By accessing this website, you acknowledge that Edmunds and its third party business partners may use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about you and your interactions with the website as described in our
Privacy Statement, and you agree that your use of the website is subject to our
Visitor Agreement.
Comments
Don't worry, it won't get canned.
Far to much money has been spent already.
GM spent over 1 billion developing the VE Commodore
and LWB Statesman.
They have been working here on a shorter Zeta platform
for something about the size of a 3 series Bimmer.
It will have the 3.6 motor in it, with a supercharged version on the way.
I'm drooling already ;-)
Rocky
I think it goes on sale next month.
Cool............
Also getting the Cadillac CTSV? The new one anyway.
Don't know why, an SS Commodore should blow it away.
holdenguy, you wanna put something on that ???
Australia, has never manufactored a production car faster than the 09 CTS-V' The Holden Commodore HSV, might be fast in Aussie, but out gunning anmerican-made 600 hp. 09' Cadillac CTS-V, ummmmmm....I think not. :P
Rocky
What i4 has 208 HP?
Good to hear ya mate.
OK, 09 model Caddy.
Long way off.
Holden (HSV) are planning to put that 7.0 litre motor
in a Commodore maybe later this year.
As for your claim of Aussies
never building quick cars.
Ever hear of the XY Ford Falcon GTHO?
It was the fastest production 4 door sedan in the world,and
still is a bloody quick car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gts5NEPr9JI
Anyhow, going to bed now,so don't think I'm rude if I don't reply straight away. :-0 yawning my head off.
Good to hear ya mate.
OK, 09 model Caddy.
Long way off.
Holden (HSV) are planning to put that 7.0 litre motor
in a Commodore maybe later this year.
holdenguy, it is good to hear from you mate also. Been a while. The 09' CTS-V, is due here supposably next year this time as a 09' model. A year or less in the automobile world isn't that far off. The Holden HSV 7.0 LS-7 will be pretty fast, no doubt. However the CTS-V will probably have a 98 hp. advantage due to the supercharger if the rumor holds true. I don't know if we will see a HSV, here in the states after Lutz, saying the ZETA RWD's are on pause because of CAFE increases. :sick:
As for your claim of Aussies
never building quick cars.
Ever hear of the XY Ford Falcon GTHO?
It was the fastest production 4 door sedan in the world,and
still is a bloody quick car.
Yeah those look like fast cars for their time but they are still old cars. the 60's and 70's muscle cars were only good for squealing their tires. For example I can basically take a FWD Impala SS and it would beat 90+ percent of the 60's cars off the production floor.-grin.
Ever hear of the XY Ford Falcon GTHO?
It was the fastest production 4 door sedan in the world,and
still is a bloody quick car.
Just only know about the Ford Falcon, that's in production now. I did like the video.
Anyhow, going to bed now,so don't think I'm rude if I don't reply straight away. :-0 yawning my head off.
Get some rest......
Rocky
Loren
Rocky
If I can't get RWD and a V-8, I won't even look at Detroit. Right now, Dodge and Ford (Mustang) are the only makes that have it (for under $30k) and they both handle like hogs.
Yeah, because Toyota and Honda make tons of cars like that. I cant think of one vehicle with 300hp that averages 30mpg overall.
You said "never" mate, not now.
I'll try and find a zero to 60mph time for you re; The old Falcon.
Though I'm fairly sure it was around 6 secs.
How the hell are they going to fit a blower as well into that little Caddy body?
What's CAFE increases?
The price of cawfee going up or something? LOL!
You guys work out the conversion.
Here you go mate,
Check the specs sheet on the right hand side.
Zero to 60mph in just over 6 secs.
Not to bad for 1971, even though it's only a bloody Ford :-)
Now this car was beautiful, the 427 Monaro.
We don't build fast cars, nah, must be a figment
of my imagination, lol.
7.9L per 100km would be 30 mpg over here.
