Oracle of Delphi

I married my bread maker and also my dish washer.

From one to two?

As Z28 and ZL-1 know, I am in Australia, so I think this should come from me to soften the blow somewhat, at least I hope it does. Better to come from me than a stranger I think. General Motors confirms G8 and Camaro are the last Aussie RWD models for America By BYRON MATHIOUDAKIS in DETROIT 13 January 2009 DEVELOPMENT of future large rear-wheel drive vehicle programs beyond the current-generation Holden-devised Zeta architecture has halted at General Motors, according to global product development vice-chairman Bob Lutz. Speaking to Australian media at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, Mr Lutz confirmed that increasingly punitive fuel-economy target legislation, combined with the severe economic crisis, had left the corporation with no option but to cease future RWD large-car development. This means that GM may have to keep using the ageing Sigma RWD and all-wheel-drive architecture that has served on its upper-echelon vehicles such as the Cadillac CTS and STS sedans and the SRX luxury SUV. The Sigma architecture debuted in 2002 beneath the first-generation CTS. “The strategy we had a few years ago of basically deriving a whole sweeping global portfolio off the Australian Zeta architecture ... frankly, we have had to abandon that dream,” Mr Lutz said. “This is because, whether you are in the United States or in China, fuel economy mandates are getting more and more severe, and we just could not base our strategy on doing relatively large and relatively heavy rear-wheel-drive cars. “And I suspect the same thing is going to start to bite the traditional rear-wheel drive producers.” Left: Bob Lutz unveils the VE Commodore-based Pontiac G8 at the Chicago show in 2007. The Zeta’s death knell in the US follows GM’s announcement last week that the VE utility-derived Pontiac G8 ST program had been axed just months before the first vehicle was due to be made and shipped to North America. Mr Lutz also confirmed that the Australian-developed Chevrolet Camaro – which is also built off the Zeta platform architecture – has suffered delays as GM tries to get back on its corporate feet. The convertible version will now arrive in 2011 while development of a right-hand drive model has also been set back by a few months – at the very least. “Frankly, when we looked at investments that we could defer a little bit because they were non-essential or not critical to the short-term survival of the company, one of the things we pushed out a little bit was the Camaro convertible,” he said. “It was going to initially be just one year after the coupe (on sale in the next few months in America), and now it is going to be two years after the coupe. “And another thing we deferred was the right-hand-drive version. I’m confident it is going to happen, it’s just that it is going to happen a little later.” How long the VE Commodore-based Pontiac G8 – which is built at Holden’s Elizabeth plant in Adelaide – survives is tied in with Pontiac’s fate. “It all depends on what we are going to do with the Pontiac brand,” Mr Lutz said. “It is one of the US brands that we have announced that is under ‘strategic review’. “With the current financial reality of the company, we’ve got too many kids and too many mouths to feed, and three brands ... actually three-and-a-half brands are under strategic review: Saturn, Hummer, Saab and ‘kind of’ Pontiac. “We’ve said that we are going to focus Pontiac down to one or two entries – and for the time being one of the two entries will be the G8, the other being the Pontiac Vibe, and of course the Solstice Roadster and Coupe – and that’s basically the Pontiac line-up.” Nevertheless, GM’s global design director (and former Holden design chief) Mike Simcoe told GoAuto in Detroit that the Pontiac G8 had become profitable in North America in recent months, despite selling around half as many as GM anticipated, due to the big drop in the value of the Australian dollar compared to the US currency. And the HSV-based 6.2-litre Pontiac GXP will still be launched as scheduled in February. Mr Lutz also acknowledged that there would be a next-generation Commodore produced in Australia using a development of the Zeta architecture that debuted as the VE series in July 2006. Due out in about 2012 or 2013, it is believed that the next Commodore’s ‘top hat’ (body and interior) will change, as will parts of the drivetrain to accommodate alternative fuel powerplants, but the basic chassis will be carried over. “It is our intent to continue the Australian rear-wheel-drive cars; we will continue building them and doing a next generation and so forth and so on,” Mr Lutz said. “And, to be honest, they continue to be my favourite cars. I think they are absolutely wonderful – but the regulatory environment is such that it would be imprudent to base a whole global platform strategy on them ... much to my personal chagrin, by the way.” Mr Lutz said that, providing GM pulled through the current economic crisis, he expected the auto giant might again be open to the development of a new RWD platform with an expert partner like Holden in Australia – in the long-term. “What many of us would like to do (one day) is to do an all-new global rear-wheel drive architecture that would be considerably smaller, lighter and be capable of taking four-cylinder powertrains,” he said. “That, I think, could be globally shared. It’s not even in the plan at this point; it’s just what we tell ourselves in that there is going to have to be a next-generation Camaro, and there is going to have to be a next-generation Cadillac sedan, and so there is going to have to be a smaller and a way more efficient rear-wheel-drive architecture. “But at this point it is just a gleam in our eye.” Meanwhile, Mr Lutz revealed that GM’s decision to green light the design, development and assembly of its next-generation ‘Delta’ small car in Elizabeth leaves Holden in a stronger position to weather the vagaries of consumer trends and economic downturns. “Holden has basically committed to localising a compact car for Australia’s future because we see that is where the growth is,” he said. Holden managing director and CEO Mark Reuss also said in Detroit this week that sealing the small-car deal for Australia was one of his top priorities when he began his stint in Australia one year ago, and that much of his time since has been spent implementing the program. Link: http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mellor.nsf...A25753D0016D9D3

I'm not worried about you ...

