turbo200

by the time they get to Cadillac, Alfa Romeo will have stolen thier market.

yes, almost good enough won't suffice to consumers already enamored of thier import brands. here are the topmost reasons imports succeed: implied value- the value is already in those brands, the recent legacy, the quality legacy, the public affirmation of upscale values] upscale environments, refined attitudes- the imports have expressions in all thier work, inside and out you get that, every line the impression of something design design design- again having to do with the expressions i just talked about, whether it be a muted roar, a nice crease, the modern surfacing ethic that looks newer and unique, the quality padding for the steering wheel--bottom line it all comes together as the single most important point, total expression of value, not a single thought left behind when it comes to designing the cars. brand value- who's gonna argue with this? resale, legitamacy, public perception How can any American brand, when viewed so negatively, succeed without going the distance. the answer is they can't. every element must be fully designed, they have to be schooled in the best design coming out of Europe and Japan. they have to know surfacing, long the tired design element in GM's cars, the last part touched, the missing link to modern design. Surfacing, surfacing, surfacing. Look how long the current Silverado is lasting and Malbib, look how cohesive they are all around, now compared with just a last gen Impala or Silverado, how old those products look, very very old. There's no more make or break cars. no more last chances to design and develop a frontrunner. this is the end. they must deliver with cars like lacrosse or kiss Buick goodbye. the next cobalt must be earth-shatteringly good for the rest of the corporation to have any chance at seeing the light. the next investment in Saturn is a mistake, but they better hope that it doesn't turn out that way, cause they are giving them good product, those cars must not be dumbed down in transition from Europe. Cadillac's next product after the line of CTS is complete have to come quick. they need to establish that brand to have even a credible luxury brand. unbelieveable. here we are almost 2010, GM's facing bankruptcy, and I'm still talking about building Cadillac into a credible luxury brand.

NG Lacrosse will be a boon to Buick if the sophistication can be amped up inside and out. this cannot be a cut the corners development. if there is a sign of that, my hammer would drop faster than you can say Buick to axe the brand. if GM can't figure out who the market is for thier brands, then just kill em. Buick's market expects lots and lots and lots of sophistication, along with since this is an American brand that's been dormant and stuck in product doldrums, killer style. the production version must live up to everything the concept was and is. the interior must not be dumbed down, the base model can't roll around in hubcap looking wheel designs, there must be no childish elements, left behind ass backward design whatsoever to this car. if so, ring the bell for Avis and death for Buick. yes, Buick needs cars to succeed. I lament the Zeta loss as much as anyone and still beleive the identity at least, the presence of a large luxurious sedan is needed for Buick to be truly premium, and I do believe there would be an audience for the right design [unless economy falters moreso]. but more importantly will be the next expansion downwards. one sedan below a big lacrosse is needed, something around the size of the last cutlass or alero or grand am. small, tidy, roomy, very solid driving, very efficient, a different formula from the other brands. build it right GM or don't build it all. don't make promises to yourselves you can't keep. look to VW jetta for an example of a premium compact.

I'm not sure showing a car to the press that won't come out for another two years will have any kind of dramatic effect on actual consumers. sure the media spotlight will shine on the car for a minute, while the actual fascination with the business aspect remains in the foreground. but actual consumers don't pay attention until something is actually available; they don't care about concept cars they can't actually get.

once you acknowledge a proper noun can be misspelled....it would look really dumb if it was callled the Cruise, as in Cruise Control, but since it's spelled uniquely it's a name. cobalt sounds and looks juvenile to me, like an out of touch marketer recieved a directive for 'trick' and came up with cobalt. 'customizable' 'teenage' might be marketing terms that led to cobalt; 'accessible' and 'traditional' 'universal' might have been directives for cruze. plus you have the juxtaposition of two reallly strong pronunciations, the rough C and the long A.....whereas other names have more flow, like the 3, Civic, Malibu, Camry, etc i'm not arguing against keeping the Cobalt name but the nature of the cobalt name itself. i think for the sake of identity and consistency keeping the cobalt name would be the right decision rather than starting all over again with a new brand.

