hyperv6

Well we already know the Camaro will be made here in NA. I think it would be safe to assume the Impala will also be built up here too. Because of the volume of the Chevys we know they will be their own true cars and not share any sheet metal with Holden only under pinnings. As for Buick and Pontiac I expect they already have plans but need to approve them now that Holden is done with the line. The SSV is a GXP with only a need of the front and rear in need of change. As for the Buick, I would love to seee the car here but we know so little of what GM is planning for Buick that no one on this side of the gate at GM can really make a good guess at this point. I just find it hard to get excited over a the coming Super. But I know they are just buying time. Both Buick and Pontiac could have a great car and save a lot of money by bringing these into the showroom with minor changes. Since neither will see as much volume as Chevy it would be a wise move when they are tring to save money. Question is where to build these cars. who will have room and where would it be more profitable with the exchange rate at the time of production. One note on the SSV. It already has a red back lite dash.

It looks like Holden is bringing the new VE to the states for the GM board to drive and I am sure the press to drive. He is the full strory from DRIVE.COM.AU Drive.com.au It’s only just been revealed, but already Holden’s VE Commodore is embarking on a world tour. "Holden has developed a secret plan to pitch the new VE Commodore SS to its parent General Motors as a Pontiac sports sedan model in the USA. The future of the plan, which estimates a $20 million cost to legalise the car for North America, could rest on a sample drive by the General Motors board of directors in Detroit early in August. At the same time board heavyweights, led by chairman Rick Wagoner and product czar Bob Lutz, will also drive a new long wheelbase WM Caprice luxury saloon. At one stage the WM was going to be exported to the USA as a Buick Park Lane, a plan which has been scrapped. Holden execs hope that the drive might renew GM interest in that car. But it is the SS-V, with its 6.0-litre V8 (complete with 270kW), six-speed automatic transmission, 19-inch wheels and aggressive bodykit that Holden chairman and managing director Denny Mooney sees as having the most potential as a replacement for the current Pontiac Grand Prix. While Mooney won’t be at the board-drive, he will be in Detroit the week prior at a leadership meeting with the chance to extol the car’s virtues. “If we had available (production) capacity I’d love to take the SS because it would make a great Pontiac,” said Mooney. “Pontiac is already talking about the fact they want to go rear-wheel-drive. A brand like Pontiac, in my opinion, could take this car and sell it. “I think if you talk to anyone at Pontiac they’ll tell you they’d love a rear-wheel-drive performance Grand Prix. “But I am not going to over-sell this thing. We are going to send these cars over there and let them speak for themselves. Mooney said the $20 million legalisation costs would primarily relate to complying with crash regulations. “Between engineering, prototyping and tooling it would be in the neighbourhood of $20 million,” he said. “We’d have to crash a lot of cars to run their specific tests, but from a performance standpoint it wouldn’t be an issue.” In part that’s because the new Commodore’s fuel tank moves in front of the rear axle line, something crucial to US crash approval. Sending the SS to the USA to replace the ageing front-wheel-drive Grand Prix would extend Holden and Pontiac’s relationship, established when the Monaro was exported to the USA as a GTO from late 2003. That deal has only just expired. But Mooney was also adamant that such a plan would depend on the demand for VE and WM in the domestic and established export markets. The Elizabeth assembly plant in South Australia has a capacity of about 145,000 cars per year. He does not expect spare capacity for the first 12 months of VE’s life. “We have to wait and see how this car goes. If we had the available capacity then we’d be looking at the US as a potential market. While built-up exports to the USA are no more than a plan at the moment, both VE and WM will be sent from the Elizabeth assembly plant to the Middle East as Chevrolets. The WM will be sold as a Buick Royaum in China, but will be sent in a ‘CKD’ (completely knocked-down) pack to be assembled on-site. It will also be exported to Korea and sold there as a Daewoo. The short wheelbase SS-V or an even more sporty Holden Special Vehicles version will go to the UK in extremely limited numbers, replacing the out-of-production Monaro. Cars are also being sent to Opel in Europe for evaluation. But Mooney is dubious about a positive reception there. The export of built-up cars is a separate deal to Holden’s role as a developer of the rear-wheel-drive architecture that makes it s debut underpinning VE and WM. That will be used by a number of future vehicles to be manufactured in Asia and the USA as well as Australia." I expect new news will pick up from here and new reports will start coming much more often.