That's a little concerning, to say the least ...

Chit

Now that I'm home for the holidays, my neighbor came over yesterday with a basket full of fresh ripe tomatoes that she brought back from Florida on Friday. Those tomatoes smelled like they do when I pick them out of my garden in July. Yesterday I left my gated community and headed for the Little Italy section of Wilmington and went straight to M. Fierro & Sons to pick up some mozzarella cheese. (Open on Saturdays in December) Today I had a plate full of sliced tomatoes on a bed of sliced mozzarella cheese sprinkled with a nice balsamic vinegar, it was to die for. Link to M. Fierro & Sons to see their products, which are excellent and locally made below: http://www.mfierrocheese.com/history.html What simple pleasures do you enjoy?

Arlo Guthrie, where have you been?

I'm going to be the CEO of GM someday.

I think he will find his fan base is much diminished, a lot of people consider him a traitor.

I like trains and I like history, so I found this story to be interesting. Plus I've lived in this area of the country for years. I also have ridden the Amtrak train to Washington quite a few times in my life. updated 11:17 a.m. ET, Sun., Dec. 21, 2008 ABOARD AMTRAK 181 NORTHEAST REGIONAL - The centuries-old right of way between Philadelphia and Washington is marked by shimmering waterways and industrial sprawl, well-kept suburbs and urban blight. President-elect Barack Obama won't be sharing a ride with thousands of long-distance commuters when he travels on a private charter train from Philadelphia's 30th Street Station to Washington's Union Station on Jan. 17, three days before he takes the oath of office. But his route will be exactly the same. In fact, it hasn't changed much since Abraham Lincoln rode the rails before his inauguration. Evidently Obama has thought deeply about the symbolism of the 135-mile journey, something that regular riders typically aren't inclined to do. Nonetheless, they develop a feel for the changing landscape. "You see those deserted houses, and you know you're in Baltimore," said Gifty Kwakye, 27, a student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who commutes daily from Philadelphia. Need for renewal clear The theme for Obama's inaugural is "Rewewing America's Promise," and as Kwakye noted, the need for such renewal will be clear in the five minutes before Obama's train pulls into Baltimore's Penn Station. The tracks pass through some of east Baltimore's most impoverished neighborhoods, where abandoned and burned-out row homes seem to outnumber inhabited ones. The city has nearly 30,000 abandoned properties. A gaze out the window could also remind Obama of the troubles of the auto industry, the decline of American manufacturing and the strain on the military. Johnnie Walker, a 60-year-old Amtrak operations supervisor from Middletown, Del., who has been with the railroad for 29 years, finds profound scenes throughout the journey. At the Chrysler plant outside Wilmington, Del., "you see it's in the process of closing, and you wonder what's going to happen to all the employees there," Walker said. At Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground, "you start thinking about the military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan, wondering where they're being deployed to. "There's a lot of emotion when you travel on these trains," Walker said. A transformed landscape The landscape has transformed since Lincoln's inaugural train ride. But Lincoln, just like passengers today, made the dramatic crossing at the mouth of the Susquehanna River, where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. "That's my favorite scene," said Amtrak employee Peggy White, 50, as she served coffee to groggy commuters. "I have to leave my counter just to look out. It's a beautiful scene." The tracks also cross the Bush River and the Gunpowder River as the train zips down to Baltimore. It was just south of the Gunpowder, in Chase, Md., where one of the worst crashes in Amtrak history occurred. In January 1987, a Conrail engineer under the influence of marijuana sped through a warning signal and the locomotive collided with an Amtrak train. Sixteen people were killed. Closer to the city line, the path begins to divert from the one Lincoln took. "In that day, Baltimore had three different railroad stations. None of them were connected," said Courtney B. Wilson, executive director of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. Rail cars were pulled through the city by horses, then hooked up with a different locomotive at the next station. That transfer point became the site of some infamous subterfuge by Lincoln. His security chief, Allan Pinkerton — founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency — suspected that someone would make an attempt on his life in Baltimore, a city that in 1861 was divided between Northern and Southern sympathizers. Pinkerton arranged for Lincoln to hide at President Street Station before "his car was pulled through Baltimore under the darkness of night," Wilson said. The maneuver was denounced in contemporary newspaper accounts as cowardly and inspired a political cartoon that showed the president-elect furtively peeking out of a freight car, wearing a nightshirt. Huge crowd expected for speech By contrast, Obama will be making a speech before what is sure to be a huge crowd in a city that overwhelmingly supported him, both in the Democratic primary and the general election. The act of riding the train — along with events in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore — expands the inaugural festivities to include more people, something that previous presidents with a mandate to change Washington have done. "It does remind me a bit of Jimmy Carter jumping out of the limo on his inauguration, walking through the streets, and through the act reminding Americans this presidency would be different," said Julian E. Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. And by beginning his trip in the nation's birthplace, Obama will be emphasizing the historic nature of his own election as the first black president — "reminding voters how, unlike almost any other election, the choice voters made in itself was a watershed," Zelizer said. For Amtrak riders, the trip makes another strong point, about the importance of mass transit — particularly given the participation of Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who will hop on Obama's train when it stops in Wilmington. Biden, famously, decided to commute daily from his Delaware home after his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident in 1972, shortly after his election to the Senate. The train rides allowed him to spend more time at home with his young sons, and he stuck with the routine throughout his 35 years in the Senate. Other elected officials ride the rails Biden's Amtrak trips are likely to be confined to weekends for at least the next four years, but he's not the only elected official who rides the rails. Rep.-elect Leonard Lance, R-N.J., was aboard the Northeast Regional on Tuesday for an apartment-hunting trip to Washington. He lives in Clinton Township, N.J., and boarded the train in Trenton, a 2 1/2-hour journey. "I commend the vice president-elect because I think he put his family first," said Lance, who, like Biden, plans to advocate for improved rail service. "Amtrak is important to people in the Northeast, and of course we need to become more energy efficient and support mass transit," Lance said. Praising mass transit aboard an Amtrak train is as politically astute as pushing for education money at a teachers' convention. As they doze off, peck away at laptops or bury their noses in newspapers or novels, the passengers look like they are in on a secret. "It's convenient. It's kind of expensive," said Kwakye, echoing the comments of a half-dozen other passengers. "But it's better than driving." Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28337030/

