regfootball

I like the Cobalt a lot, but I gotta admit, after seeing a new Civic sedan this weekend, I think it may kill a lot of the chance the Cobalt had of ascending up the desirability ladder.

I love Astons, and I love this car. The interior is a subdued chic. Awesome car.

"The next-generation of Epsilon in North America will have full access to all of the European powertrains," Demant said. ++++ While they are at it, maybe they can do something reasonable and add some WIDTH to the Epsilon platform, too.

oh yeah, like a GM car needs MORE OVERHANG!

first off, I would likely buy an Impala before many other cars. I think they did a fairly decent job with it. What is annoying is a couple things you touched on, the cheap lower dash plastic and the reduction in back seat room. The loss ofback seat room is really lame and near unforgivable. The wheelbase is huge on this car, it needs about 3 more inches of rear leg space. I certainly have other beefs about the car, but compared to the last batch of W cars until 2004, its a godsend. I think the SS lacks a sporting quality ride and handling, its a cruiser. The gauges are too small. Parts of the interior are still cheap looking. And, its pricey in higher trims. Maybe I could still be talked into getting one becuase of the big engine, good mpg, aux in jack and the excellent job they did putting the v8 under the engine bay. But the SS really lacks the ability to be a credible sports sedan as far as handling etc. goes and it could stand some ground effects and wheels arches to make it stand out from the regular Imp too. A 5 speed or 6 speed auto NOW would be nice too.

well, maybe there should be a 'boat unloading and customs services fee' imposed by our government

its actually quite timely funny you're first funny. My wife made a joke last night about trying bi and inviting my ex coworker (who I'm guessing she knows I think is kinda hot and slutty) over for some bi-work for me to watch, join in, whatever. Of course, she said it just to tittilate me and it would only ever happen if hell did indeed freeze over. But the seriousness at the moment, she caught me off guard and for just a moment, it was like the greatest visual / fantasy I'd had enter my mind in a long, long, time. At least since the day last January she told me I could get a GTO, knowing full well I need four doors for the kid and front wheel drive to get around in the snowmuck.

[COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue] I like that one!

NASA has the old shuttles listed on ebay already.

the vette wins due to its tremendous value and i'd bet all dynamically it might even win. And I'm a HUGE GT fan.

2008 model year is too long to wait. it should be '2007'.

I'm bi-curious, sure. I am curious about whether or not i can get my wife to try a bi-lifestyle.

the interior was botched even more. compare those two. the production interior is nasty in comparison to the concept.

i forgot to menshun dat datz wot dey call dem in doze peronogaffic mu-veeez just bein a lil' UN PC y'all. maybe someone can test this out picking up chicks in the bar, find a nice large round plump sweetie and tell her she's a sweet lookin plumper to flatter her and then report back as to whether it was interpeted as politically correct or not.

i believe the correct term is 'plumper' used in a sentence. "My gosh that bitch ass girl be the perfect plumper, MMMM, gotta git me sum"

will they make the White Castles in China too?

ain't not a single thing wrong with that my man. milforama........! I bet Stace is quite enfuego. (your cue to show off babeness) hey, my buddy at work had an interesting saying the other day. I was telling him about how one of my old college acquaintances I heard thru the grapevine finally got laid at like age 35 recently. He's like, "Ah, sex, once you've had it, after that, you pretty much wanna nail just about every woman you see out there". Regardless of age or whatever. Within reason, of course.

:blink:

every frickin year i go into best buy and look at new car radios for kicks. Pioneer, Alpine, all those guys, they come up with new designs each year. What kills me is that the bottom end Pioneer that sells for like 120 bucks has a much higher quality faceplate, display, and buttons than even the best stereos on even some of the most expensive GM cars. And they can afford to redesign and add features and update them every year and still sell them for peanuts. Yet, if you ever have to replace a factory radio in your car they try to tell you its like 500 bucks to do it. GM, Ford, whoever, must be spending like 5 bucks each on radios because of the complete POS these things are. The handheld LED football game I played when i was a kid and i paid like 18 bucks for back in 1981 or whenever had MUCH BETTER display, much better faceplate, and higher quality buttons. I CAN'T FRICKING BELIEVE IT WILL PUT GM INTO BANKRUPTCY TO MAKE A CAR STEREO AND CLIMATE CONTROL WITH EQUAL QUALITY TO EVEN THE MOST BASIC AFTERMARKET CAR STEREO. How fricking pathetic is it to have to see garbage like the climate control and stereo in a Malibu or G6. A group of 20 people labored hours and hours at the behest of some stuffy ass beancounter to see how cheap they could make one million of the cheapest looking radios with super cheesy buttons that no one wants to touch or look at and has no business being forced to compete with nice looking units in the Accord and stuff. Even look at the radio in the new Impala. It is a definite upgrade FOR GM. It is bordering the bounds of acceptable. It still don't win no prize for being a super quality looking piece. It still has a cheesy look to it. Ford's current radio bunch looks DAMN cheap. Ford's radio are unacceptable. Would it really mean the end of the earth as we know it if Saturn redesigned the door panels in the Ion to have a decent design and reasonable looking plastic? Did chevy have to use that cheap horrific looking cloth in the their new Malibus for like 3 years? How many million of those awful miserable cheap ass T-bar shifters has Pontiac put in their cladmonsters in the 90's and early 00's? ARRRRGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, that's enough, I need to go f-ing smack something before I stroke out