They showed 3 cars last night with the Calais and SS sharing one wheel base and the Caprice with a longer wheel base. Zeta has a expandable platform so this car can produce many different wheel bases including a short coupe and that is where the Camaro comes in.

Caprice had knock out Buick written all over it. SS said Pontiac in its styling. The fender vent makes sense of the GXP vent. Calais Was eligant and taste full. I know many changes to the styling may change vs what we get in some of the models they plan to release here. But if they so as well of a job on the Chevy , Buick and Pontiac GM will have a hit on their hands. I did note the ss will come standard with 19" wheels and 20" as an option. 3.6 V6 was the base engine. Can any one conver the metric 270 KW to HP for the base V8?

Well I own and live with a GTP Comp G daily. It is the mid size V6 sport coupe I can't buy today. I love the car but I would change a few things. Front seats are fine Back seat nees more padding and reshaped. Leg room front and back are fine. Head room is ok for me at 6 foot but I would not want to be any taller. The console and center stack are total crap. The plastic and faje aluminum need to go. Cup holder? I drive a car I don't buy them to eat in. The cheap trim on the steering wheel is wearing and is now being replaced at 30K miles. Dash and guages. I would love to have more on dash guages and different ac vents. The fold down back and front seat will hauls items longer than my Sonoma short bed can haul. Heck you can carry a 8 foot ladder with the trunk shut. So the car does have great utility. As to driving, I hate FWD but love this car. I only bought it because it is wha the wife wanted. It replaced a SSEI Bonnie and I don't miss the Bonnie at all. Last things to note. The heads up is a must on all cars I rarely ever look at the dash for anything any more. The sability control is great to control the FWD in the snow. Also this car is much more solid than past GP's I have driven, they did tighten things up. Finally the ability of the Series 3 engine to live on regular is great with the high gas prices. It lowers your HP from 260 HP to 240 HP but that is enough for around town driving. Why GM did not use this in the Monte and Impala SS when they first came out is a wonder. On the scale of 1-10 I give it a 7.5, and for what I paid for it there is little else I liked better from GM. The comp and GXP are similar. I have driven the GXP and would not go through the effort just for the V8. I did like the brakes on the new car. Paddle shifters are a waste unless I am in the mountains.

I think GM has to have some talks on this deal even if they don't plan to go through with it right now. Wall street would be all over them if they don't hear out all possibilities as just being good buisness. Now on the other hand they may find ways to work together in ways not even thought of yet due to talks they have now. Information is power.

Don't ever use the names Renault and Alliance together like that it gives me flashbacks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

If no one would reply to these they would go away! This is why we still have Ralph Nadar aeund think he is creditable. These posts waste too much space that we could use for much better enlightenment.

If you read all the post they say it is the new truck motor for the Caddy SUV's. The Vette people do not think this is it. Not sure how you would get thast under a Vette hood anyway.

I agree on how much profit but also how much profit with out stealing sales from another GM line like the Cobalt. Will this car bring in conquest sales or will GM just spin it's wheels and steal sales from it's self? This car is nothing but a band aid to retain volume at Pontiac. I just hope what they have planned in a few years is going to make it worth the wait. The G5 will be like the Cobalt a good car and better than the one before it, but still not the great car Pontiac needs and different enough to set them apart. The G 5 will be just another fancy Chevy.

The questions should be not how well it will sell but how much profit will be reaped.

I think the large dealer mark ups also did not help the GTO when it arrived. Then factor in the release soon after of the Mustang. The GTO did what it was supposed to do.

