regfootball

'brand agnostic' LOL I think moltar just coined a new phrase! wait till the press and marketing types get a hold of it!

i had to look at the eyes over lunch. kills me. argh.

my gosh, we're soulmates. anyways, look at the malibu and lambdas. nicer interiors, but still lots of cheap plastic. it doesn't ruin the product, but they would be SO MUCH better with better plastic. gaps too. Look in the Vue and then sit in the Aura. The interior seams are non existent in the Vue. They are still north american large in the aura.

read Csaba Csere's or was it Bedard's diesel slander editorial from this month in C/D. there is speculation in there on why diesel is so expensive here and why it can't succeed here like in Europe. I couldn't find a link on C/D yet for it.

if there is anything that OC's post rings home, its that interiors is still king when it comes to things that lead the customer's impression about the car. I will be hitting the auto show this weekend and I can guarantee you, since no one gets to drive the cars they are sitting in, the first and most long lasting thing that leaves an impression on them about particular cars is the interior. how the heck did Audi ever make its comeback? Interiors. VW? Interiors. Sadly, even with its big improvements, GM still lags in most of its models in interiors. I still think GM has not consistently knocked folks dead with its interiors. CTS is a start. Malibu kind of helps, but cost cutting is even evident in the Malibu. Astra and Vue hint that GM can possibly make and sell decent interiors here. the beancounters are still too afraid to let go of the reigns and let them put KNOCKOUT interiors in the vehicles. Lucerne's interior is not up to Lexus level, that's for sure. For a buick compared to past models it is improved but Buick needs to be equal to or better than Lexus, in that regard it has a long way to go.

it is amazing. while some people nary a register in our consciousness, others send you full throttle.

the inspiration for my drivel was blue eyes. absolutely riveting ones. i am not predisposed to that color of feature in particular, but in this case, they mesmerize you so you cannot think straight (sorry, no pun intended). all this said, i can't have any side dishes in my life, so its been reduced to torture of the highest order, at least for me. bankers hours flirtations. when they look right at me, and i can tell they are directly focused on me, you might as well tase me, bro, because that is the net effect. I sense a response that i can see that is curious, somewhat revealing and reciprocal but uncertain and tempered with the reality of anything simply not being possible. All I want to know is if they simply think about it, like i do, since that's all i can afford to do. All I want to know is that there is a semi equal curiosity or spark there, like i said, i hope someday it registers what I really think. Just some minor signal that they are on to me....and don't mind.

a lot of your posts are direct mirrors of my tastes or my attitudes on women. musical women are the death of me. i like women who can think. i do like some athletic types. mostly a woman who is built good. not brick $h!house fried chicken good neccessarily, but not toothpicks. we should talk shop about women sometimes.

is said particular psych major hot, female, and free for drinks? Yeah, and can they pay?

i think holden is maxxed out as far as how many they can ship.

TRUE AND i'M ROLLING!

chinese park avenue needs to be here now. I think it can coexist with the lucerne. The issues with that sort of thing are managment problems. they are tripping over themsleves trying to plug those gaps. they do need to figure it out in the global paradigm which remember folks is only a couple years old. having access to overseas product here in the US is a new thing, and it requires a huge think in shifting for a bunch of the NA GM lifers. There has to be a lot of pride swallowed and acceptance of change. I think they are working on it. bad interim decisions like the lack of a chinese park avenue here and such, those things look like we still have people (beancounters) making excuses why we can't when there needs to be some f-king CAN DO people in there saying 'get it done or you are gone' type of a thing. Go read automobile's g8 review. the end couple paragraphs sum it up nicely. they devote an entire article to comparing the 30k G8 to a 70k BMW 5 series. And then they say, what is significant is that the comparison is even relevant. CMON PEOPLE THIS IS THE KEY THING. now GM needs to build off this with all their new products. They can, but seem to have the ability to eff it up if they choose. What 30k Toyota compares with a 70k BMW? This is why GM has a chance to succeed. And in this case, Pontiac.

NEW DAY. what i wrote last night was crap. LOL.

oh yeah, it would be planned out and have to look good. if i buy say, an 05 FStar for like 10 grand, I sure as hell am not gonna care about lost value. that's as cheap as it gets already. i wonder if like a rear seat console from a freestyle or expedition would be the way to go. Of course, the fStar has the dumb handbrake on the floor too.

Jesus Christ. GM has been rebadging forever. not just the last 20 years. they were doing it when they had 50% share, too. GM megastores would be the way to go. But it's not gonna happen overnight. Fking ay, patience, people. One of the most successful Lexus dealers here is RIGHT NEXT to a big chevy dealer. Buy a corvette and a lexus, same day.

