Chicagoland

Best improvement is to hide the ugly rear mounted spare tire! They look so 1940's.

For sure if this was a new GM/Ford car, the howl of "can't they get anything right!" would be all over the car boards!

Face reality, there is no such thing a a time machine to make it 1969 forever. Buick and Pontiac will never sell a mill cars a year and be volume brands, ever again. Better to be niche brands and combine with GMC.

Chicago is a big Pontiac market, and there are quite a few "Ponti-ox's" running around. And the G5 will do well here too, even though it's not all the different than a Chevy.

Well, thank the Pontiac dealers for this. And quite a few, in fact numerous, Dodges are badge jobs.

This day and age, the fall 'new cars' are the carry over models. The real 'new car season' is January - April, when the Auto Shows debut the all new cars for the next model year, plus. Do I miss the old days? yeah, but not going to cry about it.

Well, there should be the next generation '08 Vibe/Matrix/Corolla by NAIAS 2007, so only for a few months they sell the old ones.

LS is now the strippo model. One that dealers use to get people in the door, with low price. They then push the LT, LTZ, SS, or bigger cars.

El Caminos are classified as 'trucks' here in Illinois and the EPA, so they are not 'passenger cars'. People can argue "it's a car", but Chevy sold it as a truck, vehicle laws call it a truck, so its a truck. Regrading insurance surcharges, they base it on VIN #, which is why GTO, 442, and other muscle cars became option packages. Motor Trend did a '1973 new car preview' test in late 1972, and featured an SD455 Grand Am 2 door, which was the talked about prototype. Did 1/4 miles in the 15's, IIRC.

Yes you could get a 454 in an SS El Camino unitl 1975, but it wasn't tagged as "SS454". It was called 'Super Sport' after 1973, and the 'muscle car' image was played down. The last SS Chevy car, before the re-birth of the 1983 MC SS was the 1976 Nova SS. I don't know why they dropped it for 1977 in favor of 'Rallye' Nova. The '76 Nova SS was catching on again, after a spurt of sales in 1973-74. Here in Northern IL, the Nova SS was a popular new car for 'kids' in 1973-74. Back then there were no emission tests, so many removed the parts to get more power. 454's were available until 1975 in Chevelles and Monte Carlos, and in the Impala/Caprice until 1976. I saw a '76 454 Caprice on Ebay a while ago, looked great.

The typical NASCAR fan today, has no idea what kind of cars they are driving. Only cares about the drivers and sponsors. They root for the "Tide car" or Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr. The drivers are all wanting to go on Late Nite TV shows, do big budget ads, and be a celeb. The sponsors aim at 'regular folk' and kids such as Tide, Kellogg's, and M&M's. Bet at NASCAR race track parking lots, there are probably lots of Camrys and Accords. When the first racing "Taurus" was shown and it looked nothing like the real car, I was over it.

great, but they need to sell more high volume products. Hoping the Sky buzz translates into more Aura and Outlook sales. Also, more RETAIL sales of Impala, Cobalt, Malibu, G6, etc, etc,etc...

One thing for sure is most from C&G would never have bought the "new Ion", since it's not a 'real GM car'.

"I own a 85 Cutlass Ciera Holiday coupe and a 93 Buick LeSabre Cutsom, I also had a 92 Bonneville SE and I think the world of these cars. But those who know what its like to spend $25,000 on..." Hence why Olds died and GM shrank. To many living in the past, driving old car and not buying new ones.

I have seen used '00 L series as low as $2500-3000 . But still, parts will get be expensive or hard to find, since not too many were shared with other GM cars.

"The 70+ year olds will not be back to buy another car. The 23-year old will." The 23 y/o most likley gets a 5+ year old used car, or has parents buy it. It's the "old" 40=60 y/olds who really buy brand new cars. Also, Buick bashing is so cliche', so 1999. Wake up, those X car Skylarks are over a quarter centruy ago. They forget all the long running reliable cars. OTOH the 'goofy named' new cars are outselling the 'memorable' names 2 to 1. Buick has renamed cars before many times, get over it. Times change. The 'classic' 1959's were all new names then.

Having a third compact car platform, different than Opel and Chevy/Ponti, would be a waste. And probably they wanted to kill the expense of the plastic door panels. So, I am betting they are going to 'certify' the Opel Astra for US production, and call it "Saturn Astra". And no doubt, they will have a stockpile of leftover Ions, to tide them over. I think they have a few unsold L300's left?

Somewhere in the article, Saturn's manger says "no to a re-badged Cobalt". They should consider keeping Spring Hill open, it was a media frnzy when they were picking the site in the 80's. To close it would be another frenzy.

MaryAnn Keller's career is "GM watch dog", and has never had anything good to say about them.

They say "all models, exc. base and SE". That is like half or more of the volume. Just say ABS standard on GT/GTP".

Ford had a chance to take over Kia, instead Hyundai got half. It's like a Korean monopoly. Also, many dumb Americans assume Korea is part of Japan.

Years ago Mitsu was in growth mode in Chicago, since Central Illinois had the MMC car plant [formerly known as DSM*]. There are lots of Mitsu dealers that had full page ads with "$199 a month for a Galant", then the 0,0,0. Now a local Mitsudealer building has half its showroom dedicated to "used cars". * Contrary to popular belief, the name 'DSM' is no longer used for anything related to Mitsubishi products. It was only used for the plant in IL from 1988-92, and was dropped when Chrysler sold its half. Also, the car platform for the Eclipse, etc, was never called officially DSM.

Those Buick dealers closed beacuse it is not 1979, with all GM divisions running the same cars with different badges. All competing for the same customers. There is no need for full line Buick dealers anymore, with P-B-G one sales channel. Face reality, they cannot afford to have 5 full line makes as before the mid 1980's. And anything with a 'Buick' name is not going to get import customers to trade in, no matter how big the rebates are, or how many facts 'Buickman' can rattle off. GM's bast names to get import buyers are Chevy, Saturn and Cadillac.

I rented a Cobalt, and didnt like some interior parts. But the car felt solid overall, and made a Cavalier look like a Conestoga buggy.

What magic marketing plan would convince a Honda owner to trade in? No rebates, employee only crap, or stupid contests. Just say 'buy GM or else'? Try that in the Southwest and get laughed at.