smk4565

I think the interior is a let down, the Camaro looks great on the outside, has power and speed, but they blew it on the interior. It is too monotone, and looks cheap, and I am not a fan of the retro look. The 2010 Mustang, Genesis Coupe, and 370Z interiors are better. When you see the Camaro in person it looks big, and wide, and we know it is heavy. If they made it a little smaller (Mustang size) it would looks sportier I think and put it closer to the Genesis and 370Z also. But at least it isn't a full size like the Challenger which is way too big, and way too retro.

There could be one out there, but it would be extremely rare, where as cars that look like this are rather common.

At least the Aurora doesn't have a bench seat or column shifter, and the center console is angled toward the driver to make it a little more of a driver's car. I've yet to see an Aurora with one of those canvas or vinyl fake convertible tops or white wall tires also. The Aurora's suspension is stiffer than a DTS or the Seville SLS was, and it handles better than those two. I want a smaller car next time, and rear wheel drive; size and front weight bias are shortcomings of the Aurora.

The Fiesta is awesome. Every magazine review says is is the best subcompact, and Top Gear proved its excellence. I could see the Fiesta outselling the Focus easily here, and crushing every other subcompact in sales. The Fiesta is going to be a big winner for Ford, I bet they offer the luxury goodies on the American version. It would be great if they did an SVT version with 160-170 hp, it is only about a 2500 lb car.

Buick should actually try to be like Toyota (the nicer Toyotas) set the Regal against the Camry, LaCrosse against the Avalon, and do a small hybrid like a Prius. Buick needs to get 55-75 year olds that want a soft cushy car and only want to spend $25-35k. Chevy can go against Hyundai, Ford, Honda, Nissan with mainstream and a few sporty models. Or better yet, Buick could stop wasting GM's time and money and those resources can be used on Chevrolet and Cadillac.

Yep. GM uses cheap steel, since it is well, cheap, and cost cutting rules at GM. But that means they have to use more of it for crash tests, rigidity, etc, so the car's frame/body is heavy to begin with. Then they use lots of sound deadening to cover up the lack of refinement in some engines (I can tell they did this with the CTS), and that adds weight. The horsepower of this car isn't the problem, the weight is. GM cars have been getting heavier and heavier, and bumping the engine up 20 hp isn't the solution, cutting 300 pounds is, then acceleration, handling, braking, fuel economy all get better. The 250-275 hp range that front drivers are at now is about the limit without having loads of torque steer. Some fwd cars will go a little over that, but 300 hp was the max and the the 300 hp front drivers are dead now.

My mistake on the 3.5, I knew the 3.0 was SOHC, I was thinking that the 3.5 Acuras had DOHC because all Honda/Acuras are 4 valve per cylinder.

The 3800 sounds terrible north of 4,000 rpm. Although anything with enough insulation and sound deadening can make the engine sound muted. To me the CTS is like that, the 3.6 isn't as refined as BMW's six, so Cadillac uses loads sound deadening, then you feel isolated from the engine response. The 3800 was uncompetitive in 2000, they surely can't use it now. Agreed on the Honda V6, especially the 3.5 DOHC, light years smoother than the 3800.

I want to see them succeed, but a fwd crossover that seems awfully similar to an Equinox, and the DTS/STS, aren't good enough. The CTS is too heavy to perform with the 3-series and G37, and lacks the luxury to compete with the mid-size sedans. Cadillac needs the right product though, thus they need all new product, not a refresh of existing cars (STS and DTS) or vehicles built out of the GM parts bin (Escalade, XTS). ATS should be easy to get right; better interior than the CTS, steering/braking/handling that beat the Camaro SS, and 0-60 in 5 seconds or less, while getting 27 mpg highway.

Ecoboost 4 is supposed to make 270 hp, that is quite good, it will have the power of The Duratec 3.5. But refinement as well as fuel economy are big factors, if the V6 is smoother and more quite and gets 1 mpg less, people will still take it over the 4-banger. I agree the engine should be from scratch, but the cylinder size could be the same. I remember when Ford had the 3.0 V6, Jaguar had the 4.0 V8 and Aston Martin had a 6.0 V12, they were all related to each other. GM has 2.0, 3.0 and 2.4 and 3.6 engines so they should be able to come up with 4.0 and 4.8 liter V8s based on engines they already make, which should keep development time and cost somewhat down.

Cadillac basically has to redo everything, but I know it will take a long time. The problems started when they canceled the UltraV8 and let the Northstar age and become uncompetitive, then the 2008 STS mid-cycle refresh was quite lame, and the XLR never had the performance or interior it needed for its price point. Cadillac was moving in the right direction in 2003-2004, but they didn't follow it though. Now they have to suffer a few years of bad sales until they can fix their lineup, and hope that in a few years they will still have enough brand image to sell their new stuff. Even if the ATS is better than the 335i, the 3-series will likely outsell it 2-1 on badge alone, that is the biggest hurdle Cadillac has to overcome.

The Ecoboost 4cylinder isn't out yet, so we don't know if Ecotec is better. Agreed though that Ford marketing is laying waste to GM's Howie Long Chevy ads with gray cars in a white/beige showroom. GM should DI every DOHC engine they make, and a turbo 4 (like Audi/VW's 2.0T) would be nice for the small to mid-size vehicles. And if they put 2 of those engines together, they have a 4.0-4.8 liter twin turbo V8 for the Vette and Cadillacs.

