incentivized on leases right now and you're almost a fool not to. In the case of the Regal, Lease that 28k car....it's 14k after 3 years. In 3 years that car will be on a used lot for 18k or more. So you can buy the car cheaper, or sell it and make a profit, all while having 3 fully warrantied years of hassle free lease of the best miles of the car. IMO you cannot pass up the Regal deal right now as an alternative to say a Cruze or a Focus or a Malibu. Speaking of, Malibu leases are cheap right now too. I actually saw the Traverses are leasing shockingly cheap now too for the LS model.

fat lady sings, pigs have wings.......still it came out faster than we see a new Impala hope the Bims and Buffies of the world who drive these things make sure to put premium in the tank so the motor doesn't blow apart on them.

nice review. i'm amazed at how well it sells around here actually.