enzl

What? explain it slowly, then....I want to know how the type of event that Brian attended helps Saturn....You are not in the biz. You don't understand the prevailing consumer attitude and you clearly don't have a clue how to change said attitude. So explain to me how inviting a bunch of people who know/like Saturn and, furthermore, know almost everything about the brand anyway, then they are going to learn more and then tell their friends and co-workers to buy a Saturn? Please, enlighten me. Please! The salesmen waiting in an empty showroom would like to know too!

Were you there? Do you work in Saturn's marketing Dept.? I was refering to marketing EVENTS, not research, as I'm sure GM is flush with the market research that verifies that their name is mud with most import intenders. They probably also know that most people don't know Saturn is a GM brand....why else would they keep it alive? Scion sponsors concerts, Mazda sponsors weekend racing with its product....I haven't seen a Saturn sponsored event (and I look for this stuff) in my area in years. My point, since you've clearly misunderstood my previous post, is that in order for Saturn to flourish, you need converts. Pumping fans up with more 'info' isn't how you do it....If you read Brian's take on the event, it's basically a puff piece for Saturn. Well written and intentioned, but not far off the normal marketing message GM seeks to disseminate. You want to convert the unwashed, not preach to the choir. I'm painfully aware of GM's shortcomings in regard to marketing---ironically its their best stuff that usually get the short shrift...this is what I live with each day. Start with getting the message to those that need to hear it and stop gathering cheerleaders around campfires singing KumBaYa.

I'm greatly appreciative of the time clearly spent on your experience and the writing....I just fundamentally disagree that fans are the ones they need to speak to about product....as I've written before, most people younger than 40 are openly dismissive of domestic vehicles. I went to the NY show and my buddies didn't even want to walk through most of the domestic branded areas, period....You must get Saturn on the radar screen. You have to get the attention of those that have ignored the brand...Influence the influencers, so to speak. To be honest, your complaints about bluetooth or center armrests, while helpful, are not the dealbreakers for people like my friends....they're not even considering the brand. Your comment about the Prius is most revealing and makes my point for me: The Prius is a symbol iof what Toyota CAN do, and, unfortunately, by logical extention, what GM/Saturn is NOT doing. This is the perception of the great unwashed, the non-enthusiast community and the target audience for Saturn in its new incarnation. I can't argue that the Prius is really something great, but others look at that achievement (dubious to our eyes as it may be) and use it as a prime example of why they don't consider GM cars. Like I said above, I appreciate your time and effort, but its clear to me by the tone of your writing that you're not taking an objective view of the domestic auto industry's plight. Pick a domestic nameplate and then spend a few hours in a showroom and you'll see exactly what I mean. My company is succeeding despite the efforts of GM, not because of it. That should concern you as an enthusiast and fan of everything GM.

Parse words all you want.... Who would have bet in 1980 that Toyota would surpass GM in total global sales within 30 years? Answer: NOBODY! GM surpassed Ford due to acquisition of other companies, not singleminded growth strategies and quality product. And, why shouldn't Toyota be proud of its achievement? You're acting like GM is not as much to blame as anyone else for this situation. If anything, GM is almost exclusively to blame for the situation. Backlash will come, my friend...it just takes some time for the press to realize that the 'Toyota= God' stories are no longer news. The Tundra sales mix has been critiqued heavily & I believe the F1 story will have some legs as well.

Agreed that its good, cheap PR---Not sure that the feedback GM gets from said invite is relevant to what they need to do.As I alluded to in my earlier post, GM needs reality to peek in through the shades, not more cheerleading...that's how they ended up in the trouble they're in. Ex. I went to the local auto show with 2 friends...both exactly where GM needs to draw car buyers from: young, suburban, high-earning family types....They both consciously avoided the domestic displays and laughed when I suggested a number of US branded alternatives to the vehicles they were considering. Now, I got 'em to look (Outlook/Acadia, specifically), but that attitude is pervasive amongst this socioeconomic group... GM needs to recover those people, somehow. If they don't they're dead. Period. Inviting fanboys to mission critical show and tells doesn't make sense to me. If C&G wants to be used for GM's PR machine, that's fine, but let's call it what it is.

Good read. As always, the effort and thought involved is greatly appreciated. Just curious: Would they ask you to attend again if you were to write a negative piece? With all due respect, it sounds like PR fluff with a small modicum of humility or mistake admission to sell it as 'real.' If they were serious about the info disseminated and collected, they would have invited import owners almost exclusively, since thats where their real opportunity lies with the upgraded product. Inviting a GM fan board mod is like asking a grandmother if her grandson is smart. Just my .02.

