hyperv6

Autoblog.com has pic's from GM on the Sosltice GXP in yellow. I like the new grille

If I recall Mazda may have made 90,000 world wide but has never imported much more than 30,000 to the state in its best year. Take all the years combined and it averages around 18,000 a year for all years it has been imported. The MR2 If I recall never was imported in numbers over 20,000. A 2 seater car is a car everyone would like to have but only a few can afford and or live with it. It is a limited market as only so many will buy it. It is not like a sedan that erveryone may not want but everyone can live with it. The Vette is one of the few 2 seaters that sells in higher numbers but it also has had many lean years too. Pontiac and Sky will cover the low price market well for GM. Chevy needs another 2 seater like a hole in the head. Chevy will do well with a new Camaro and they need a Civc and Accord killer price to combate the low priced Koreans! Right now the new 08 Malibu to be right is a must. Now if you want to build the Vette on the Kappa with a V8!!!! 2800 pounds and 600 HP at $50,000 could be a lot of fun!!!

The HP was on the LA autoshow site last week but I am glad you got the cost. I knew what the HP was going to be and they beat it by 10 HP but the price you posted beat what I expected by 3K. The GXP will be the performance bargin of the sports car world. Thanks for the post I now know I can afford one!!!!

Didn't Popular Mechanics have a story and drawing last spring on this very topic??? I still see no use of Chevy with a Kappa roadster offering unless Pontiac goes away. It would only steal sales from a V6 Camaro convert and be limited in sales. How many 2 seaters can one company sell in the US market?? The Fiero died in it's first year when they sold 140,000 cars even before any of the other problems started. Lets face it even Mazda over the life of the Miata has only averaged 18,000 cars a year. They limit their market to keep up demand.

Beating around the bush? This is the first confirmation there is going to be a web cast and offical public statment that the car will tour. Please understand the name Camaro name is still not permitted to be used by GM yet. After Jan 1 this will change so you might want to take something for that cough!

Fbodfather posted on CZ28 some items to watch for soon. Fbod Quote: "Further, while many people have been exceedingly upset since the cars went on "hiatus' in August of 2002, there is every reason to believe that the future indeed looks bright. After the first of January, I'll be sharing with you a web address where you can watch the festivities from Detroit as a very exciting new Coupe Concept is unveiled on the morning of January 9, 2006. Perhaps this 'unveiling' is the Christmas Gift that many of you have been asking for!" He also noted they would anounce where the show car will appear this season on Jan the 9th. Looks like Chicago may be next show. Just some note Scott made make me think LA will not see the car till Nov. They aremoving the show and will have two this year. Scott noted the over lap and problems with it this year. We will just have to wait and see if this is how it plays out. In the end it looks like they will show this car well this year base on this note and some of the other things I have heard. This will not just be a Detroit show car only. On Scott noting the future is bright, that is his way to let us know things are going to plan and this is a good thing. As of now unless he changes his post I would watch for this program to progress well in the near future.

When you kick the rear out in the corner that is Torque steer too but on the good end!!

I can not confirm the LA show but Fbodfather in a post on one one of the Camaro web sites said he hope many would see the car at Detroit and at the other cars shows around the country this year. This tells me at least the Detroit car will make the rounds and it is not the only car they have if they are working toward production I would think they have some more back at the shop to play with? By the way has anyone noticed the Hot Wheel #24 Muscle Tone, they made a few years ago looks like a mild form of the show car? It is not an exact copy but has the general idea.

Torque steer is much improved over past FWD high HP applications. MY 260 HP GP is not bad at all as is the new 305 hp GP V8. Would I rather still have RWD, Yes! But The FWD is not going to put you in the ditch any more.

Here is what is on the web site for the LA Auto show Pontiac Solstice GXP The sleek new two-seater gets more power with the debut of the Solstice GXP, which features GM’s all-new Ecotec 2.0-liter turbo, the most powerful production engine in the Ecotec family. This turbo with direct injection kicks a V-6’s worth of power out of a four-cylinder engine, an estimated 260 horsepower and 260 lb.-ft. of torque. It will arrive in dealerships this summer. This is what is posted so it looks lime we will see the small jump in HP like we see in most of GM's new intro's.

The suspension bits and drive line is half the problem. If they developed a new unibody and added the suspension and drive line it would be half the development cost of a total new car. Even Jeep did the same with the Comanche Pick up a few years back. The truck used a full frame and they adapted the drive line to their unibody SUV line they brought out. They saved a bundle and made a new high volume viehicle. The unibody would be lighter and just as stiff as the Kappa as it would not need to be a convert and lose it's strength of a roof. If they can make a A body drive line into a Mid Engine sports car and a Nova into a Caddy Seville,, I sure they could make a reasonable priced small car RWD shell for the Kappa drive line. Expanded it could also be used for a RWD 318 style small sedan. Then let Mallett stick a V8 in that. Well anyway I just believe the Vibe fits Pontiac well. It's a nice car but it just does not fit what they really need. Well enough for dreaming.