Z06 gets 15/24 mpg. Base Corvette with manual gets 26 mpg, all good mpg numbers for the performance it offers, thanks to low weight, aerodynamics, and gearing. 19/27 mpg from the Porsche 911 Carrera, but it drops to 16/23 mpg for a 911 Turbo. Lotus Exige gets 20/26 mpg, add one more mpg for the Elise. The Exige on a racetrack is pretty tough to beat.

Most luxury makers are down, but not down 47% like Cadillac is. Cadillac has lost half of it's sales volume in one year, that is a pretty staggering figure. Even more discouraging, is GM thinks the CTS and SRX are the types of vehicles to get Cadillac back to competing with the imports. Those vehicles aren't good enough. Cadillac has a long way to go, and GM management doesn't know how to get them there. Around 2000 or 2001 GM sold over 5 million cars, in 2008 it was 2.9 million and they are down another 35% this year. GM is going to struggle to sell 2 million cars this year. 60% of their business gone in less than a decade, and they still haven't found a way to stop the bleeding.

As much as I'd love to see Toyota get screwed, they'll probably just pay Paice off and move on. Paice is probably making a fuss about it just to get a quick payday. Plus, the government loves hybrids, they wouldn't allow someone to block Toyota from selling 250,000 hybrids a year.

Agreed on the first part, but where GM made it's mistake was around 2004. When the 3.6 V6 debuted (and the 2., GM figured the "high feature" V6s would be maybe 20% of their V6 volume, and the 3500 and 3900 V6s (and few remaining 3800s) would be 80%. Thus the 04-07 Malibu had rough sounding 200 hp V6 compared to Honda's refined SOHC V6 making 240 hp. Now 5 years later, the 3.0 and 3.6 V6s are making their way into all GM V6 vehicles. They should have gone all DOHC V6s 5 years ago, rather than try to get buy with dated, unrefined engines coupled to an equally dated 4-speed transmission.

All of those BMWs are sold in other countries though. So really they sold 4600 7-series, 3700 X6, 3200 Z4, etc. The 6-series is an ugly car, but they are basically selling 5-series mechanics for $80,000, so there must be a profit margin in there. It wouldn't surprise me though if the 6-series dies when the new 5-series comes. The CTS is priced like a 3-series, and is Cadillac's volume vehicle, they need more than 2500 units out of it, that is only 30,000 a year. The old CTS used to get 50-60,000 units in a year, and 50% of the car market didn't go away. Plus the STS and DTS are almost non-factors now, Cadillacs sedan sales are way down, and they aren't doing anything to reverse it.

The 6 brands with the biggest decline in August were all GM brands. GMC down 45% Buick down 52% Cadillac down 55% Saturn down 58% Hummer down 64% Saab down 68% Those last 3 don't matter, but the other 3 are "core" brands. Cadillac needs better product, GM neglected them big time over the past couple years. When the 08 CTS came out everyone said it was Cadillac's savior, and I said one car doesn't make a brand and the CTS isn't good enough. CTS is just over a year old and already selling only 2500 units a month. They didn't even sell 400 STS, might as well kill that car now.

It is funny how similar the August 2008 and August 2009 reports are. They dropped 20% in August 08, dropped 20% this year, and in both cases they sugar coated by saying that August was better than July and their best month of the year. I pretty much stopped reading the PR spin on these releases and just look at the sales figures of the cars.

Cadillac and Buick took a big hit. The damage done to their brand images may be irreversible. Malibu did pretty well, new Equinox seems to be a hit, as is the Camaro. Corvette was down 82% and is down 56% for the year; are people just buying a Camaro instead? Aveo was a clear benefactor of Cash for Clunkers, that was a rather flukey month for a mostly terrible car.

Blue Oval rising! The steps Ford has been making to update their lineup and bring vehicles like the Transit Connect over from Europe are paying off. The Fusion was up 132%, that's awesome. Although I think everyone's numbers could be a bit skewed with cash for clunkers, so we'll have to see how September and October turn out to really know if the market stabilized. Bad month for Lincoln though, I thought the updated MKZ would have held its own better than that. MKS decline isn't surprising, big, front drive luxury doesn't sell.

Bingo. If the pushrod was so great, why does the CTS have a DOHC direct injected V6 rather than a pushrod V6? I won't argue that the Corvette can get away with the pushrod V8 for another generation, maybe two, I am just saying it is better off with DOHC. Likewise for the GMT900s.

I am saying between the Buick and the Lexus, the Buick has less performance and more features, and the test was made to reward performance less than usual and features more than normal. So it looks like Edmunds changed the scoring to favor Buick. So I wonder with their regular scoring would the Buick still have won. The 472 extra pounds is a problem, GM vehicles are too heavy and it drags their mpg numbers down.

20 years ago the Ford 5.0 liter V8 (which was actually 4.9 liters) made 150 hp. Today Ford's 2.5 liter inline-4 makes 175 hp. Technology will drive down engine size while increasing power and mileage. By the time they get to the Corvette C10, it may have a 400 hp, 4-cylinder, or it might be electric.

I know marshmallow ride and soft seats is what is going to sell these cars, but if a magazine or website has a standardized testing procedure and scoring system, why change it. It makes it look like they rigged the test to suit one of the vehicles. The Genesis has a V6 too that will get the same mileage either of these cars get. The Buick only averaged 18.5 mpg, it isn't like it is sipping fuel anyway. I haven't been in the Lacrosse, but the Genesis interior blows away the Camry Delux, eerrr I mean ES350's interior.