As an accused 'humper', I realize that my cred on this topic is low with some here, but let's be realistic... Toyota has done the impossible....in a generation, they've overtaken the world's largest company as the #1 producer of automobiles. We can all debate how it was done, or critique Toyota's past, current or future, but, the bottom line is that this is a historic achievement. I'm not sure how many of you derive a living from GM...I do. If you're a UAW factory guy or a marketer or whatever, there's a palpable sense at GM that something has gone terribly wrong. GM's squandering of its position in the global auto market is tragic, for employees and for fans, but they did it to themselves! We've beaten the missteps to death on this board, but the cold hard truth is that any one of a number of changes could have avoided this result. No one read the warning signs and the ship was directed into the ground. Blame Toyota all you want, GM had a dominant market position and destroyed it themselves. The fact that other companies took advantage of GM's weakness shouldn't surprise anyone here. I'm assuming that most here understand that business is not about being nice to the competition or paying your employees benefits no longer being offered to most others in most other industries. Beat up on Toyota all you want. It doesn't change the simple fact that GM did this to themselves. And all of those benefits, financial commitments, pensions and moneys being pushed into US communities will dry up because the stewards of those commitments (i.e. GM management) did a criminally negligent job. Blaming others is the American way. That doesn't mean its accurate or true--we've become a nation of victims. To me, if termites are eating away at the structure of your home, you get an exterminator. You don't blame the termites for being termites and go out and hire an interior decorator to redo the window treatments.

We sell 'em (plenty, BTW) and they're not class leading, & not a person on this board could/would argue it!The Lambda's are well thought out and, arguably, class leading. The GMT's leave little doubt as to their quality. Why shouldn't I demand the same of Chevy's small cars? Selling on price is a recipe for disaster that leaves your showroom full of mediocre product at a 'good' price. Leave that market to the Koreans, GM.

Cobalt was simply a generation behind upon intro. Class lagging safety features, 4 sp. auto, mediocre space utilization & mileage and a lack of ind rear suspension tells all you need to know about GM's intentions. The Civic is clearly not for everyone, but its a nice product for most.

I think they'll sell fine...and at a good transaction price (most importantly).The problem is simply that GM is replacing sales with substitute product. The Lambdas will end up keeping volume constant, as GMT900 and GM360's are effectively rendered less saleable by a sister product across the showroom.

Isuzu I-mark in the states...brother of Chevy Spectrum

Not a rental, a trade-in, but you're 100% right about the trunk. I got a second look tonight and it is velcro...carpet's still cheap, but I'm a big fan of the 300, in the 14 or so mi. I've put on it. I generally get haches or SUV's as my company ride, but the dog doesn't have plans with us this weekend, so I figured I'd grab the 300.

I'm in an 06 300 Touring right now. Since I'm in my first few miles, I haven't been able to form too many opinions, but I can tell a few things from my initial experience: The interior is nicer than this board has given credit for. It's not class leading, but it ain't bad, with enough soft touch plastic, decent leather and good ergonomics. Only real dissappointment is the trunk, which had the carpeting all askew in a car with 15k miles. That carpeting also looks like the stuff they put under your home carpeting upon installation. Oh, and in black, the car looks like a bad ass

Honda S2000 comes to mind. Would have thought there's enough Honda fans who are past their Civic Si stage. Perhaps it would have been better in an Acura dealership?

The only product mentioned that I would agree is a surprising failure is the SRX, as it is both excellent and in a growing (crossover) segment. The Aztek was bad as a concept, worse in execution. The Olds Intrigue, while the best W by far, was the canary in the coalmine for the death of Olds. It was the attempt to redefine Olds as an Import fighter that led to its demise. With an image much like Buick, the Olds image wasn't reflected in its showrooms at the end, thus hastening its demise, despite the goodness of the Intrigue and the Aurora. The family sedan was in the process of being displaced by the SUV as a family vehicle, thus the shrinking marketplace for the Intrigue was even smaller than GM product planners had envisioned. The T-bird and SSR were both victims of badge snobbery in their price range and further evidence of the limited market for 2 seaters. Both were also hurt by being mediocre products, as the SSR is a service queen and the T-bird a wet noodle structurally.

Agreed.Salad days are over for this brand...they need a new, unique direction in the GM hierarchy or they are doomed. Something for everyone (i.e. 400k+ sales) wasn't working. They are the next likely victim of a brand purge, as they have little to zero international potential and no truly unique product at this point in time.