i rather like the simplicity and non-rough pronounciations like the strong K sound in Cobalt. i first thought it was laughable, but after a short time it seemed a lot more liveable than cobalt. i was never a big fan of that name to begin with. cruze is non-distinct, cobalt is juvenile, cruze connotes relaxation, cruze is not overtly masculine or feminine. i agree that it's a waste of positive equity. cobalt may not have had the biggest fanbase of the small cars, but it was sure well known after all the marketing dollars spent thrown at it.

i guess the immediate thing that pops in my head is how are you going to explain to dealers they're going to be moving less volume, with less models and less brands....and the same amount of dealers. there's bound to be some closures here, considering what you lay out....saturn and saab account for a fraction of GMC and Pontiac volume. from a volume perspective it doesn't make a whole heckuva lotta sense to follow the plan you're proposing....and mostly it seems you want to keep two brands alive that are sold worldwide, one with less volume than GMC or Pontiac in America [saab only sells 200k worldwide], and another that is simply a name for the mainstream cookie cutter brand in Europe. though i recognize the importance going down the line of product that can be sold internationally, i think we must also serve the interests when profit is in the equation. we're still a big market here, and that needs to be stated and supported. GM needs to figure out how to build vehicles profitably and once again make money in the States, where there still is a ginourmous market. the only solid reason you're giving in favor of Saturn and Saab are thier international status, but that shouldn't matter for a number of reasons. chevy sells way more than opel does in just one country versus all over Europe. what is it, like 3 million units to 1 million? we're still talking about a saab division that is outsold in the US and all over the world by every other brand GM has. our market and the intrinsics here have to take precedence.

well I hope you buy a G8 then, both for the philosophy and principle behind it, and so you can have one last great Pontiac RWD sedan.

on this point I'm in agreement but view things differently. I agree we should focus in on core models. Who's to say the Pontiac sports sedan isn't a core model? What about the GMC luxury SUV? The one for higher end consumers who are not rolling in dough like the $60-80k Escalade buyers are, or prefer to be seen in something less visually pronounced. we're in a depressed economy so a lot more people have become the practical car buyer. if we can hopefully pull out of this, the reverse will happen and people will feel comfortable to shop in more 'excess' terms, like getting a sporty sedan over a conservative fuel miser.

firebird, solstice, et al helped bring credebility to a performance statement missing from their mass market product. logic shows the specialty cars are not where the volume is. yes, the volume is in the mass market cars like the G6 and the G5. with pontiac there was never follow through, the engineering and quality and actual performance attributes skipped the mass market cars and stayed with the halo 'promise' cars. the promise of good performance and good image was there, but never backed up through the most important product. i'm simply saying the brand hasn't been given the chance with high quality mainstream offerings. they are nothing more than a chevy rebadge, but they are not redundancy. they are distinctive, Saturn and Chevy are conservative, tepid relative to Pontiac. Pontiac is an extreme. that could be kept alive, and I would think it more necessary than a nondescript brand, albeit cheaply funded via Opel, Saturn brand

no. and to better manage thier brands in the future, GM will have to look to actual content differentiation to establish a strong image and perception amongst buyers. but if they suddenly give up now, they may as well do so with every brand, cause everyone of thier brands has had a muddied image and is no where near as cemented as brands like Acura, Nissan, Honda, etc similarly, on incentives, if we were to close every brand from GM that has had vehicles relying solely on incentives we'd be left with no brand. maybe the CTS and vette, off the top of my head, are the only vehicles that haven't relied heavily on incentives in the past decade. EDIT: reg and a couple others were arguing in favor of GM's badge engineering recently. that right there is the biggest culprit, like was said above, of GM's recent downfall. not leveraging thier design power over the years, not maintaining product and design consistency over the years, never allowing the brands to stand for something strong other than similar cars with sub-Japanese levels of efficiency, design quality, durability has gotten them to where they are today.

