Northstar

No, Kia sold like 23k units. They're YTD is higher than Chrysler's one month thought, that's probably what you read. It looks like the rental agencies didn't place many orders for the 300 this month.

There are some great deals on the Tundra. I saw advertising for $5500 off. If the new one wasn't coming and they weren't trying to clear out inventory, I don't think it'd be so high. Total "Toyota" is 1.928mil for the year, which puts it ahead of Chevy and Ford, but 138k of that is Scion, so really Toyota is not quite at Chevy and Ford's sales, but very close. Just thought I'd point out that when the "sales champ" is announced that Toyota's releases may say they have a higher volume, but it's artificially inflated by Scion's numbers.

The Aura is in its second month, I wouldn't be too worried unless its's under 5k units for Oct. It is getting a 4 cyl in non-GL form, too. I'm guessing GM made quite a bit on trucks this month. It sold as many as last October and the incentives are way less this year.

I'm not doubting that the Tundra could pull the Ram since it's supposed to have over 350HP, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the tests made the Tundra look better/faster than it really is. Keep in mind who was running the tests... That said, I'm sure GM/Ford/Dodge would all push their own trucks harder and not get on the others as much to make their truck look better.

We'll see how the Aura did last month pretty shortly when sales figures are released.

17MPH isn't very fast. A four minute mile means you would be running at a rate of 15mph, so 2mph more isn't that much faster. I'm pretty sure I can run that fast if not faster. Michael Johnson ran 25mph.

Very well, then he held both postitions five years ago.

It's pretty similar to the Duramax, though the Duramax does have it beat slightly with 365/660 vs 350/650. The GM HDs can tow slightly more as well. The Super Duty has them both beat, though.

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showthread.php?t=476049\ Of course, it looks much better than any of GM's press shots make it look.

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...024/PROMOBLOG01 Bob Lutz Speaks By BOB GRITZINGER AND NATALIE NEFF AutoWeek | Published 10/02/06 While GM Chairman Rick Wagoner was pow-wowing with Nissan-Renault head Carlos Ghosn, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz held court at the Paris motor show. Here’s what he shared with AutoWeek: AW: What’s in your future product portfolio these days? Lutz: Obviously, a lot of really good stuff, much of which will be displayed at the upcoming season of auto shows. In fact, we have so much stuff coming we have to split it up over four auto shows because the stuff’s that coming would overwhelm any one show. For example, the Saturn Vue, aka the Opel Antara, will be at Los Angeles. That’ll be a big surprise. (Antara/Vue) is a really good example of global coordination. The original architecture is Vue. The Koreans did all of the new engineering, except the styling which was done in Germany by the Opel guys. Then because ride and handling tuning and steering is a German specialty and not yet a Korean one, GM Daewoo asked GM Europe to do the ride, handling, steering and braking tuning. Meanwhile Saturn was always watching from the sidelines, and at the same time all the U.S. requirements were incorporated. So now, basically, the finished product, having gone around the world comes back to us from Germany as the Vue. (Similarly) we thought Corsa we thought—with fuel prices and the obvious success of the Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris—would be a good fit for the U.S. It turns out this is the exact reason why we’re running all this globally now. GM Europe said, ‘Well, we never thought it would go to the States.’ So it’s not designed for federal crash regulations, and it would take three years to re-engineer the whole thing to make it U.S. compatible. It would take so much money, it would take so long that the remaining life of the Corsa would be too short to justify. But the next-gen Corsa will be fully U.S. compatible. We’re not going to make the mistake anymore of designing small cars for specific markets. From now on, thanks to the global architecture strategy, a global design organization and a global engineering organization that cuts right across regional lines (cars will be designed for all markets). In the future, every architecture will be internationally compatible, so that we have the flexibility—because you never know where fuel prices are going to go or what’s going to be a hit. For instance, three years ago we asked the Chevrolet organization in Europe if they would be interested in the HHR? And they said ‘no, absolutely no interest.’ Meanwhile they’ve changed their mind. Too late, folks. No European requirements were designed in. AW: How important is it to you that GM stay number one? Is that a big deal? Lutz: No, it’s really not. To be honest, I think it’s more of a big deal for the GM lifers than it is for me. I’ve been with BMW and I realize there’s a great deal of delight in being with a smaller company that’s attacking a large rival, because at BMW we were always saying, ‘Kill Mercedes! Kill Mercedes!’ It was like Avis, we’re number two. There is a certain advantage at having a larger competitor who you observe and strategically attack. And I will tell you it is much easier trying to knock the top guy off the peak than defending the peak against all of the people that are trying to get you. And I think a period—and I wouldn’t like to see it last too long—a period of some years where GM is number two, I think it might be a very good thing for the culture. And since everybody always hates the big guy, GM could take the noble underdog position for a while. ‘Gosh, can they regain the crown?’ I think it would trigger a lot of sympathy that we’re not now enjoying. AW: Is GM still overbranded? Lutz: I don’t think we are because we can take care of these different brands. I don’t think we’ll be adding any new ones. But in practical terms, it’s always very easy to say Ford should get rid of Lincoln and maybe Mercury. But there’s not enough money in the world to pay off all those dealers who have money invested (in those brands). You’re talking billions and billions and billions of dollars to settle all the lawsuits for breach of contract. And the analysts never get it. And you guys—it’s pathetic—can’t seem to publish an article without quoting half a dozen of these weenies, with arcane titles from business schools nobody’s ever heard of, and I don’t think you guys go out and check their credentials. In a perfect world, you might have fewer or you might have more (brands). You say Toyota only has Lexus, Scion and Toyota. Go to Japan and you’ll see all these Toyotas you’ve never seen before in your life, only they don’t say Toyota on them. They’ve got different grilles, different taillights, different ornamentation, and they’ve got names like Soaring Blue Bird, and you say, ‘Where the hell did this come from? Oh, that’s one of the Toyota channels.’ AW: What is a healthy GM market share? Lutz: We are healthy. Remember you are restricting your comments to GM North America and you’re ignoring the 50 percent rapidly growing, monster double-digit growth outside the United States. China is just one country, but also Korea, we’re on a tear in Eastern Europe and Russia and India and everything, so I would bet you within 10 years that GM North America will be vastly smaller than the rest of the GM empire put together. We’re already seeing that in profitability, which is now greater in the other three regions than it is in the United States. My point is that you have to train yourselves that General Motors is not GM U.S. plus a few other unimportant foreign affiliates. The U.S. is now an ever smaller block of the whole thing. I would rather be tremendously financially healthy at 22 or 23 percent than be struggling to hang on to 25 or 26. Market share, per se, gets you nothing. Market share only gets you something if you’re responding to natural demand. If you’re desperately trying to carve out market share through incentives or low pricing, it’s an ephemeral victory, because the minute you relax it immediately bounces back to where it was. A lot of people don’t understand that. They think it’s like a war where you occupy territory, and once you’ve conquered the territory you put in the occupation troops and you can relax. No, it’s not like that. It’s like a rubber band. If you stretch the rubber band with your market share, the minute you let go it goes, ‘Twang!’ and it goes back to what it was. That rubber band has to grow organically. In fact, I would make the following point. There is no car company in the world—except Toyota in Japan which, to put it kindly, is a different kind of market—not Volkswagen in Germany or Holden in Australia or anybody anywhere, where the dominant manufacturer held on to much more than 20 percent when the dozens and dozens and dozens of foreign brands came in…Like the old German saying, no tree has ever grown all the way up to heaven. AW: Shouldn’t you be part of the (GM-Renault-Nissan) talks going on now? Lutz: No, because at the most senior level it really is finance and financial oriented people, and that’s why it’s right for (CEO) Rick (Wagoner) and for (CFO) Fritz Henderson to do that. The guy that’s running the product team is my vice president of product planning, John Smith. And you know, I know what’s going on. I’m involved in it as much as I want to be. But to tell you the truth, I would probably not be the smoothest person to have in the formal negotiations. I could almost be relied on to say something unnecessarily provocative. AW: A super-luxury car—are you ever going to get that? Lutz: It’s still a wonderful dream, like the Cadillac Sixteen, but frankly, given the reality of fuel prices, I would say that the priorities have shifted somewhat.

