regfootball

polo should have been the rabbit here anyways

I almost spit out my coffee!!!!!!!!! BUT I'm SMILING!!!!!!!!!! awesome post. As far as vans go, it looks ok for a VAN, but we don't need another TERRAZZA. perhaps this buick MPV could have the turbo ecotec and we could badge it 'GNX'......Buick Terrazza GNX...... any buick that would be a minivan should be a full size sienna competitor anyways.

of those 4 vehicles, none sell here except the mazda5, which didn't sell in retail hardly at all until the 4 dollar gas. if the mazda5 were to take over family transport, they would not offer the cx7 or cx9 which both sell for more $$$$/profit even though they both suck fuel. Mazda killed the MPV to sell the cx7/cx9 because they could sell more and at prices 10 grand higher, because they didnt look like minivans. the only reason they can sell the 5 here is because it doesnt need to anchor their lineup. its a complement. Buick MPV. i thought you said 5 sedans would be fine for buick, now you're endorsing a blatant minivan? Well I guess you endorsed the TERRAZZA then. fact remains that this thing needs crossover styling or closer to it to be successful in volume here. Maybe if they built em in china and shipped em over it would work as a niche vehicle....OH BUT WAIT....Gm doesn't know how to do niche............. Besides, Buick will rebadge the VUe into RENDEZVOUX......which would sell better with a buick badge on it. The Orlando may be a success here. A Buick MPV will not, as long as the Enclave is in the showroom and this thing smells like a minivan.

depending on what color your hair is..........and how many agile limbs you have....... MKs ecoboost specced the same as a SHO won't cost much more once incentives are factored in anyways. the MKs has potential to gain lots of business once they incentivize it more, get ecoboost in it, and it will eat a little into GM's offerings.

the citizens of this country will wise up and realize that they appreciate freedom of mobility. one thing that our leaders or business leaders need to do is make things besides oil commercially viable. People hopped on the goregreen bandwagon because they were made to feel socially irresponsible if they chose not to. now that people have found the economic price associated with a sentiment and ad campaign, that is the reprioritizing. Yet we are Americans, the families still want to drive on vacations in a spacious vehicle, people still want vehicles of a certain size in this country. Technology and the money part will have to meet in a new middle, and we have to start to rely less on OPEC. That is why subsidizing ethanol is maybe not entirely bad. Its a start. Now keep going on solar, electric, wind, hydrogen, nuclear. But all that stuff will take forever and people are not going to downsize forever. At some point they want the depression to be over and to be able to drive something besides a Fiesta. Small cars will never be the savior in the US market because there is always a price stigma (small = cheap) and you will not be able to change that with everyone in this country. The cars that will become staple cars of the US market will be the midsizers (not that are not already). It wouldn't hurt if we had say a FUsion (hybrid!) wagon available to us as a fuel efficient family hauler. Or a Fusion coupe. The Epsilon platform could cover 2/3 of GM's cars if they planned wisely. Corolla is on the cusp of being sizable enough though to serve as a second family car, or a great car for singles and couples so I guess in that regard its why its a success but people are only going to ever pay so much for one, no matter how good you make it. that, or the cruze.

RAV4 rental i had once sucked ass too. its a tin box. with a cheap interior.

you'll start to see folks wise up by that tuesday in nov., 2010 which will foretell what will occur on that tuesday in nov, 2012. by then, green will be 'out', and we'll have people re-prioritizing what's important.

i don't think the media has told the masses that the unthinkable has already happened. the last few years of whoring cheap toyota leases has meant that their resale is in the $h!ter now too.

I owned a chevy prizm for three years and rejoiced the day i got rid of it. a new 99 which i had for 3 years. truly a less than satisfying car.

sho....365hp....awd.....20 cu ft trunk....more trunk and spunk for your money!!!!!!!!!

the cx9 sells way better than the mpv did...at much higher prices....even tho the mpv has more utility. you just dont get it do you. its a style thing. which also explains why every mfr is ditching vans

blu is right. it needs work on the proportions. it has large glass and small pillars. the basic character lines are ok. but it screams minivan. they need to downsize the glass and reset the pillar angles so it is more crossover.

tell us what you know.......

tell that to all the folks who continue to flock to the pleasantly average and mediocre asian cars.

i am pretty close to ditching GM. the CTS wagon and camaro might be the only cars i really like a bunch now. they cut everything else i liked.