I don't know what everyone thinks....and quite frankly, I don't care. If you care to review the '16' threads or any other romantic project GM is allegedly thinking about (and read what people wrote--which I believe gives some insight into their thinking) and you take the passion expressed for a Zeta based, $100K+ vehicle, you'll find that a pie-in-the-sky vehicle, with no confirmed production plans--was treated as if it was the next coming (by most posters, admittedly not all.) Here, we have a production ready vehicle, with 6 cylinder MPG and 12 cylinder power, priced $30K less than the s600 and thousands less than an A8 or 760----and gas is about to hit $3.00/gal average in the US...this isn't an achievement ? And if it was a Caddy---appearances aside, as that is subjective, you can honestly tell me you wouldn't be proud of this as a flagship? ? I'm just calling the twisted logic being used. You guys get impressed when the new Malibu will have a two-tone interior available.... If you percieve that as arrongance, rather than someone waking you up from the ether...that's fine. I'm OK with that. But I'm going to call people on it. And, BTW, I work in the business.....I'm utterly dependent upon GM producing good stuff...so, if constructive criticism is too much, just ask me to stop posting. I can't believe how thin skinned people are about GM...it's not your significant other that I'm picking on! I'm sticking to my guns here. If this were a Caddy, hosannahs up and down the street at C&G. It's a Toyota (cue 'bad guy music'), so go ahead and ignore the fact that this vehicle, while not my cup of tea, is highly significant and, more importantly, is a financial, PR and ego success for its manufacturer.

If it was a $100k Zeta Caddy, you guys would already have your collective knee pads on..... It's a tech marvel, it'll sell like hotcakes and, like it or not, it's a rolling billboard for everything that's right about Toyota's PR machine... Whether or not its worth the money or if its bland or better than a MB or BMW doesn't matter at all! That's genius on Toyota's part and creates a USP that NOONE else has. You can hate on Toyota all you want, but this thing is exactly what a PR-poor co. like GM could use right now.

As opposed to the circa 90's tech in the car you did buy? I only see good things coming with the GTO's lesson learned and the G8's modern chassis finally reaching Pontiac dealerships...Since you've recently purchased a Pontiac, I'm sure you're aware of the morgue most Pontiac dealers have resembled lately.

I don't understand this one... Almost all of the proposed derivatives of Zeta will have 6 cylinder counterparts...GM wants this to be a global platform, so diesels and 4 cylinder variants must be part of the development process... Why does an anticipated EPA rule have anything to do with having a World Class platform available to the various divisions. While I can understand that launching a line-up of V8 only monsters would be daunting with gas at $3.50/gal., isn't the meat of this lineup 6 cylinders? (Volume Impy and Camaro will be 6's.) If the Corvette can get 28 MPG with a 400HP V8, can't these other vehicles do that well or better, given that they will have 6 speeds and, possibly, DI? If someone can explain the correlation, I'm all ears. Otherwise, my suspicion is that the development dollars have slowed given the anticipated dip in GMT900 sales because of gas prices and the looming incentive war with Ford, Dodge and Toyota in pickups. I find blaming these anticipated EPA regs suspicious.

But I would blame them for approving these interiors...The whole CJD lineup has a 'crappiness' factor that hurts their perceived value immensely, IMO.

They'll hit 200K as a running yearly average as soon as the latest extra $1,000 incentive hits and the CrexMax and assorted variants are in inventory for sale.Our Toyota shop only has 10 on hand...so a customer cannot necessarily find what they're looking for... It'll be interesting, to say the least!

Unfortunately, the Avalon is an exception. As a rule, they're not just eating the competitions' lunch, but their breakfast and dinner too.

The Union represents entire factories full of workers, so they are as important, in the case of the UAW.While I don't agree with many of his conclusions, The truth About Cars has had a running GM deathwatch that occassionally explores strike scenarios...none of them are good for the long term future of the Big 2.5. I'm not pro/anti-Union, but a strike would basically kill GM---which can't be the result any of the Union members really want.

Most minicars are homely...as the resident 'import humper' I think I may be uniquely qualified to defend the previous thread posts....I think the prevailing opinions have more to do with 3 minicar concept debuts' in NY rather than the actual quality of the actual vehicles...it means GM is finally listening, or at least coping with reality rather than ignoring the obvious, be it their competition or the need to 'greenwash' their image.