Who cares who #1 is?? It is time to just worry about getting GM's house in order and if you do that the rest will take care of it's self. GM has made mistakes but not all of their problems were brough on by them alone. Maybe if GM is #2 the press and Wall Street will be on to another topic. They both have hit them justly and very unjustly in various areas. One way or the other GM will live on survive but one has to wonder when they will quit kicking them while they are down. Someone has something to gain in piling on GM , Walmart and Microsoft, one has to wonder what money people are the ones behind it. Lets get GM back to being profitable in North America and keep them a viable player in the world market. Sometimed you have to take a step back to leap foward. If Toyota is #1 their day will come too when they will fail. No one is #1 for ever.

Does Pontiac really need a Vibe??? If they want to be America's affordable BMW and share a dealership with Buick and GMC do they needs such a car? I think this kind of car would go better with Chevy and Pontiac would be better served by a MINI type car based on a Kappa plaform.

This is an old photo shopped photo from AutoWeek. It has the new styling applied to the old car. DO NOT! I REPEAT DO NOT JUDGE THE NEW CAR ON THIS PHOTO!!!!!!!!!!!!! The real car has similar styling but the proporsions are all wrong in this photo. Early drawings show a car longer, wider and lower and make these styling cue's all work well. Those who claim to have seen the car when the press was shown the car in the preveiw of future GM cars liked what they saw along with the Malibu and CTS. They were shown the cars as long as they would not give details. This photo when published in Autoweek warned not to jusge the car by this photo. The roof line is much closer to the G6 coupe style. One last note this info is based on what was leaked last August so details can and might have changed since. But either way this is not a real car or photo.

I am a 21 year Fiero V6 owner. I have modified my car with the Herb Adams Suspension kit and have a set of sticky Comp TA radials and I will be the first ot say mid engine behind the seat is more over rated than any thing. My car as it sits pulls at or near 1 G but the engine behind the seat is no better or worse than any well balanced car, low unsprung weight with a low center of gravity. In the old days mid engine was important because most cars did not have the wheel base to put the engine behind the front axle, today with the longer wheel bases it is not a problem. Any one who ever had drop throttle oversteer happen in a rear or mid engne car know it is far from perfect in most cars. You will find many cars like the Mclaren F1 and Enzo compensate for the rear bias and over steer with larger tires. On the positive side the larger tires also help in getting the power to the ground too. Pantera's in the 70's even had special Goodyear OE tires in two sizes to fix the handeling ills at the limit. Mallett does great work on their cars and this car will only help Pontiac. On the other hand I see no need for a factory car to be built like this. A high out put Eco is going to do a great job and keep the price low. If someone wants one wants one of these they can call Mallett with GM's support.

GM is not as far out as this guy wants to make it vs the cars from Japan or Germany. Keep in mind may of the features on the Caddys he leaves out will be showing up in the regular GM cars in the not too distant future. GM offeres now Hot washer fluid, air conditioned seats, HUD, HUD with GPS navagation direction on your windshield, stability control will be offered across the line, cylinder on demand on car like Chevy and Pontiac, DVD systems in vans that could be included in cars. Electronic Bosh braking systems that are the first step to brake by wire, MP3 radio/cd satelite audio systems, I Pod plugs in the new radios and much more. These items are just the Pontiac, Buicks and Chevys. I think were GM and Ford could do more damage is build a better Korean car. The cars from Korea are hurting all the other imports as they are cheap and don't look as bad as they used to. If you alway wonder why most salesman want to know what kind of car payment you can afford it's because most buyers worry more about the monthly payment amount and warranty vs if a car has a electric nose blower. The key is lower labor cost and not so much gadgets on the high volume cars sold today. Now I am not saying you need to not add the new options buy price is king and a good warranty goes and in hand to where Toyota fears! Night vision was a good Idea but no one bought it and I Drive is hated by most. Tech just to sell cars will not do it alone.

