regfootball

ugly, fragile, and sucks fuel......?

must be why there is still chevy and why there is saturn, i guess.

sort of. how many RWD magnums, 300's, and chargers have E stickers on them?

nice point, but it doesn't change the fact that the RAV 4 with v6 will wipe that 0-60 by 3-3.5 seconds. you're right, it wouldn't otherwise be a big deal, except that its primary competitor offers that feature for a very similar price. face it, honda dropped a HUGE ball here by not getting the amp up under the hood on this one.

goes to show you how many liberal middle aged *cough/intenders* yeah, and up women that are out there buying new cars this year.

did you get a room with that material "In a 25k 160hp, (0-60 in 10 second) SUV, that is what impressed me the most" not much bang for the buck.

you are always spot on. I just hate the civic's styling inside and out and I really don't like peaky engines. honda's are always too peaky. gotta be for the ODE SKOO, bro. the exterior is atrocious. the front end is reprehensible. the CRV's new interior has great gap control but the materials and design are not the godsend some of the humpers are making it out to be. Keep in mind the way outlandish prices Honda is charging for a paltry slow 4 cylinder. It says Honda so folks pay it regardless.

I do think they could use a chevy 2 row version. I drove the Outlook and Edge this weekend. I think the Outlook is perfect as a family vehicle but I found the Edge to be something more like what i would drive everyday when i don't need 3 rows. Maybe the Lambda 2 row will replace the Trailblazer and leave the tahoe for the folks who want to do serious towing.

great pics, Chris. "they left that Hummer wide open for ya".

"that's what she said" (rim shot). new vue will SELL. it looks great (saw it at autoshow) Tell jill we need paddle shifters and 300 hp on the outlook! give me an edge/vue 3.6 price comparo.

not bad. of course you get all the extra poundage with it in a smaller package...

the outlook's cloth is a nice knit. the blue we can debate. i would get the charcoal interior or get an acadia. i prefer the acadia's dash anyways. i don't feel the outlook NEEDS leather, but it actually is good leather. that in and of itself is rare for GM. the outlook is a sweet vehicle, but if you only need 2 rows and want to save some big money, the endeavor is a good alternative. it's actually a lot more nimble and gets off the line much better but it only has a 4 speed. the end's seating comfort is excellent but the dash design in black is dour. in tan its fine. the endeavor is quite a bit sportier, but the outlook was not intended to be sporty. the endeavor lacks the ultimate smoothness and refinement of the outlook. the outlook is extremely SATISFYING all around as nothing was neglected. I just don't know in this case if its worth 7-10 grand more for that third seat and extra polish. I've got to get my dad in an outlook or an SRX, I know he would like they way they drive but he is of the 'formal sedan' generation. he needs the space when he travels for all the sh1t my mom buys on shopping sprees.

i drove an XR last sat. no way in hell i'd get that car with the 3.5 4 speed. the HF 3.6 and 6 speed and paddle shifters is too sweet.

I can confirm that....i priced GTO insurance a couple years ago and it was very much the same as a Taurus or grand Prix. ultimatelyas cool as the GTO is, for me it made no sense to have a RWD high hp car in icy cold climate with only 2 doors and no trunk trying to get a kid in the back car seat. yes blu, i liked your post. mainly because at least in these parts, most people driving bmw's are chicks in 3 series or pompous jerkasses or hairclub for men members. bmw is all image. they just do a good job keeping the image up by at least making the hardware live up to the image. their cars aren't even style leaders these days either, that's what boggles my mind.

yes, i know. i was just merely saying i wouldn't want the grand prix with a 3800. if i could have had the GXP with a 6 speed tranny, or just a plain grand prix with the 3.6HF and 6 speed, then I would have considered getting one. The 3800 and 4 speed in the grand prix were of no interest to me and ruined the car.

since when do tenagers have gray hair?