CAFE is Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Cars sold in the US have to have to meet a certain fleetwide fuel mileage number or the manufacturer gets fined for every car under the limit (trucks and SUVs are figured separately and have a lower standard). This is different from the "gas guzzler tax" which is levied on vehicles that get below a certain mpg regardless of the fleet average. BMW just pays the fines and passes the cost onto the buyer, but GM is too big and too poor and too unpopular to do that.
Seems that in this age of high gas prices, RWD autos (with V8) can only suceed as niche vehicles. How many niche can help GM. Also, does broad marketplace really care whether GM cars are FWD or RWD.
GM has had flops with RWD V8 vehicles over last decade or so. Camaro, Firebird, Impala and Roadmaster of mid 90's, recent GTO and Chevy pickup SSR come to mind. RWD and V8 are not necessarily the panacea. Lots of people in snow/ice belts prefer FWD.
How are Chrysler 300 V8 and Dodge Charger/Magnum V8 sales trending? Are they going up, flat, down or what.
Seems that Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia and others have had sales success with FWD. Marketplace apparently is willing to buy FWD/V6 or FWD/4 layout. And, with gas prices as high as they are, how wise will it be for GM too put to much emphasis on RWD/V8 car offerings.
300: 30,376, down 22.8%
Charger: 30,923, up 7.0%
Magnum: 8425, down 36.9%
The bloom is clearly off the rose, and it wouldn't surprise me if V8 sales are down even more.
Now though, when the time comes to retire my Intrepid, I'm thinking more along the lines of a 4-cyl Altima, which I believe is rated around 26/34 with the CVT. I definitely want to check out the 2008 Malibu when it comes out, though.
Interestingly, the 231 actually had MORE hp than the 260 V-8 in some years! The 260 usually bounced around between 100-110, although I'm sure it was torquier than the 231, so it might've still been a better performer.
The original Olds Starfire was kind of Oldmobile's version of the Pontiac Grand Prix, although I can't remember if it was based on the big 98 C-body or one of the b-body 88's. It was Oldsmobile's flagship model, and came with Oldsmobile's biggest engine (can't remember if it was a 394 or 425, probably depended on year), and had bucket seats and a floor shift. I don't think they were really all that popular when they were new, but they're pretty desireable nowadays.
Not sure how this relates to GM.
Loren
Some good news on GM pensions. GM made more money last year with its pension fund in the stock market and is now taking the chips off the table and holding.
There hasn't been much good news out of General Motors in recent years, but
you'll be glad to know that at least one part of GM's U.S. operation is
finally fixed: its pension funds. GM may be having a hard time turning
around its auto business and getting its financial statements straight, but
it's kicked butt in pensionland. In fact, GM's funds have done so well that
the company has switched about $20 billion in pension assets to lower-risk
bonds from higher-risk stocks. It's the equivalent of taking chips off the
table after you've gotten ahead of the game.
Here's the deal. For reasons we'll examine later, GM's pension surplus
increased by $9.6 billion in 2006. That gain would have made GM
spectacularly profitable if pension results were part of companies' income
statements, as some folks propose. I think that's a bad idea because
pension returns distort results, which in turn would discourage companies
from offering them. Not that they need much discouragement these days.
GM shows just how volatile pensions can be. In a mere four years, its U.S.
funds have swung $35 billion, going from $17.8 billion underfunded
(according to generally accepted accounting principles) in 2002 to $17.1
billion overfunded last year.Although GM can't transfer the $17 billion surplus from its pension funds
to its corporate coffers, it's using the surplus indirectly to help buy
time for an auto turnaround. The pension funds absorbed several billion
dollars in costs to help facilitate 34,000 early retirements last year as
part of GM's huge cutback in its workforce. GM is also using its pension
surplus to pick up part of its tab for the debacle at Delphi, the former GM
parts division that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005. GM expects to
assume $1.5 billion to $2 billion of Delphi pension obligations as part of
Delphi's planned emergence from bankruptcy protection this year.