I read an article that I'm going to post from Autoweek where they interview Lutz and he says it would take 3 years to but all of the federal regulations on the Corsa that are needed to be sold here (!)

We've already seen it, and it's not spot-on.

I don't have documentation, but I do first-hand experience. One of my dad's co-worker's wife was looking at the 300, and they had test drove it and everything, and then when I asked her if she knew it was RWD, she said, "No, it is? I don't know if I want it then." So, obviously some dealerships are touting that it's RWD in order to sell it, or she would have known that already. Few people are going to be drawn into the showroom because a vehicle is FWD or RWD. They get drawn into the showroom because of styling. Heck, someone asked me if the Solstice was FWD. Obviously they didn't like it because it was RWD, but because it's drop-dead gorgeous.

No? Lutz came in Sept. 2001.

According to this Reuters article, it goes on sale in 5 days, and they have 70-75k orders: Article

The only reason the 300 was so successful was because of the Hemi and styling, and I think most of it was styling. Not many cared that it was RWD. If the Malibu has knock-out and looks like a $30-40k car for $17k, then I see no reason why it won't be a home run. Most cars in the segment fit your description of the Malibu. FWD, I4/V6, hybrid option, 6-speed auto. However, what most of them lack is standout styling, and certainly none of them offer knock-out styling. That will be the Malibu's ace in the hole if all the reports are true about its looks.

Wait, so they're announcing this for the next Corsa, as in, the one after the one that hasn't even been sold yet but is going to be sold very soon? I sure hope it means the one that's about to be sold in Europe, not one 5 years from now.

Wow, so Saturn is going to have the Corsa, Astra, and Aura. The Corsa already has like 75,000 orders in Europe, so I'd say it sould do okay here as well.

Works fine for me...

The front is too much like a 4-door Camaro. The back is nice though.

I don't think the new front end looks very similar to the Chinese LaCrosse, it's really more in line with the Lucerne. Of course the NG LaCrosse is going to look like the NG Chinese LaCrosse... they're the same car.

Yes, it's still on Theta.

8 car spaces? For some reason I think that's a bit of an exxageration. 8 car spaces is a lot in a quarter mile, much less 0-60. That'd be more than 1 car length per second.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../609300352/1148

Where?