I drove a Saturn Outlook XE AWD yesterday. Here's a briefer. ROUNDS OF APPLAUSE- stylish. Very sweet motor. Smooth, revs great and has that nice cammy OHC sound. Not a smidge of vibration is felt. This is why we needed DOHC motors in GM products. they finally get that. Wraparound cockpit (whatever happened to those!?!?! ) is like a coccoon. Nice shapely seats. Lots of room for wide bodies in 3 rows and cargo. Good suspension for firm yet comfortable ride. Disguises its weight and size well although you still know is a sizable rig. Nice dash layout. Extremely quiet inside. Armrest slides back to expose console storage in the slickest and most convenient way I've seen. Full complement of safety gear. OOOOs and AHHHs--smart slide, once you figure out just the right amount to nudge the lever is a good deal. Amount of power is good. All the creature comforts. Second row reclines for just the right angle. A nice panoramic view out the front through the windshield. No 'mailslot' here like on many cars today. There is a nifty plastic hitch cover that blends into the bumper cover perfectly (well done GM on that one!). GIVES ME PAUSE- transmission, while smooth in its shifting, hesitates (although not in a jerky fashion, just has lag and delay). This was likely deliberately programmed this way for mpg. Also, the engine lugs a bit sometimes under load. At least you get a very good manual mode thumb shifter to make up for this. manual mode shifts 'right now', no lag. It would work better if paddles were included, too (the paddles are awesome on the Aura). But overall the manual shifter makes up for the deficiencies in tranny programming. Just OK steering feel (needs to be quicker), a little numb not ultimately as good as the Edge. Thin steering wheel (no leather wrap). Some cheap plastic overall that isn't a dealbreaker, just a reminder there are still beancounters at GM. Gauges are a bit low. Rear window is a bit too high for vision out the back. FATAL FLAWS- no real fatal flaws. If i were nitpicking I would say the fact that you can't raise the steering wheel high enough or get it so it doesn't block the gauges for a taller person.....and overall you cannot get it adjusted the way you like. This would be a dealbreaker for someone fussy about driving position. I also had some trouble getting the drivers seat adjusted to anything close to ideal for me. Side mirrors are tiny and poorly shaped, is annoying too. Useless for driving and towing. What were they thinking? OH, and yeah, no bluetooth. This is the perfect family cruiser for many American families and those SUV lovers just downsizing from BOF trucks or upsizing from toys like the Lexus RX or Murano. May not prove to be as nimble or fast as a fixed (and several hundred pounds lighter) 08 taurusX but easily trumps that in style and capacity and other ways. DON'T MISS- third row is adult sized!

I like the GXP grand prix but felt it really needed the 6 speed automatic. actually, the powertrain in the aura is awesome, but overall, after driving the aura, i would definitely say I would prefer the Grand Prix to have the Aura's powertrain available. I like the way the grand prix drives but have always disliked the 4 speed autos and the pushrod 3800.

BMW went from having possibly the best driver appointed interior ever in the last 3 series to the pure garbage it has in the latest 3 series. so much for progress. minimalist is being to kind. 'Cheap' would be a more useful description. I can't imagine in good consceince dropping 40k on a car with an interior like that. The new 5 series interior I just flat out find bizarre. again, BMW may be a great drive, but the interior amenities it seems to me they have taken a major step backwards, and probably intentionally, so as not to be taken to much as a poseur wagon. in pictures it looks like the new C Class tanks it in interiors. As much as I hate Toyota, i feel the IS is a damn nice car. I do like the IS styling and its interior is well done if very cramped. Nissan sort of mailed it in with its G35 reskin but the basic car was pretty sound so it should still do well. The whole Audi aesthetic is tired and has been done to death, inside and out. Talk about a company that is mailing it in. Look at that steaming carl they call Q7. The A4 is deathly dull. V40 interior is econocar. CTS has a great opportunity here. In pictures the new CTS looks very promising, inside and out. I am sure they will raise the price accordingly.

if you buy into the theory that as California goes, so goes the world. maybe. I was also just at the caddy dealer. they didn't have a manual CTS i could beat on today but i was chatting with the sales guy. he said they are really looking forward to the 08 CTS, because of the new design and because 'it finally has all wheel drive'. He said all the STS they stock are AWD because they can't sell the RWD only ones. He said the CTS sells alright because of the low price point but that people that don't know the car is RWD are surprised to hear that becuase it looks like a FWD car. FWIW, the sales guy used to own a 3 series. He said the SRX's are what they sell the most of and that they had moved 3 just this weekend.

BTW, just drove an Aura XR. Nice engine and tranny, but otherwise not impressed.

see, those are good numbers, about 25% of the two models it is on, considering the x versions are relatively new. That percentage will continue to grow. Its an example of responding to the market. 'someone in the know' confirmed to me that their are about 2800 buick dealers, 100 of those still stand alone. but did not have an idea what the numbers were for pontiac. you could understand why those 2800 dealers would be concerned about profit and volume both. 100,000 buicks for 2800 dealers doens't pay the bills. I've already said the current G6 was lucklaster. The problem is execution. The Aura is a better executed offering but is still not a sporty enough version. There is no reason why something like the G6 in a new version someday couldn't have top drawer styling powertrains and interiors, and still be different than the other GM cars and something people seek out. You are just judging the car and GM's ability to do that based on GM's typical half ass effort. You might as well just admit GM has no capability of putting out anything besides a half ass car then. I don't see why its such a sin for a G8 to share the showroom with a really well executed perfomance based epsilon for example. Your Torana clone would be a nice offering, sure, but a-where is it, and b-the pricing will not be able to be kept in line like a epsilon car would be. So the torana rebadge if sold here would have to be sold in addition to the G8 and epsilon car. I just don't think they can make the numbers work with just the torana and G8 and a coupe G8 variant. There's not enough other special models in the pipeline I don't think that holden is developing RWD only to fill the lineup with for pontiac. I am not aware of anything besides G8 and the possible Torana and Monaro coupe that GM could sell here as a Pontiac. If its not in the pipeline now, its not anything that can help in the next 3-5 years. Do they even have a go on the Torana? becuase that daewoo LX4, holden caprice, and chinese park avenue all look so different already. if there were a quarter million of those 3 roaming the streets here no one would be able to tell the difference between the three. even the fusion/milan's look more different than those three badge jobbed zetas.