BTW, GM's flops that you mentioned did not flop due to being RWD. The F-bodies were dated and increasingly uncompetitive. The SSR was a niche product and the GTO was overpriced, dull looking and offer too few options. If GM makes top notch RWD vehicles they will sell fine as the CTS proves.
They may not have sold tremendously, but they did OK. Camaro and Firebird consistently outperformed the Mustang, and now, the '94-'96 RWD sedans and wagons are picking up interest because they had the Corvette eng. in them.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If government does indeed mandate a significant increase in CAFE fuel economy or a major reduction in carbon emissions, it would be financial suicide to build noncomplying cars.
This is a classic example of political risk.
By the same token, people that blame GM for making fuel thirsty SUVs and trucks make the same mistake, just the flip side of the coin. GM wouldn't build them if consumers didn't buy them. Consumer tastes and preferences are "at fault". (And I don't believe the old myth that advertising can sell people what they don't want.)
GM could have been better prepared for the shift in tastes resulting from higher gasoline prices, but not much better. New products coming on line like the Aura, Malibu, Astra and Vue seem well timed. The Vue is one of the few crossover SUVs to stay with a five-seat arrangement while competitors all grew in seating capacity and weight. The Outlook (and its siblings) with unibody construction is a huge improvement in efficiency over truck-based, body-on-frame SUVs.
I'm personally more interested in the smaller end of the scale, but think consumers should be free to choose a Cadillac 12 (or 16) if they want. It's not GM denying consumers this choice. It is the threat of new regulation.
Lobby consumers to change their wants and preferences. Consumers are ultimately responsible for their own choices. Quit blaming the companies that give consumers what they want. Similarly quit blaming the companies when they do what government (we the people through the government rather than the market) tells them to do.
Actually I blame GM for being slow to react to what customers want. GM provided all the trucks and big SUV's in the 90s that were under big demands back then. Until now GM still thinks customer taste hasn't changed much. GM seems to have been 5 years behind on everything hip and under demand from hybrids, to crossovers to economy cars. Isn't this why GM has been loosing market share while toyota gaining?
If you haven't seen the test mule picks it's called a hood bulge. A square bulge in the hood is how it will be done.
Rocky
If GM is five years behind where does that leave Nissan, DC and Hyundai? Nissan just launched its first hybrid but it will only be available in 8 states which is a joke. You are totally ignoring the facts if you believe that GM is not paying attention to fuel economy and is only concerned about trucks. BTW, the truck market wasnt a thing of the "90s" as you state, they were big until 2-3 years ago when gas prices spiked dramatically. This shift is relatively recent and you seem to be ignoring all the recent import trucks and SUVs that have come to market. Even though GM bashers and Prius drivers (actually they are often one and the same) like to pretend truck sales are on the verge of collapse that is hardly the case. Trucks are still about half of the market today. Sure, large body on frame V8 trucks arent as popular as they used to be but gas guzzling crossovers that get about 10% better mileage than large SUVs are VERY popular right now. If people were that concerned about fuel economy the Pilot, Murano and Edge wouldn't be selling well. They are hardly fuel efficient, they are just more efficient than a Tahoe.
I think the main thing that killed the Camaro/Firebird was price and insurance. IIRC, these things were more expensive than comparable Mustangs, and also a lot more expensive to insure. That kept new models out of the hands of many younger people, and worked in favor of the Mustang. Also, back then I believe that V-6 models made up the bulk of Mustang sales, whereas the Camaro/Firebird were mainly V-8's. That only served to widen the purchase price/insurance cost disparity.
The ponycar market in general was also simply drying up, and traditionally the Mustang has always been the stronger seller. So, in the end it was the sole survivor.
