regfootball

yes it was the stick.

a SMALL writeup in the back of the Jan 06 issue. They praise the car and then at the end belittle it by saying 'why would you buy this car when you could get a mustang v6 for the same dough'. 0-60 in 6.2 BTW. they praised the engine. that's good to hear. like they did with the Impala SS in the COTY article, they rip it for not being RWD. Well, ok, for the die hard enthusiast, RWD is what they want. And yes, RWD results in a higher performance car. But I hardly think that relegates all FWD cars with performance as useless and not desired by some parts of the market. The magazine is taking a very narrow and honestly, trendy copycat view on that right now. So the 300 brings RWD back into the limelight so EVERY performance car out now has to be RWD? it just goes to show you that considering the few hundred words it got and its location in the magazine, the G6 GTP s going to get no press....in spite of what seems to be good performance.

and now digital gauges on the civic are ok when in the past in GMcars it was trashed? i just read the MT COTY article. so full of crap. the same fusion that beat the sonata in a recent comparo gets lower scores than the Sonata in COTY testing. whatever. if you read the MT article you also see how the HYUNDAI AZERA is the second coming. MT no longer represents the mass market. their viewpoint is very limited these days.

gm and ford make solid cars today. in some instances behind on some things, but they are in no way pieces of crap. the japanese build solid cars, but i do not believe they are significnal\tly better built. they have newer features and more gizmos. better plastics etc. but lots of asian cars prematurely show wear where domestics typically don't hve that beat to hell look in 5 years. what flabbergasts me is all the attention given to the koreans. their cars still reek of second tier. they are not built with the heft or style american consumers demand. i can understand the legitimacy of japanese being hard competition in this market, but man there's lots of fools who blow money on that korean crap. my sister included. ask her sometime if she preferred her early focus or the elantra she has now. my neighbor who works for dodge says you hear all the time about why the korean cars need warranties. all the really beat up looking cars on the road are the korean cars. my point is the media goes way overbaord on beating up USA cars and also the public is always trying to outsmart themselves looking for the next new thing or something better, and they talk themselves into the notion that it has to be inferior if its american because they've had it before. they think getting something new and different is automatically better and will change their lives so significantly it will make them special or something.

MY BUDDY BOUGHT A BRAND NEW vw a few months ago and already has had in the shop like 3 times to fix big problems. i laugh. all my gm's and ford's have been pretty trouble free. mitsubishis too for that matter.

THE iON HAS A UNIQUE DASH ALSO.

jetta side window profiles accord c pillar and otherwise general typical toyota blandness and unoriginalness. unattractive stupid center gauges

i think they only planned to sell 100k 500's a year. the fusion is the volume leader. the 500 is a large niche product. one the duratec 35 arrives along with the facelift, then i think they will plan an increase in production. i could see them shooting for 150k once those marketing obstacles are removed. I am LOVING my 500. I've got some minor bitches about it but man, the room and space, handling and ride, comfort........its rare today for many sedans to have this many strong points.

those sales will EXPLODE higher when the 35 duratec and awd hit.

most of their cars held close to same except the titan took a huge drop.. gm and ford were nto the only ones having trouble selling trucks.

its amazing what new products will do for your sales. hint hint

so cool. that rocks. enjoy donuts in the snow! TOP DOWN!

power sliding doors on an express would be a huge draw. imagine all the limo conversion possibilities if GM offered a van with cadillac/lexus level trim. the ultimate casino road trip / bachelor party cruisers. hell, strippers and p0rn without having to leave the comforts of the van? the express could also be the ultimate rolling home theater. sprinter gets great mpg i hear.

excellent point.

wow. great article.

i still don't get why folks get upset with fleet cars. if the car is good, it doesn't matter if its in fleets or not, if anything more folks get exposed to it and if its good it helps. my wife and i rented a car in 98 in CA and liked it enough that i bought one a couple years later.

remember the old tv commerical slogan? "You asked for it, you got it! Toyota!" toyota, you were asking to be number one. Are you sure you want it? the last place i worked at, they were always so picky hiring employees. then, inevtiably, they'd still end up hiring the drunkards, the one who never showed up, the one who couldn't do quality work. they were always so obsessed with the notion of hiring 'our kind of people' or 'someone who is a cut above'. But they were outsmarting themselves thinking that their business was a special place and that it was supposed to be a privilege to work for that company, and because of the great system and their culture and all that BS, it was what 'set them apart' and allowed them to do more work, cheaper, and higher quality. NOT. it was a bunch of pompous self righteous rhetoric from the bosses. then, when things went wrong, it was too easy to blame the employees. Looks like toyota may be starting the blame game onto everything but its own self. Toyota's had it easy, mostly Japanese workers. America and the rest of the world is not Japan. And you can't pick and choose your workers obsessively. Toyota has to learn that they need to make their processes and do their hiring under the notion of the available folks out there. If they are going to set up shop here, you're going to get the same workers as those making Nissans, Fords, etc. And they will make the same mistakes, regardless of whether its for Toyota or Ford or who. Toyota likely has not had to manage personnel and processes as actively as this quality job will require them to. in Japan, people are so automated, that toyota has taken everything they can do for granted. If you have 2 kids, its easy to manage them. Have 6, and whoa. It doesn't mean the kids are bad. You just have more dynamics to manage. Time for the media to beat up on Toyota if you ask me, you asked for it, you got it TOYOTA. Good luck with your soon to be new title of MEDIA WHIPPING BOY.

"Anytime an auto manufacturer opens new plants and ramps up production, "you open yourself up for some quality issues."" Nissan, Canton

the solstice got better mileage in the real test in car and driver's recent comparo.

i find dora and boots as annoying as hell too. but i have to admit. i did recently consider a chevy express AWD van as a possibility. in some cases its cheaper than a minivan. if GM refined vans to handle and drive better and have nicer interiors I think conversion vans could spark renewed interest.

yes it would add more pleasing proportions, but adding length to an already huge vehicle is bad, and you cannot rob the passenger/cargo compartment more more space either. vans by nature are proportionally tall anyways, so even increasing hood length will not help you much anyways. a van is a van. trying to make the front end carlike with 'power bulges' is useless.

the Americans and Europeans have worked hard for 100 years to advance automtoive toechnology to the point its at. and chinese and asian companies like Chery simply are able to copy it at the state its at and do business. that's criminal. they haven't invested in all the R&D and technology that got us to where we are now. companies like that had better contribute in the future to the global knowledge base.

here whatdya all think?

maybe japan is buying them off too

starship had a 12" single of ITS NOT OVER? how bout a 10 minute version of NOTHING'S GONNA STOP US NOW instead?