why did they even bother? to avoid a civil lawsuit probably.

SOURCE: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN CARS published by the auto editors of CONSUMER GUIDE publications international, LTD. copyright 1996 production numbers (vans not included) 1995 buick- 574455 skylark - 53860 century - 113699 regal - 100169 lesabre - 171783 park avenue - 62994 roadmaster - 30508 (note how the fwd park avenue and lesabre outsold the rwd roadmaster) riviera - 41442 1995 olds - 454957 achieva - 57263 combined ciera - 135346 combined cutlass supreme - 113232 combined 88 - 75841 98 - 25444 aurora - 47831 1995 pontiac - 663980 sunfire - 66655 firebird - 60550 grand am - 287988 grand prix - 160711 bonneville - 88076 (92 bonneville sold 124511 units) 1995 total MY produced by the three GM 'tier two' brands 1,693,392 sorry i was wrong. i my guess was UNDER actual by like 200,000 units. my whole feeling is that no matter how hard they try, Pontiac has never been perceived a niche brand, and therefore would fail in both volume and profit if they tried to be because the public's perception of them is too hard to change (quickly). it would be like taking corn flakes and moving all the boxes off the cereal aisle and over to the organic foods section, even if you changed the design of the box and made them taste better. look at how not the organic doritos sell. their transaction prices would not be what they would need and their margins would not be able to be held because production costs could be too great for the focused hardware and they could not fall back on volume. it has to still have some appeal to mainstream, somewhere between niche and mainstream, even if it is part of BPG for some dealers, and therefore does need to retain some mainstream traits to be viable from a business standpoint. there is no hard evidence that proves or suggests Pontiac or Buick alone or together can exist with too narrow of a focus and being to exclusionary in their product offerings. the people's perception and history of the brands are too strong to allow people to shift their thinking that much. Saturn possibly can because it is the youngest brand and people's perception about the brand is less about the car and more about the experience. Saturn is trying to define a perception of their cars and even so far, its success in doing that is lukewarm. So to think Pontiac can go that way, in less than ten years even, would be iffy at best. Pontiac to remain, in the mid range business plan, has to still offer enough that still may attract the mainstream in a sporty performance oriented way, to exist, and to enable them to provide the more tightly focused stuff they want to as a good percentage of their offerings. No matter which path they chose, they have to work the numbers for a profit or they die, their chances of profit are greater with more volume because it makes up for ebb and flow of business and popularity of models and market swings and trends towards styling or features. Plus, more volume can mean more market share to freeze out competitors and also reasonably priced models bring 'brand entry' and accessibility to the brand. You want to entice people to enter your brand and move up later. Grand Am was a great brand entry car, it was just lackluster to some. had the grand am made people happy like accords do (in the simple sense of the buyer not regretting their purchase) it may be a totally different pontiac today. Making BMW exclusive is wise because it allows them to keep their prices up, but BMW is not a large outfit in the US. Making Pontiac exclusive likely won't work, even if its bundled with BPG. B and G depend on P to pull their own weight too. The BPG group is too large and cannot be pared down to BMW type levels. GM's business operations and dealer network cannot be pared down pr consolidated that quickly. Olds was bundled with other GM brands and look what it did for them. Many BPO dealers have already been paired with GMC for a long time already. Otherwise, Lutz/LaNeve better show me that spreadsheet. i'm not saying to limit performance. i am saying it needs to be performance packaged in a fairly accepted way. If I were throwing numbers around, it would be nice if Buick + Pontiac could sell 500,000 cars a year between the two brands for the next few years. That might be the sweet spot between supply and demand, selling and dumping, between niche and not niche. If they had to adjust that number to also include for the Enclave, that's fine, because buyers buy SUV's in lieu of sedans these days. Many LeSabre or Park customers may buy Enclaves now.

nothing sets off your autistic child like a big bunch of flourescent lights!