commodore/G8 might do real well in america if GM were to find some resources to invest in Pontiac, keep the current car, build it in America, offer a cheap diesel, say around $26k, drop the price of the V6 by a couple grand and offer a base model with 2.4 DI assisted by BAS for $25k, getting at least 32 mpg in the highway. but the return might not look strong enough on thier balance sheets versus starting over with an EP II Pontiac.

following a general trend in big luxury cars conservative shape and surfacing with bold graphics elements. i think it looks great. elegant strong imposing substantial. a lot of the lexus resemblance can be seen in the surfacing and shaping of the sheetmetal all over really. but that's because Lexus/Toy first used the Euros as a template for thier design, cause they know what looks classical and right.

on the pontiac front, these are cars that have worn distinct fascias over the years. yes, the differentiation of content wasn't strong, yes the product message wasn't consistent, but it's still there to the layman that these cars wore wrappers that were distinctive and aggressive. i don't think this buyer is the same as the everyday casual now and used to be just plain generic and sometimes ugly Chevy guy. i don't disagree with the premise that many will shift over to Chevy; but I also think many would go for a sporty car from some other place. rather than the casual chevy in the mold of upcoming malibu [especially].

a couple of points come to my mind - GM needs a great PR dept, especially in these times, they need creative formulated messages that are focused at improving all the chatter. it's probably too late coming to avoid this negative discussion, and there probably isn't a cogent message that would stem all the negative talk, giving GM's own admission all options were under consideration, but I think they could really still benefit from a little positive talk. [ to the many who hate the media, GM's own mouthpiece fails to deflect any attention] - the strategy going forward is crucial. I'm not saying this from a brand-biased perspective, but there really has to be clear thinking and not panic mode mindset on what makes to stick with going down the line, what markets have been proven to be there already, the most critical points for each brnad. for example, GMC has proven a great ability to attract luxury truck buyers, a la Denali, does that mean downsizing and focusing only on that market would be a bad thing? pontiac has proven they can attract buyers in the mainstream market. buick doens't have much of a market presence anymore. saab is a niche force, but especially consistent over the years in design theme so they are immediately recognizable as well as being well regarded as a premium product. saturn has only proven able to attract in volume numbers, at volume prices, in small cars and SUVs; they have a limited history and incosistent product message, which can both be bad things when you're trying to set up a brand and legacy, in the face of all the competing brands with market presence today. hummer is somewhat of an overlap division given GMC should be there already, but have proven adept at crafting a unique styling presence. in the face of mounting pressures, decisions i guess will have to made, whatever needs to happen to keep GM alive. but they consider their options carefully. I don't mean to make my stance into an anti-Saturn one, but it seems foolish to make an assumption like if we build the product, under an unknown brand, they will come, and then to say if we just distribute the brand as much as the others, it will be able to attract more people. Saturn is cheap because it's just Opel, but this should not be the strongest rationalization for keeping it around. my bottom line about this situation. it's much easier to move forward with an established entity and just remake it then it is to establish an identity. check all the brands in the past ten years. and look how long it's taken someone like hyundai and kia to move forward, at that with a complete budget-priced model. establishing a brand here in a time when there are too many brands, too many competing for floor space, mental share, too many branding concepts to deal with already seems foolish to me. go with the one that's already there.

my personal favorite, the Groove. boy these were attractive vehicles at the LA auto show. if they could come finished as they were there, with the option to soup them up, they would have instant hits. though they are similarly sized and obviously share commonality, this is an instance of successful platform engineering and should supply the more mass market brands. trax and groove can be chevy and beat can be a pontiac.

interesting take. there's definitely value in what you say, the key as we all know is what the predicament is financially at GM. we will have to wait and see what decisions get made. on pontiac: is there any value in the 'aggression' brand? i think so.... with the proper product, Pontiac is still more of an outsider's car than Chevy. i think that counts for something. Pontiac has succeeded in the past at doing a number of things, being big volume, selling upscale cars, and being branded very differently and clearly, and having product that follow through on this idea. Right now, Pontiac is all shaken up and doens't have a clear product message or cohesive design statement or consistent quality product. give it the chance to have these and it could still play the rebel child with an instinct for fun to chevy's everyday casual. truthfully points could be made in favor and against closing shop at a lot of the brands.