As long as they have a affordable practical V6 Model that will be the volume leader of the line the reast will take care of itself. GM never had a problem selling Z28 4th Gens but could not give away the V6 models it dearly needed to keep the volume of cars to keep the line profitable. The new car has many things the Camaro has lack since the late 60's A more upright appearance, a trunk, a back seat that is more than a jump seat, easy to get in and out of and many other things that helpped sell the Stang to women and people turned off by the low slung hard to see out of 4th gen. If they improve an affordable V6 that guy would want and just bring women into the mix at near 50% like the stang the car will sell well. If the update the car more often it will retain sales and not drop off like the others did with they long in the tooth runs. As for insurance the V6 and a 5 star rating will go a long way to retain cost for insuraning the car. This car will not save GM but it will help supply funds needed to help bring it back better vs just another FWD Monte coupe.

I was shock at how many 04-06 GTP GP's are owned by former F body owners on GP.com. By the way if it is sold out how many 06 Converts is that? They give the number for how many they expect in 07?

Evok you are correct on the W replacing the G and A bodies. That is what really happened. The N were intended to be the original replacment but that plan did not last very long as GM relized their Smith extra downsized cars on all platforms were not doing well. They went to the back up plan and did the W cars before they killed off the last of the A and G RWD cars. I think your GM numbers for the coupes speak volumes of their lack of sales at GM. It makes it plan it was a dying market. I think yould easily show the same for all the other doomed coupes like the Cougar, T Bird, Town car, Mk VII, LTD/Crown Vic, Impala/Caprice, Bonneville, 88, Le sabre, etc. One just has to look at the coupes the American car companies made in the 70's and to start the 80's and see the decline in sales of all of them. They did not stop building them because they were making money on them. If there was money to be made there we would have the cars from all the MFG to back it up, but there's just is no market with the general public so we have few coupes today. The Taurus run away sales was the final nail in the coupes coffin as pointed out by Evok. Lets face it that it is more about functionality and utility today and that is still something a coupe can not easily supply. They getting a 3 year old in and out of a car seat in a GTO vs a GP! moving seat or not.

Bet my 04 GP has much better ability to carry cargo like a 9 foot ladder with the trunk shut. and getting in and out of the back seat no seasts need to be moved or people folded up than any Monte Built to date. I agree the new coupes are better but they still can's out do a 4 door sedan in the eyes of the buying public. I am a coupe guy but have to deal with the truth that the Coupe market is a limitied market today and shows little sign of changing. Heck they even killed the 2 door Blazer Tahoe due to the lack of sales.

Truth is it was a good idea if it never got below 40 degrees, you did not have to travel farther than 50 miles, and had some place to plug it in away from home. If there were inexpensive Batteries that worked in the cold and lasted for a few hundred miles it would have made it. In the end the Battery technology is still not there that is why Toyota is using the hybrid approch to cover for the lack of a the needed battery to make it work. We have the electric motors and mechanical bits to make this work we just lack the cheap reliable power cell to pull it off matter how many you make. That is where the hydrogen idea comes in. It can generate the power but not cheaply yet and the infrastructer is just not in place. I believe GM pulled the plug so to speak before they cars got old and problems came up that would have overshadowed amy new efforts they would try later. Lets face it these cars were just as experimental as the Chrysler Turbine cars of the 50's and 60's. That idea sounded good at the time too. Which ever company can come up first with a cheap reliable power scouce will rule the industry.

It is not going to be around that long and GM does not plan to develope it much since they replacment is already in the works a few years from now. It was only to patch a hole in the line up for now. I know the Legacy is AWD only but you get the point on how it is a much better car than most out there in the mid size aedan class.

