OCcarnut

SCHWING!

Bring back the quirkiness....the drive in theater sized winshield, funky windshield (and headlight) wipers. the hatch...the good old Saab-ness. The car world could use more personality in this price segment.

Ditto here in Laguna Beach...throw in a few dozen Continental GT's (now a yawner-unfortunately), several Phantoms, a few Maybachs, and Porsche GT's...but most of those homes also have a Range Rover (not for long ala Ford marketing decisions) or a blinged out Escalade or Denali in the garage too. That would do it for the domestics. I have seen a few older people around town with Sim-cons and Vogues on there STS's...YEAH BABY! People are just now getting over the Flying Spur frenzy and are jockying for new S-classes. Those will be a dime a dozen in about 8 months. Man I feel broke (er)all of the sudden.

I agree...I have seen it in person and it looks much better than most of the pics that I have seen floating around so far...it even looks better in person than the official Suzuki press release pics IMO.

To everyone: STOP USING THE TERM 'COUPE' IN REFERENCE TO THIS VW MODEL. I COMMAND IT. Thanks. [post="46390"][/post] [/quote] I could not agree more. Let's define our terms here...it is a crossover!!

I am positive.

Those are some sad numbers...the worse part is that the G6 has REALLY grown on me lately...especailly GT or GTP trim (obviously), and even though the G6 fleet percentage is on the lower side of the spectrum,relatively speaking, it is the overall GM fleet stigma that would sour me on purchasing the vehicle even though it otherwise might be very near the top of my list. A more advanced engine would probably make me change my mind, whatever the fleet percentage.

I have seen and sat the new XL-7. I can tell you that is not an obvious rebadge of the Equinox. I can pick out some Equinox styling elements, such as the front fenders, but the rest of the vehicle has its own distict appearance. A fair amount of the interior switch gear is Equinox (maybe even a little Saturn??) more than Suzuki. Having said all of that...you could sure be far worse off than sharing a platform or some styling elements with the Equinox.

Well, this vehicle would not normally have been on my shopping list, but thanks to recent decisions at Land Rover (Ford) about who their desired customer is, or more specifically who their desired customer isn't, this vehicle is NOW on my shopping list along with the Escalade (which looks better anyway) and my Rover will go back at lease end...I don't care what the Owner Loyalty bonus is.

It would be interesting to see the mix in this same parking lot circa 1970 when GM was "Mark of Excellence" and Cadillac was "Standard of the World", or to see how many Fords or Chryslers would be present for that matter.

I have finally seen one in person and I think that it looks good..much more substantial and muscular than the "normal" Grand Cherokee. I have one question...not only relating to Chrysler or the Grand Cherokee in particular, but what is with the friggging whip antennas?? They look so cheap and old school. The domestics seem to be the main offenders...what is wrong with a nice roof mounted antenna, i.e CRV, Element, Santa Fe, Tucson, etc? Is the cost difference REALLY that much? The manufacturers must know how bad these things look becasue make sure that the whip antennas are removed for any TV ads or print ads. Just my rant I guess because i saw a really nice GC SRT8 ad in my new issue of Motor Trend and noticed that the whip antenna is missing in the ad but exists on the one you actually buy. Does anybody have any insight as to why these things are still around and so coveted by certain manufacturers?

Yes, its coming here and I believe that it should be on sale by this time next year, maybe a little sooner.

Yes, although there may be some overlap between the arrival of SX4 and the elimination of the current SX.

I do not know what other enginerring issues might be involved in using the Aerio engine as the cars do not share any common components, but my first thought would be that the reason is becasue the Aerio is built in Japan by Suzuki and the Forenza is a GM/Daewoo product built in Korea...not sure what logisitcal/political/red tape isssues might also be involved.

I think that a definite car "culture" exists in Southern California, and I think that Nissan and many other makes either consciously or subconsiously benefit from this culture...though not all of them, i.e. Lincoln/Mercury..for whatever reason. And, like it or not, for better or for worse, the huge metropolitain area that makes up the Southern California skews toward import car buyers. And, a lot of the country follows trends that are set in Southern California. So, I think that Nissan is rocking the boat on this...certain industries benefit from being in areas that have a balance of the culture that impacts their core business, othere similar members of their industry, and the talent pool for staffing...I think that if Warner Brothers were to move from Hollywood to say, Omaha, it might end up being very problematic for them to find the same overall balance that they have access to now in the middle of Hollywood...even though Omaha might prove cheaper for them to operate in. Yes, I know other car companies are setting up shop in other "non car" pockets of the country outside of Detroit and Southern California..but unless memory fails me, these were new operations that I do not think resulted in the move of the core organization the way that Nissan is planning to do. At any rate, I cannot help but feel that Nissan is playing with fire on this one...I hope I am wrong...who knows, maybe it is a brilliant strategy, and GM will end up moving everybody to Provo, Utah.

Am I the only one that is disappointed by the column mounted shifter? What a great opportunity to REALLY differentiate the Escalade interior. What am I missing?

Does anybody know an actual time frame for an Alfa return to the U.S.? I keep reading conflicting reports...ranging from 2007 to no planned date. 2007 is pretty close considering it is basically 2006 now...I would think that Alfa would be doing some more main stream posturing by now. I sure wish they would hurry and get back over here.

What previous Suzuki products (Japan built product, not Korean built) may have lacked in style, cache and name (i.e. Esteem) they sure made up for in reliability..most of Suzuki products are actually bulletproof. Ask anybody that will admit to owning one. The new Korean product (Forenza, Verona etc.) does have Suzuki ticked off. Look for all of this to change...the new Grand Vitara (maybe still a name issue there) is a solid piece with respect to drive, fit and finish and looks.

No plans to bring the current Swift on sale elsewhere in the world to the U.S...possibly the next version will make it here.