Ven, the Ion did not change in a substantive way. SUBSTANTIVE way. i.e. brand new dash, brand new door panels. The new seats are cobalt seats. That was a good move. After year one they changed the grain on the dashboard top plastic. It had no net effect because it still was cheap looking overall. the IP was still in the center. The center IP and cheap interior were the main criticisms about the Ion. None of the running changes made a dent in rectifying those faults enough so folks would say, "I've changed my mind, now I like the Ion and will buy it." Even for 2006, they reshaped the center stack so it wouldn't cut into your leg. Nice of them to do that. A useful thing. But that alone doesn't go far enough to CHANGE PEOPLE's OPINIONS from 'yuck i don't like it' to 'yes, now i will buy it'. So, you're wrong, it is indeed the PERFECT example of why they need to bite the bullet and fix their fuckups. The process of carbuilding must become streamlined to the point (as toyota is trying to get to) where on the fly design changes to correct miscues, will need to be able to be accomplished quickly and for less cost. Let me ask the question, the G6 and Malibu climate controls and stereo are horrendously and unforgivingly cheap looking. Is it THAT difficult to make a running change in one model year to improve it so that people's opinions of the car will change and improve? MY GOD I DON'T THINK SO. We can tack on another 500-1000 bucks to the rebate and give them away at employee prices, but we can't change the LED/LCD on the stereo, or make nicer buttons, or a nice center stack plastic design? Blow it out your @$$, GM (Ford, whoever).

blow it out your tushie, what i suggest is actually what they are going to have to learn how to do to survive in the future. if they can't do it now, they better learn how. that, and not cheap out and fuck up the designs from the start. I mean c'mon, are the idiots that prevalent at the car companies that would allow the sea of plastic in the Ion? Or the horrendous Altima interior when it came out. As far as keeping car lines 'fresh', it painfully obvious that now in 2005, a manufacturer has to 'bring it' right at model launch. If not, the car is doomed from the get go and look at what that does to you. Examples, Ford 500 would have sold much better if it had the 3.5 duratec from the get go. Oh no, let's save it for 3 years so in 2008 we can keep the lineup 'fresh'. Good job, no one will care in 3 years when 10 asian automakers have spit out ten new sedans in that time. Look at all the sales you lose in those 3 years? In Fords case, they probably lost a ton, at least 50,000 units. Or more, due to the media and public criticism from the start. My God, at least pump another 25 hp out of the Duratec 3.0 then. You did it for the Fusion! I can bet the Ion would have sold 100,000 more units or more in its first 4 model years if it had a better interior and IP. No one cares about cars like the mazdaspeed Protege and Mazdaspeed 6 because they came along so late in their product cycles. Honestly, its pointless for Mazda to even bring that car out. Ford fixing the oval taurus design allowed them to rekindle sales. This stratified marketing thing is exactly that, marketing. Cars are like consumer electronics now. You better have a correct product from the start, you better be able to bring it to market fast, you better not fuck anything up, and if you do, make the correction quickly, or you're dead in the water. Product cycles are too short now. Everything you are saying is spoke from the vantage point of someone in marketing or beancounting and honestly, vantage points like that hinder product development and success. Quite honestly, if we got rid of the marketing and advertising people in the car business, hell, in MANY businesses, i think we'd be a whole lot better off. Too many marketers are more consumed with marketing as a process, rather than having a knack and knowing all about the products they and their competition sells. The reason the asians are successful is because they bring it all from relentlessly from the model launch and don't do as much of this 'life of the program/keep things fresh' bit. That's all marketing BS. The days are coming soon when model lines may only have a 2-3 year shelf life before the buying public moves on and doesn't care if you haven't 'kept it fresh'. People's attnetion spans today are extremely short and won't wait for lame ass carmakers. Its not my fault if GM sells the Astro for 20 years, doesn't improve the product, AND doesn't spend any money on replacing it so they can keep the plant open and not kill tons of jobs.

SUC-k if you ask me.

to me, the most frustrating thing about domestic manufacturers, and in some instances others like Nissan is this. they lack the flexibility and speed to be able to amke sorely needed changes quickly to a model line after a product launch if they need to. Example..... Saturn Ion got GRILLED for its center mounted IP and crappy interior. Why, 3 years later, do we still not have a new interior for that car? If they were committed to sell the Ion for 4 years or whatever, why throw sales in the tank, fix the fricking interior to make the car desirable! In my opinion, once you release the car if you find it has a negative sales impact, it should only take you 12-18 months to fix the problem. Similar example, the Nissan Quest interior. The Quest was new as a 2004 model. The 2006 should have an all new interior. Seats, dash, trim, gauges, console....etc. It took Nissan far too long to fix the Altima interior. Just now the Malibu is getting some changes in its interior trim colors etc, but they haven't even fixed the cheap center stack yet! Why no 9-3 wagon or v6 until like 3 years after the sedan comes out? Pathetic. Why are so many carmakers slow in getting mp3/aux jacks in the audio systems of cars now that so many folks have Ipods and such? A lot of car lines have issues like this, but I do think that as important as the time it takes them to bring out new models, its just as important for them to learn how to fix tainted models quickly to keep them competitive instead of throwing in the sales towel. I think in general carmakers have been way to slow to respond on the fly to obvious shortcomings in their products.

yes, my sexual preference would be to have sex.

hmmm, did this one go dead.?