for the first part of your post: your rationalization of the situation has nothing to do with it. enzl's dealer like all others are business and must make money to survive, or they close down, like we have witnessed so many others doing. toyota has nothing to do with it. their sales are almost always consistently up; thier dealers are marching along with strong profitability; it's GM's cars that require tons of rebates, on a more consistent level than the imports. it's GM's sales that have been propped up through trucks for the last decade. this is the major reason for talk of cutting brands. when truck sales are massively down, almost nothing, the rationale for keeping a truck brand around that is a drain on marketing resources gets harder. otoh, as many have noted, GMC development costs are minute. GM is in a time of contraction. The dealers have to respond as well and start contracting. That will be hard. For GM it will mean less representation and slightly less volume, but it is needed to go towards a clearer path for profitability. Cutting a brand is also a strategic move to ensure profitability and sustainability of not only the brand portfolio but the company itself in NA. Remember, GM didn't make a profit for the year last year or the year before it.

point taken, I beleive GM will not have a problem gaining a footing, so long as some time in the near future they freakin allow themselves to do it by making the car. Volt won't be it if it's going to be $30k or $40k, unless the tax rebates go way up, something we might be able to anticipate with Dems in control. but the underlying point is why must GM, the biggest car company in the world, always allow other carmakers to eat up the market for so long and then finally ten years later come up with something neither innovative nor original, just thier successful take on the original formula. all the image boosts rightfully go to the other car companies, because they were thier first and in bigger quantities, more known entities. then you have clinic cases here complainiing about image and perception boost of the other, more capable companies.

I find the silverado to be the most attractive pickup design, largely, for me, due to a charming fascia up front, and then clean uncluttered and sophisticated look elsewhere. of course sierra is also good looking, and easily as good or better than silvy. just adding, but i think both are the best in the market right now. there's a sketch of the F100 pickup in this month's MT that is mighty attractive, if Ford gets that going quickly, it could be an incredibly good move for them, so long as prices stabilize and people are still in the market for trucks...

cool that it's a hatch, but it's not sexy, the profile and stance are poor and the shape at the rear is not good looking.

I don't even know if they have the money now or they're just gonna bank on the upcoming stuff in the next two years, the new chevy small car, camaro.....I can't recall what the list is like right now. you're right on in the pairing of the brands wouldn't be successful since they all sell essentially identical cars in the same segments. reg if you care to educate yourself about the financial dilemma GM finds itself in go here; you'll find what some insiders are saying. this may not be the full picture, this may not be as dark as the full picture really is. Heed the calls to educate yourself before you go talking about things you really know nothing about. No one here is for shuttering all the brands and just leaving Chevy and Caddy, and I can't think of one person here that wouldn't like to somehow salvage one or another brand. the problem is there isn't a way for GM to feasibly manage them all at this time. There isn't enough money, sales are contracting, and there just hasn't been a consistent management of these brands to justify some of them. that last point is the biggest problem. the brands seem to be money sucking, instead of self-sustaining, many are in that position. marketing costs can be extreme, you have operations, engineering etc

I want to add a point that came to me about Escalade. It's currently, largely, in a class of its own. There's the Navi but that brand's been diminised. But setting that aside and the completely invisible/uncompetitive Lexus/Infiniti Suvs, there aren't other large Suvs to compete against. The Mercedes GL comes closest, but is smaller on the outside, and so there are different expectations for it. Yes, gasp, people still see cars relative to thier size. Because the escalade is so big and imposing, a good trait, people have lowered expectations for it, and that it does what it does so well is all the more impressive. Shrinking the escalade will result in heightened competition and different expectations for a different segment. Because it's going to be physically smaller, it will compete with MDX, Q7, GL class, and on the fringe with X5 [potential X7]. It will probably be much cooler than all of those, except for GL [and X5 though again it's going to be less a competitor to that one]. Design will need to carry over to Lambda but make a strong classic Escalade statement, and yet adapt to the crossover proportions [read long and wide and short, more like a traditional wagon]. This is gonna be a tricky one. they should engineer an alluminum chassis based on Lambda. you know, invest those profit from current escalade into furthering the brand. but since the car is coming in'12 we probably can expect largely a continuation of the current engineering, that means a barely lighter crossover SUV geared towards the family, and not the sporty premium drive setup of the SRX. GM has too much on its plate right now. they have too many product they have to redo. I don't think they're in a great position now.