My division of choice as you put it has always been Opel, I really don't care what GMNA brand sells our cars as long as they do! :AH-HA_wink:

Yes they sure did.

Damn Bob, that thing looks better than you do, and you have the same mileage too.

Here is the same entrance - from the inside Here's the best part: the Packard factory/corporate headquarters - all 3,500,000 square feet of it - can be yours for just $13,000,000!

Here is a pic of the Main Lobby, it requires some imagination to picture how it looked in Packard's glory days.

You like it raw then?

Dirty dancing

I always knew you were a mountain man, is your real name Jeremiah Johnson?

Or North Carolina, Virginia, etc ...

It pains me as well, but if we don't wake up as a nation and fight to keep our car industry and manufacturing base healthy, there will be many cities with buildings that look like this. In Delaware our Chrysler plant closed down for good on Friday 12/19/08. During the Korean war, that plant built tanks for the US Army, and was currently building the Dodge Durango & Chrysler Aspen. How long before the GM's Wilmington Delaware plant joins them? Our local Philadelphia ABC news outlet Channel 6 reported on the event, check out who is sponsoring the report when you view it, she should pop up on the screen. http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=...&id=6564059 Here's another pic of it. And what it looked like circa 1956.

I'm not worried, sharks don't like fur balls.

Playing with chest?

Actually Pontiac is sold in the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Another thing I think turned off traditional Pontiac buyers were the G names. Pontiac cut it's own throat when they gave up historic names like Bonneville, Grand Prix, Grand Am, etc. for G8, G6, G5. How foolish for Lutz to change to the generic G names that meant nothing and still stand for nothing, and jettison the great names of past Pontiac models. Everyone knew what you drove when you said Bonneville, Grand Prix, and Grand Am. The public was left scratching their heads when you said I drive a G6 or a G5, and I actually think that's part of the problem with poor sales of the G8, people don't like those names. Did GM learn nothing from the doomed name change from Sunbird to J2000 back to Sunbird again, during the hiatus of the Sunbird name during the 1981 & 1982 model years? I blame Lutz for Pontiac's demise. Part of the reason he was hired was to fix Pontiac, Pontiac was supposed to be his brand, his baby, the one brand he connected with the most. Well he fixed it alright, 1st he gave us a warmed up leftover of the Holden Monaro and called it the GTO, which he rushed to market. GTO traditionalist turned their collective nose up at that car, there went that loyal group, out the door. Then he got rid of the Bonneville, bye bye Bonneville fans. Then the Grand Prix was next on his hit list, we'll miss you loyal Grand Prix buyers. Now we have the G8 that was supposed to pick up those loyal Bonneville and Grand Prix buyers, yet the G8 flounders on dealer lots much like it's GTO sibling did between 2004 - 2006. When you don't learn from your past mistakes, you repeat them. Just like when Lutz brought out the Solstice ragtop in the dead of winter, another bonehead move. By the way, speaking of the Kappa cars, they are only building 50 cars a day, looks like another failure on the way under Lutz' watch. Remember now, Pontiac was his baby, I'd hate to see what he would have done to Pontiac had he hated it, and why was the Vibe given to Pontiac and not Chevy to replace the Chevy Prizm again? I use to love Pontiac, but in its place all that is left is Brand G, how fitting.

:rotflmao: Oh I'm sorry was I being rude and a total ass?