This was a real crime and GM needs to prevent things like this or even things more damaging. When the 4th gen pic's were leaked in the early 90's it did a lot of damage in various areas. The next time it may not be just pictures but engineering info of info that may even do more damage to their already weak stock prices or disrupt UAW negociations. In a way they were lucky it was only a picture this time. Besides I have a family friend who is in the FBI in Michigan and when he is not chasing transvestite bank robbers [happens more than you think in the mitten] , helping set up secruity for the Super Bowl [making sure Keith Richard does not have a costume failure?], or home land security [I wish I could give details here but he has a lot going here and tells nothing]. I sure he could work GM in on this. FYI: these are real things he is working on now. Super Bowl is real the Keith Richards deal we can only hope he prevents. As for posting or not posting I would ask Scott directly before doing anything questionalble. If you treat him well you will be rewarded for your efforts. He did state in one post on CZ28 he did not want the pic's posted but it was ok to discuss them in a proper matter. That is why I had the post for adult feed back on the new car here. I figured if we gave proper feed back it may help in his cause.

Dont take what you see as what it was going to look like. These were still well covered and did not show what it really looked like. The Pontiac version was showed with a GTO name on it on one that I know of and it was a cross of 4th gen Firebird nose and bits of the 1990 Monte Carlo concept car. It was not as bad as what was pictured but it was not as good as the 4th Gen and was still FWD. I have tried to find pic's of the GTO that were in the High Performance Pontiac story about a year ago and have not seen them on the web. I did find a small pic in a Pontiac Enthusiast from 1994 when it was shown at Eyes on Design in Michigan. In that story it told it was a FWD. I assume that it was the still born GM 80 in show car form.

First let me state I think dealer mark up's are rip offs. Now back to reality. GM can't tell dealers what to sell a car for they can only suggest a sell price. If GM force their pricing the goverment would come in a slap GM so hard!. The dealers only get away with this pricing because fools pay the price for many of these cars. As long as there is a buyer paying mark ups your going to get this problem. At least the dealers got burned on the GTO but unfortunatly so did GM. On the other hand show me a car Toyota has that is good looking enought and cool to own you would pay a mark up or wait months to get one? Can't name one huh? Once GM get demand caught up you will get the price Bob Lutz wanted for the consumer.

I have seen similar stuff like this out of GM Engineering before when planning for a new program. If it is not real it looks much like some of the things I have seen before that were. I do like the part where it said the Devil is in the details. Time will tell if this is accurate stuff. One thing for sure 505 HP in the Z06 is only a start and we will see more soon. Caddy needs to clear 500 HP and they either have to move the Vette up or lett the Caddy pass it. I expect the Vette will get what it needs. What I want to know is what improvments will be added to the rest of the car and how much lighter will it get? I know they want to hit 2800 someday if they can and with carbon fiber they might just get there.

First off we knew the car was very close and were some changes in some details per the post Fbodfather has posted. He stated it was a incomplete concept car and was mad because people posted the pictures. Still many posted the pictures here knowing Scott was beyond upset. I hope this will not effect his post with us in the future. Second the car will be first shown on January 8th in the AM in Detroit regardless of what goes in LA. If most likley will be shown later in the day or week in LA. If anyone wants to believe anything believe what Fbodfather/red planet post here and on the Camaro sites as he is a known confirmed person working in GM and has a long background directing the past Camaro program. As for the other internet experts take them for what they are worth. I was told on Sept 4th the car was not going to be shown in Detroit by some of these so call experts when I knew and confirmed the showing on Jan 8th had already been set. Fbodfather/red planet is the only one to be 100% correct in anything he has posted on any web site about the new Camaro. So if you want to know who to believe that is where I would put my money as it is a sure thing. Treat Scott right and you will have a Automotive friend for life, do things like post pictures that he did not want out you may find yourself out of the circle of trust!

More need to think this way. They must give from the top to the bottom to make it and you lead by example! Now I will not down Bill Ford for doing, what he is doing more need to follow his lead. But on the other hand when your family is the largest share holder in the company you have a little more to lose if you don't do this.

You lost me on this one????? Solstice Corvette?? I know the Chevy guys are not real happy with the Mallet Solstice per the recent Autoweek story. But with only 100 units made it's a non issue for the Vette boys. As for the GM 80, if it was built the Camaro name would have suffered a fate worse than the Mustang did on the Mustang II. It may have tarnished the Name beyond any future use. Also in the late 80's early 90's there was a car completed that looked much like a disguised car as shown above. Pontiac only showed it at the eyes on design show in I think 1994. It was called a GTO and carried the 4th Gen nose of the Firebird with large Barretta wheels. It was reported as a FWD car in the Pontiac Entusiast Story by Jeff Dennison of the GM design center. The car did not look as bad as the mules shown but the FWD would have been the curse of death for the name. The 80's got a little weird, anyone remember the twin V6 Citation? It was a test mule to see if a twin engine Vette was a possibility?