FOG's point on Audi is still a valid one, and the underlying argument of FWDvAWD has nothing to do with it. Audi is cool, classic, enduring design with no sacrifice on engineering, no cutting corners on the suspension/handling/drive, the quality is awesome and the second to none, however reliability is obviously a big question. don't know about durability and longevity, german cars have a reputation of holding up and going strong for a long time, but being liable to break often and require massive repair costs at times. Audi has cachet and brand value, built on a short string of successful product intros. cadillac has escalade version 2 and 3 and cts version 1 and 2 which have built some equity. audi has two hugely successful TTs, three generations of admirable A4s, an A6 that is critically acclaimed well respected and high on quality, and an A8 that has an alluminum suspension and is a technical tour de force competing with the best German limousines. they've had coupes, they've had convertibles, and they have successful wagon designs, Suvs, and now a beautiful supercar as well as a bolder theme going forward. one thing that can never be taken away from Audi, one trump card, one distinct quality that pulls many in is incredible interior ambience/quality and cutting edge and restrained design, inside and out. Audi is much much much farther ahead of Cadillac at this point, and yet all it takes is for GM to start hitting on all cylinders and start producing hits. start getting into those segments the competition is in when it comes to luxury/image cars, but make sure they compete and understand the value of the product in those categories. as for FWDvAWDvRWD......Audi/VW does a great job with FWD chassis, they are roundly critically acclaimed as so by actual drivers and magazine drivers who test cars for a living, on the other hand GM does not get critical acclaim for its FWD cars outside of Astra. in short, GM can't produce a premium driving experience with FWD, or doesn't want to or think it's necessary, so why should we accept a FWD Cadillac from them. [i want to mention vectra, malibu, and aura have also been lauded, but the latter two much less so than thier european counterparts....another case of GM dumbing down things for us dumb conservative and relenting Americans.

now you're spewing garbage. except this isn't a new thing, you spew quite a lot, it's quite hard for me read some of your posts and some of your views. this whole 'asian first mentality'; think a little and you might understand. reliability, practicality, sophistication, efficiency, superior build quality, superior longevity, sophisticated engineering. all traits associate with 'subpar bland asian crap'. i mean have you been spending extra time at a forum that's offended your pro-America stance? I'm sorry to point out the reality that people are free to choose and they're going to choose what is the best out there, and it will not always agree with your views on things, unless you can truly open tyour eyes and be able to rationalize freely and intelligently, based on reason and logic instead of your stubbornness and dumb logic. where are you coming from? really? you act like a big dumb ass and really full of it, a lot of the time, and then some of the time you're reasonable. i'm sorry to be so blunt. i don't know quite how else to tell you to listen and absorb more often rather than continually spew nonsense, polluting the world with your idea of wisdom, you shouldn't be given a voice like this most of the time. but you can be reasonable some of the time. some of what you have to say has a valid point. so murano is indistinguishable from a pilot? a rav4 is the same as xterra or rogue? FX and RX are supbar and bland? IS and G37 should just go away from America? LS 430 doesn't compete with the best Cadillac has to offer? Civic isn't the best compact car out there? Right. The people aren't able to shop for the better choices because of the indistinguishable asian choices. your words, not mine Read that statement and then read the rest of my post and you should see how ridiculous you sound and what a contrast your words are with mine. you have yet to address the point I made about having so many cars from the same company undercutting one another and competing with one another whilst devaluing thier corresponding brands, you asshole. Don't be a twit and overlook the fact that this is vital to GM and the brands' survival, finding a place for them in an ever croweded, ever-competitive world.