Anyone notice Friedman is now doing a TV special on Oil next Saturday for Discover Channel? Discover has a working agreements with the Times. Was this whole story done to press GM's buttons to react like their LA Times responce of last year and get publicity? It would not have been the first time the Times has manipulated the truth or news to fit their own needs. This kind of looks like the bad 007 movie from a few yars back when the News network owner made his own news and tried to start a nuclear war. How soon till they get Maureen Dodd to attack Bob Lutz and call him the evil Chaney of the automotive world. I know there most likely no connection here but it does make one wonder.

The Ev1 was the best there was but it was still clearly not good enough for the general public. First off unless you lived in the Southwest or other warm climate you would never see the range needed by most people. Charging problems and infrastructer was still not in place. Battery tech still has not caught up. The Batteries are expensive, the cars are not cheap to build and people will not give up their right to go where they want and how far they want.

If anyone wants to see what Pontiac needs to do if it make a FWD look at the new Civic Type R or Subaru line up. The Legacy is one vastly over looked FWD car. Pontiac has to do better than a warmer over Malibu and Cobalt. Even the original Tempest took some chances to be different than the Corvair and it is time to return to that thinking. Pontiac to survive need to do more than rob sales from Chevy and lose sales to Saturn. And AWD alone will not save them either. Pontiac need to be made relivent and make a bigger profit and who cares what the volume is as long as the money is coming in.

The 360 has got nothing to do with the fact that even with the major imporvments the new Ford looks much like the last and the the one before it. My point is if your going to improve a vehicle you had best give it a fresh look too. Many in the general public will not give it a look because it looks old. Enthusitast know it is improved but that soccer mom that is always accused of buying the suv cares as much or more for the newest looking thing on the road. We live in a vain society and every one wants to look like they are part of the Rich and Famous. Looks are very important today. You have to get the public's attention with looks since most don't know a dipstick from a spark plug. I would be willing to wager the new Tahoe and other 800's are selling better on imporved looks alone than any other factor even though they are vastly improvedd in all areas. Do you think the new Tahoe woulfd be selling as well if it looked like the old one? By the way the Buick, Saab and Trailblazer SS may be small in sales numbers but they are by far a major imporvment of the original 360. They were improved in suspension, engine and interior over the original ones that came out. They are what the 360 should have started at to begin with. Too bad the entire line did not recieve the same treatment. Dodge is proof that styling sells even if it not as good as a Ford or Chevy.

Time for a reality check here. There is only so much room for coupes in todays market. an it would be foolish for a company like Chevy to offer 3 coupes. I feel the Camaro if going to be fine due to the nature of the car just as the Mustang. On the other hand The monte has just been hanging on the last few years. I think a Chevelle might do ok if they do a few thing to make it different and much user friendly than most coupes. Say the hidden doors like a Saturn for better entry. But I would rather see the money go to a new Line say like a NG Kappa that could spawn a line of Mini like Nomads or a fun to drive small sedan and coupe that could be used in the entire GM line. Sedans are where the volume and profits are and wasting money on more than one coupe per line would be a shame for a company that needs money in better areas. This is from someone who grew up in a family that owned a new Chevelle every year from 67-73 and I owned a 68 SS that I still miss today. I love them but there is just not a market big enough to take 3 models from Chevy. Today people want utility with their vehicle no mater if it is a Mini van SUV or car. Heck my GP can carry a 9 foot ladder today at 136 MPH, try that in a 69 GP with the trunk shut. You have to think like the buying public not the enthusiast on this one today.

These are the bold moves GM needs to make to turn things around. Fords rehash may be good but it breaks no ground and looks much the same. In a slow high gas price market that is the kiss of death. GM made a nice SUV but it was never as good as it could have been. Too many areas were short changed. I expect we have a better bolder alturnitive coming. If Ford does not do something soon they will be much worse off than GM. They are nearly there now.

They are ok cars but for the price they are asking they are not up to the FWD compitition they are up against. I guess what I am saying is they are good cars when Pontiac needs great cars right now. If you expect someone to pay 25k plus for a G6 you better give them more car than they are now.