As for GM's RWD big cars, they actually sold reasonably well up through 1995, but then the SUV boom caused GM to get greedy. As a result, sometime during the 1996 model year, they converted the plant that made B-bodies over to making Yukons and Tahoes. There was a lot more profit in the SUVs. However, CAFE regs also had a hand in it. A 1994-96 B-body with the LT-1 V-8 is EPA rated at 17/26, which is darned good for something that big and powerful. But that was still low enough to drag down GM's passenger car CAFE average. As a result, GM couldn't allow them to get too popular, or else they'd have to sell more smaller, less profitable cars to offset the big cars, or pay a fine. Meanwhile, a Yukon that might've been EPA-rated at 16/20 probably wasn't enough to pull down the light truck CAFE averages at that time. Or if it did, probably not by much.
Ford found a loophole in the CAFE regs, and packed just enough non-American content into the Grand Marquis/Crown Vic/Towncar to get them classified as foreign cars!
None of these models sold as well as they did back in their heyday, but it was more outside forces and more profitable segments that killed them, moreso than any basic failing of the cars themselves. Heck, the old Caprice made such a good copcar that many police departments would buy refurbished used ones before buying a brand-new Crown Vic!
Lucerne is selling 84% to retail customers, with fleet sales down 2/3 from the old LeSabre (wow, half of all LeSabres were going to fleets), which is the biggest news in there, I think. It seems it has been much more successful than the LaCrosse. I can't see how making the next LaCrosse a codeveloped project with the Chinese will make it more successful in the United States, and I wonder if Buick's model line will shrink again in the next five years - maybe in 2012 it will have just one car and one crossover? And hopefully the Velite cruiser, just for Rocky! ;-)
If Buick dealers are all combined with Pontiac and GMC, that would probably be OK - it only needs to be a niche brand, with Pontiac to do volume with the go-fast G8 (which is due too soon to suffer from Lutz's change in plans) and some competitive midsize offering a la G6. And hopefully a rebadged Opel Astra, maybe in sedan and coupe forms, to round out the Pontiac line.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Young people, guys especially, started to crave pickups back in the 90's. So, this further diminished the appeal of pony cars.
Another factor might have been bloat. Mustangs available during last years of Camaro and Firebird were more tidy, did not look as fat,cumbersome and dopey. It did not occur to the product planners at GM that the last version of Camaro/Firebird chasis and body were a couple decades old. As has been said here before, if GM had any kind of vision back in 80's, they would have realized that pony cars and the Camaro/Firebird were dieing. They could have benchmarked the BMW 3 series and started to build offerings similar in size and layout. Given they know how to make a world-class sports car (Corvette), they could have had a serious 3 series contender under the Pontiac or Chevrolet brand by now. Corvette personnel could have helped in the effort to design a sensible sized sports type car like a 3 series.
I guess that we cannot then blame companies such as Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, etc for giving consumers what they want. Based on sales by brand posted on this board within last week, the consumers have spoken with their pocketbooks. Most of these foreign brands have continuously taken away market share from GM. Seems like GM has not given consumers what they want in a broad sense. Many consumers have gone elsewhere rather than buy from GM.
What is wrong with a 6-cyl in a RWD? Seems that BMW's largest volume car has a 6-cyl (inline) that is plenty powerful and is very smooth.
That's a good point. The Mustang really cleaned up for 1999, and IMO became a really good looking car. Well, for a Furd :P. The Camaro Firbird looked pretty good in 1993, but around 1997 or 1998, they went through a restyle that really made the Firebird look over-the-top. The Camaro came out looking a bit like a 1998 Concorde up front, but wasn't TOO bad looking.
Nobody buys a ponycar for practicality, but I think the Mustang had a definite edge here that might have also worked to its favor. While the 'Stang's back seat and trunk were a joke, they were still marginally better than the Camaro/Firebird's. You could at least store something in the Mustang's trunk other than the T-tops!
