Northstar

Actually, it will be in retail sales. That's a 50% increase over the Grand Prix in retail sales, and they'll be sold at higher prices, too. Who's laughing now?! :rotflmao:

Yes you did: Again, you have a pretty ridiculous statement there. "For every Malibu sale, some Impala sales will be lost." Umm, ok, that makes absolutely no sense. Buick's sales being down doesn't have much to do with the Malibu... much less considering the LaCrosse is at the end of its life cycle. First you complain that GM's increases are due to fleet, then you are complaining that the G8 won't match the sales of the rental queen GP? G6 is not down that much, only 1k/month. How many minivans did Pontiac sell to being with? Not many. The Torrent is going to GMC, and the G5 has never sold well (actually total Delta sales are basically flat for the year, so no losses there, plus a new Cobalt is coming soon). If CTS sales double, and STS dies, that's a net increase. What is this jibberish about Caddy trucks? Escalade is down .1%, ESV up 10.1%, EXT up 34.4%, and SRX up 1.1%. Total sales of 70k is more truck sales than any other brand than Lexus. Yep, really close to being irrelevant. Shrinking full size truck market? Is that why T900 sales of 1,088,087 this year is only down about 9k units through 10 months vs last year's total of 1,097,385? Perhaps it is shrinking, but a decline of less than .9% for the year for GM is not shrinking. Please, post some facts next time, not opinion.

Saying that the Malibu won't net any sales increase is pretty ridiculous. Impala sales may fall as a result of the Malibu stealing some of its sales, but you are suggesting that the Malibu won't take in any conquest buyers, which is ridiculous to think after reading the review. Car companies advertise cars before they're out quite often. The Mazda3 had ads on New Year's day every five minutes shortly before it came out. The Silverado also had ads before it came out, if I remember correctly. Seeing as how the car isn't even at dealers yet (at least not many), I'd say it's pretty good that you say that buyers have come in asking about it.

I don't think 1 in 10 Camcords have NAV. Probably closer to 1 in 30 than 1 in 20, too. Even if 1 in 20 have NAV, 35k is not a very big number compared to the size of the midsize market as a whole. Does that mean that the Malibu shouldn't offer NAV? No, but it's not going to make it or break it for most people. Think about it this way: Let's say the midsize market consisting of the Camry, Accord, Altima, Malibu, Fusion, G6, Mazda6, Sebring, Avenger, etc. (Malibu's competitors) is 1.75 million units. Now, let's assume that 1 in 20 of the vehicles sold has NAV... that's 87500 vehicles. So, that would be 87500 vehicles that GM won't be getting the sales of, most likely. However, GM still has the chance to get 1.6625 million customers. GM only aims to sell 200k Malibu's/year, so it has to land 1 out of every 8.3 customers with the Malibu, or 12.3% of the market. If it did offer NAV and still wanted to sell 200k Malibus, it would have to land 1 out of every 8.75 customers, or 11.4% of the market. Not having NAV is not hurting GM that much, and if GM reaches it's target of 200k vehicles/year it really doesn't matter too much to the bottom line. Perhaps the 10000 Malibus that it might sell with NAV would have a higher profit margin, but it's still not hurting them that much.

I saw an 08 CTS is white. Looked spectacular driving down the road.

The CTS sport has 20 inch wheels. BMW puts 19s on lots of cars. I don't think a one inch difference makes it "super size" plus, it's a SEMA concept, what do you expect? If it makes you feel any better, the CTS-V will have 19s as well. As for vinyl tops -- they don't put those on from the factory. The dealerships do that. Are you trying to say the CTS looks like a Chevy from the 90s and doesn't look classy? Don't get so bent out of shape about a wild SEMA concept. It's a CONCEPT.

Toyota could make the ugliest car ever and get away with it. Until the quality of Toyota cars starts to drop to the level of the quality of the Tundra, the T on the front will sell whatever car it is on.

If there's no more Magnum, that market would be free for a G8 wagon to take over.

Looks like a Challenger with a Mustang-inspired ass end?

It looks like it has braces with that big shiny intercooler.

Agreed. Sitting in the ION made the Cobalt seem like a luxury car (ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little ). The Astra is on a totally different level.

They've got to cut costs some where. Can't afford to use the top-of-the-line stuff for everything

Honestly, who gives a crap what the concept has under the hood? If GM delivers on their promise in the time, no one will be laughing about the concept having next to nothing under the hood. And as Fly said, do you really think we'd be waiting for a couple years if the concept was production-ready?

This confirms to me that the Enclave should have the black plastic painted body color, or at least optional. The wheel/brake combo looks funny.

The LS9 and LSA engines definitely have superchargers...

Still, that doesn't necessarily mean that if produced, it's going to have this same engine. There's nothing preventing them from putting the 2.0 turbo in aside from getting it approved in the vehicle. Just because the concept has the 1.8 doesn't mean the production version has to. That's what I was getting at.

GM retail has been up most months, many times significantly. GM might lose share in terms of retail + fleet, but that's only because it's cutting so many fleet sales. I believe the market as a whole is down so far this year, which would suggest that retail sales are down (fleet should stay the same for the most part, I would think). If GM's retail sales are up and the market's retail shares are down... well, you do the math.

Storm Trooper was quite tacky, IMO, and the Ram was just way over-the-top and gaudy. Again, all SEMA concepts are like this, so you can't be too nitpicky, though. As for the CTS sport, it is growing on me. There are still things I don't like, but I think in black a lot of the changes would look pretty good.

Who cares what engine it has? It's just a concept, though some of the features could probably become accessories. Regardless, it doesn't matter whether this particular vehicle has the LNF or has no engine at all since it's a concept.

This is a SEMA concept, the IS-F is a production car. It's OK to have tacky crap on a SEMA car, not so much on a production car. There's a big difference. Almost everything at SEMA is pretty tacky. I do wish it was less tacky, but show me a SEMA concept that isn't tacky.

I think it'd look better with the regular front end. The Chevy SUV front end is better than the Silverado front end, yet the Sierra front end is better than the GMC SUV front end. I agree with Dodgefan that a Yukon with the Sierra front would be awesome.

So it has different wheels on different sides of the truck?

Ugh, quite tacky. Ugly hood, ugly wheels, ugly brake calipers (yellow = yuck), and the body-color grill doesn't work as well on the new CTS. The headlights are cool, though.

I'm guessing this would sell quite well, but it's not for me.

I am having some trouble believing that time. As fast as an M3? The M3 has 70+ more HP, isn't much heavier, and undoubtedly handles better. The Solstice GXP have the same engine, are lighter I think, and do 0-60 in 5.5, so I'd say 5.7 is probably fairly accurate.