One option I am pondering for when my 500 lease is up this fall is to find a dirt cheap used ford freestar to drive for 2 years or so. generally, i like my vehicles to have a full center console with armrest. I do not like the narrow fold down armrests off the seats that vans typically have. the interior of many ford products has the same kind of look and plastics. i was debating if a guy could do a hack job on say, a center console from a junked 500 or say migrate the rear console of a freestyle or expedition or something into working between the front seats of the freestar? obviously developing a solid mounting system and trying to determine the proper height and how you'd need to hack it up to piece it into the new vehicle would be a challenge. obviously the shifter would remain on the column. i am curiously mainly if anyone thinks a hack job with parts from other similar vehicles could be done....gracefully.

the previous gen RL hung around like a wart and i think this one will too. so, to answer your question, probably not.

the quickest way to find the soul connection is recognizing it in their eyes, then their smile, and if they respond to your sense of humor. then later it progresses. talking about semi serious things and then serious things. in some cases its not always completely reciprocal, but you are able to get a somewhat measured response, even if its lukewarm. And we all know there is probably more than one for everyone and it really sucks when you have to fight that battle at times. Being drawn to somebody extra, or wrong, perhaps, and knowing that for a variety of reasons, you can't or should not go anywhere with it. But sometimes it is plain as day in their eyes. i think its a little part of that soul connection thing turbo is talking about. The thing that drives me insane is you feel like fire inside, yet its killing you at the same time. And you do and say stupid things, even though you know it can't go anywhere and that fact just multiplies your stupidity. You just hope in some small way the message you wish to get across connects in some very tiny way and just stays there untouched until one day they actually begin to understand what you might think about them. what the hell was i just rambling about? ugh.

everyone wants to point to Lexus, Infiniti and other luxury brands as the annointed....but that was big sales in a very credit free time. People began to believe they were too good for mom and pop cars. Now we see this years annual sell rate go down to 15.4 million and we see the cars that are doing ok are the bread and butter cars. we still have a far too large segment of the overly compensated who will never buy detroit iron anyways. those are the people that prop up the luxury marques. I think we'll come back around to selling fewer luxury brand vehicles......problem is the customer is blindly buying toyotas. But I do think GM Ford etc will rebound a bit because folks will still buy cars, just not a G35 this and ES350 that. If GM can attack the meat of the market and get the products known i think they can hold share for 2-3 years. Toyota just keeps pumping out more ads and more models and at some point you wonder if there will be a tipping point where customers rebel. I don't think we'll see a lot of repeat tundra buyers, for example.

wow. not knocking carbiz here, but i wish people could understand that the GM brand portfolio needs to evolve over a long time over the globe. GM JUST got started globalizing their operations and brands like 3-4 years ago. Lest ye forget, two major things here. One, GMDAT. Second, taking the chevy brand global. Less significant, but rather successful, is taking Buick and Caddy global. Saab has been starved plain and simple, yet GM keeps it alive on the promise of someday future models. The jury is still out. I wish GM would make Saab a VW alternative. Good prices and uniqueness. We know we will have Chevy now as the global brand. Some markets need the Daewoo tag. So we keep that. Buick with its success overseas now is not worth killing. Opel has a long successful history and hence cannot be killed over the pond. Saturn may have been the mistake to keep here, but since we are keeping them, lets just make Opel and Saturn the same. Holden has long been storied in AU and they won't be killed. GMNA is sacrificing Pontiac here to align with Holden (as well as other products). Hummer is very function specific. Chevrolet as a brand is not capable of encompassing all markets and types of vehicles GM has sold or needs to sell in many markets world wide. You simply cannot fold most of the other GM stable into the Chevy label. It is clear GM wants chevy to be volume brand. But where does that leave Daewoo? So Daewoo becomes GM's Kia. Holden, Opel, Pontiac, Buick sort of become localized brands, but they are not worth killing. Hell even the GMC brand is spreading to other markets now. You are all just buying into the kool aid that US carmakers need to kill brands. They do need to step up the product and manage them better. However, Wall street just wants to kill the US automakers, so someone can buy the stock cheap or take them over. Wall Street is not about long term health. They are about the kill, they just want money to change hands in a transaction. They make out like bandits if the car companies fail. That's what they want and they will do anything to do it. They know they cannot profit from the Asians or Germans, so they leave them alone.

i could see GM buying ultra v8's from BMW. BMW would just make sure they were their tier 2 engines. Which would still be darn good. and some diesels i could see also. GM would know they are done and good for the 2 mode hyblid. i would wonder WHY bmw would team with GM but maybe BMW is starting to buckle in terms of remaining independent. And they would probably prefer to team with Americanos to fight the Asians rather than go it alone and end up getting swallowed by hoyotha and lexus.

OH f_ck! that is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i love how everyone thinks supposed remedies can be done with a stroke of the pen. like the union issue, it will take YEARS to downsize dealers and models and such. 6-8 years ago I was the one who said GM brands will all be under one roof someday. there are a few stores like that already. then, 'brand' simply becomes 'model'. SO KEEP THE BRANDS. it will just take 5-10 years to consolidate dealers, or more. we whine about GM's duplication but look at the 3 series or 5 series powertrain and body combos, not like that's been trimmed. Or, look at toyota. When was the last time you saw a tacoma ad or a 4 runner ad? Toyo spreads their ads to thin across multiple models they don't need too. It's just the kool aid nation buys a toyo on rep only. notice toyo has to advertise the HELL out of products that no one wants to buy, they just have to be forced into them with annoying ads and dumping financing. GM just gets ripped because they are a fun target.

aura sales up, due to addition of four cylinder. its not dead yet.

sarah is HAWT! OMG ven, the too much work quote made me LOL.....it does seem like it, too much fussing to do something simple.