if people bought ford gm and chrysler products then the case could made use stimulus funds to tear down battered plants etc. recycle the materials so the greenies will shut up, and then build a new long lasting arena on the old salvaged grounds if they are location friendly. then, you'd have real long term investment and it would cement the place going forward as a showcase of the auto industry in america. whoring the show out to LA or vegas, you might as well just say f-k the auto show and go see wayne newton or celine dion because thats about as much meaning as it would have out there in terms of significance to the nation. the show would lost any significance, and becomes a joke of itself. better yet just outsource the NAIAS to India or Korean or CHina or Japan. thats where everyone wants to get their cars from seemingly anyways. hopefully someday we can outsource wall street, banking, finance, advertising, sales and marketing to those countries just to be fair.

you know its really funny the public's perception of pontiac. my buddy the passat owner (who just sold it) who has the new 09 malibu company car. he sold the passat because he liked the malibu so much. travels a lot and rents a lot of cars. he is now even trying to convince his wife the traverse is a nice option to replace his pilot. he called me one time when he had the G6 GXP as a rental, to say how nice a ride it was. cheap interior a bit, but he liked the G6. He called me back a few weeks later when he got a base G6 rental and was not so kind. GM just needed to bring the goods for all its cars instead of starving the cheaper stuff of the good stuff.

so does that mean GM could sell opels as saturns for awhile? i actually kind of like that. an insignia OPC would be a nice ride. maybe then opel could design the cars and chery could make em and saturn could sell em.

had the G6 been better i think it could have held pontiacs position a little better. i have my aztek......but that don't count LOL. G8 was on my radar. But prob out of my budget. CobaltSS in pontiac or new astra as a G5 would have been appealing. oddly, i know 4 people with 07-08 grand prixs. back 10 years ago i could have named 15-20 people i knew with pontiacs.

it's more a reflection of the public in general. i guess it can't be helped but too much sht these days is media driven people don't even test drive or cross shop alternatives. really gm's disaster of a pr dept should be as much to blame for gm's downfall as anything. letting lutz talk in public for one.......duct tape his mouth and send oprah $$$$ to say GM is green.....

it's just people trying to outsmart the box they were packed in and trying to tell their friends they have the next big thing. personally though, i can't tell the tiburon from the scoupe from the eclipse (which is far better looking than the hyundai elantra rwd special edition coupe) from the altima coupe etc. no more than people ragged on the gto, which has one of the most athletic stances of any car sold in the last ten years, even if it was aero. I find it highly ridiculous that people would criticize aero styling and then look at something like the genesis coupe and say its desirable by the masses. the g35 coupe and 350z were both distinctive and sort of continue to be, but on the whole i can't tell the diff between a honda prelude and the scoupe coupe. so how does GM get so charred for it (when we have a nice sweet new camaro to look at). you could put any asian badge on any of hyundais stuff and no one would know the diff. so much for brand focus. its just like all the people who read CR and are buying hyundais instead of toyotas now, because hyundai is the upstart. but the truth is both hyundai and toyota are average products glorified by a set of people that really just want to proclaim themselves smarter than the box they are packed up in. challenger, mustang, camaro, all distinctive, no mistaking them. but the general public don't care. even if they drive a corolla which you cannot tell from a kia. g8 is a pretty distinctive car which is no longer available to us because partially the auto task force. read business week april 13 where is says the auto task force basically knows nothing about the industry and needed schooling on how many parts of it work......

and yet would find a genesis coupe interesting and 'unique' and worthy of a flier.....yeah, like that isn't a car you could put any asian brand name on.......f-cking sickens me you won't have a g8 to buy but will have 6 or 7 worthless and non unique asian brands to buy from.

i think we've seen the last of 4 dollar gas for awhile. washington called wall street and opec and said 'that broke our backs, you boys better find a way to make your dollars without ruining the entire US goldmine'. And it basically proved there was no immediate shortage and the inflated prices were speculator driven. Now, will prices go up in the next 4 years? Yeah, but not so much as to set back the repair progress that is needed to make our country a world money machine again? FAT CHANCE. The rest of the world depends too much on us being mobile and making cash that folks have conspired behind the scenes to keep gas 'affordable' and 'available' at least for awhile. Now, the whiney envirogreen freaks have pressured enough folks into thinking its a good idea for us to all downsize our rides. But time and time again proves that people will buy as large as they can afford. Safety is one reason. Yet so much has been set in motion now for the next cycles of product development that unfortunately will the pendulum swing back the otherway, cars underengineered to trim a few pounds but to sacrifice safety and durability and size?

you almost wish renault or peuguot or alfa or citroen could get in on this RATHER than the chinese!!!!!!!!!!

the masses of our population have a lot of effed up priorities right now. I am guessing you're not pleased with it. Problem is its like a trainwreck. We'll have to watch the carnage and maybe it will get better. Maybe it won't. I have a feeling we'll be stuck with the crap in this country till the 2010 and 2012 elections. People may wake up and smell the coffee by then.