The Mustang was also a bit less intimidating to drive. Get behind the wheel, and it doesn't really feel any more intimidating than the 1978 Fairmont that it was spawned from. But with a Camaro/Firebird you sit way low, and look across what seems to be as much hood as a 1972 Monte Carlo.
On a similar note, in big cars, the Fords of that time seemed to have a tidier, less cumbersome feel to them. Even if a 1996 Caprice was only fractionally larger than a Crown Vic and could outperform it, it just FELT bulkier!
Back in 1999 I test drove a used '96 Caprice, before ultimately buying my 2000 Intrepid. Now I've owned cars that were way bigger than a '96 Caprice (1969 Bonneville, 1979 Newport, 1967 Catalina, and even a 1985 LeSabre that was longer) but that Caprice just felt more cumbersome. A big part of it was that visibility was poor. You couldn't see the corners of the car very well. Another problem though, was that the way thing swelled out over its frame rails, the door panels ended up being further away from you. It was about 3-4 inches wider inside than the old, angular Caprice, but it was like they just used a front seat the same size as the old Caprice. So if you had three people across, you were still kind of crunched up, with the added "bonus" of the armrest being mounted a bit too far away for comfort.
That mid-90s Caprice was like a caricature. When I first saw it at the auto show I thought that Chevrolet/GM went nuts. What a stupid looking and cumbersome joke. The best Caprice sedan was the 77-91 version. Think that Chevy should have just updated the last Caprice RWD (think it was 91), made it a tad smaller and it might have been a success. What in the heck were Chevy designers thinking, as well as the big shots, that signed off on that mid 90's barge. (Guess we could ask same questions about dozens of other flops such as Aztek, Alante, Aurora, last Riv, SSR, GTO, 90's Roadmaster, first Avalanche, Catera, Cimmaron, Vega, 4-6-8, etc).
Yeah, I thought the thing was pretty awful when it first came out, for 1991. Actually, ahead of the B-pillar I didn't think it looked bad, but from there on back it was just a mess. I thought they salvaged it pretty nicely when they opened up the rear wheel openings for 1993, and then cleaned up the taillights and C-pillar area for 1995-96. But the '77-90 models were just sooo much cleaner.
Ford did a pretty good job when they made their big cars more aerodynamic for 1992 (I think the Towncar actually came out in 1990 though), but then Ford's makeover wasn't nearly as drastic. It's more like Ford just gave the existing bodies a streamlining, whereas GM plopped these fat new bodies down on top of the existing frame. Kinda makes me think of the old AMC commercials where they showed a Chevy Nova actually entombed inside a Pacer body shell.
Indeed. The Chinese Buick Royaum had the 2.8L V6 used in the base CTS, giving it about the same power to weight ratio as the Park Avenue here. If GM is really worried about 6-liter Impalas busting their CAFE numbers, they can simply put a cap on V8 production in any given year.
So this was basically a repeat of what the General did in 1959 -- wider bodies on top of the older chassis of the '58 models -- which made the cars look absurd because their wheels were tucked so far inside the wheel wells?
Except of course for Pontiac, where Bunkie Knudsen rejected "the football player on ballarina slippers effect" and widened the track -- hence the long running name, the "Wide Tracks."
Let's see Sequoia,Land Cruiser,LX470, 4runner,FJ,GX470,Armada,QX56. Now honda has gotten into the big SUV market with the ridgeline. The blame falls squarely on the consumer. Now with the high gas prices some people are changing their buying decisions. Then there are others that are just adding the cost of a SUV fill-up to their credit cards and paying for it for 15 years. :P
Yeah, but somehow they still ended up looking a lot fatter. I think part of it was because the front and rear of the car were tapered more than on the old, angular style, and that just made the aerodynamic style look all that much fatter in the midsection. The skirted rear wheel cutouts also helped to make the car look fat.
Oddly, I've seen specs for the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis that put them at something like 79.7" wide, which would make them as wide as any pre-downsized 70's behemoth ever got. Yet it feels like a much smaller, more nimble car.