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And I'll add - the reason Impala looks like a Buick, is that regardless of the *name*, it's a big boat with pretensions of luxury, liked by a mostly older demographic (for those who would actually buy one who is not a fleet buyer). Certainly a bland interior with fake wood grain is a pretension of luxury, even if it's a Chevy.
Why not eliminate the fake woodgrain and instead put some money into a nicer plastic/vinyl interior? Sheesh, I wonder who makes the design decisions?
http://www.worldcarfans.com/112090748032/psapeugeot-citroen-gets-delisted-from-t- he-cac-40-stock
Anyway just some opposing thoughts.
So, if the Impala is such a valuable brand with so much equity, why did they leave it with nothing more than a facelift since Y2K? THAT'S the point I'm making, and you keep trying to hide behind "a new model is coming." Why the bleep did it take so bleeping long???
P.S. The answer is because they have way too many brands and models and it makes allocating resources and making business decisions way too complex. But don't worry, a new Impala is coming for 2014. And it'll probably be around until 2026.
I happen to agree, there's no real place for Buick or GMC in the US. It's expending resources that GM doesn't need to expend. With those out of the way they can concentrate their efforts where it counts, make Caddy the standard of the world and a true BMW rival (once they dump the Escalades anyway). Without Buick getting in the way, there's room for both an Impala and Malibu of similar size, with the Impala as a higher-line model with slightly more prestige. Retire GMC gradually through a program of rebranding it to "Chevy Truck," and gradually merge models with Chevy and let GMC die a natural death.
What's left is a GM that's lean and mean, right-sized for the market.
Understandable - we're each coming from opposite sides of the market, size-wise. I drive an Acura TL (which is a bit too big to me) and the Impala is bigger than that, and softer, so from my point of view it is a boat. But I can see that it wouldn't be from your perspective.
Fact-checker:
If deleting the 3.4 V6 and 3.8 V6, adding a 5.3 V8 and also 3.5 and a 3.9 V6, and subsequently adding a 3.6 V6 providing over 300 hp and getting 30 mpg, and updating from four speeds to six is a 'facelift', well...there's really nothing else to say.
How silly, yet I have seen people buy or not buy cars because they liked or didn't like something equally silly....to me, anyway.
Good Grief....it's a TRUCK!!!
How's this one? My ex-wife's father said he'd never buy a GMC because that's the initials of his mother, Gladys Marie Christiam, who he could not stand! :surprise:
http://youtu.be/Iax-0rIiqgU
http://youtu.be/ScoW9KveKqY
Regards,
OW
It won't matter here, of course, but I drove a 73-year old friend to a funeral yesterday. He's a die-hard Studebaker guy and owns a '90's BMW 3-series convertible and a late-model Ford Ranger. He said about my bare-bones Cobalt, "This is a solid little car". We drove about 70 miles round-trip in it. Of course, not the conventional wisdom (sigh).
Studebaker never had a consistent marketing slogan, but my favorite of theirs was for the '64 model run, the last year built in the U.S. and my favorite model year of theirs...."Different....By Design".
Their best-known slogan was probably "First By Far With a Postwar Car".
Yeah, you have to give GM credit for at least updating the powertrain in the Impala. Considering a new Impala is due out for 2014, they're really only getting two model years out of this powertrain. They probably could have just stuck it out with the 3.5 and 3.9 for two more years.
But then, I wonder if it actually made more sense to go with the 3.6/6-speed, and streamline everything. By 2011, was there anything other than the Impala even using the 3.5 anymore? I know the Lucerne used the 3.9. And the Lucerne, DTS, and Impala all used the same 4-speed automatic. Maybe not completely the same, as I'd like to think the V-8 version was beefed up. But I'm sure they were in the same family.
So, with the DTS and Lucerne going away, maybe it made sense to just retire the 3.5/3.9 and the transverse 4-speed automatic completely, and. And one unintended consequence of that was that the Impala happened to benefit from it.
On a totally unrelated note, this makes me think of something Oldsmobile did in 1977. That was the last year for that generation of midsize. Yet, Olds actually went through the effort to put a new dashboard in the Cutlass, one that did away with the round a/c vents on the passenger side. Kinda interesting that they'd go through that much effort for something in its final model year. I don't think Buick or Chevy went through any effort like that on their cars. And I know Pontiac didn't.
**edit: Just looked them up, and on second glance, it looks like Olds just modified the passenger side of the dash where the a/c ducts are. So, perhaps it wasn't as big of a deal as I thought.
1973-76 Cutlass dash
1977 Cutlass dash
That's not to say that Bewitched couldn't wear on you after awhile, either. It started getting to the point that Derwood would mouth off to one of the relatives, and either Endora, Serena, Uncle Arthur, or even that old lady who ran the boarding house in "The Waltons" would turn him into something. He's damn lucky they didn't just wish him off to the cornfield and have done with him!
As a kid, I always got a kick out of how Sam and Darrin's house doubled for the Bellows' house in I dream of Jeannie, and the Kravitzes house doubled for Major Nelson's house. It must have been a bit of a logistical challenge for the filming crews. And I can just imagine Mrs. Bellows having to explain to her husband what that young ad exec in the Camaro was doing pulling up in the driveway while he was at work, while Abner was grilling Mrs. Kravitz about having those young astronauts in their GTO's and Firebirds over while he was out and about!
One of my favorite of who lived in the same house, on the exterior shots the Beaver lived in Marcus Welby's house.
In 1965, the airliner to fly was the Boeing 707, yet you don't see any 707's in fleets today, nor do you see Boeing trying to capitalize off of the 707 in any significant way.. Yet, it really transformed air travel.
So, for someone who was "car conscious" in 1965, 1 million Impala sales is impressive. Not so much for someone born in 1980.
Remember, the video game console scene in 1980 was rules by Atari, but I doubt that's very significant to any active video gamer today under 35...
My Dad had a 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne.
My Grandmom had a 1964 Biscayne.
My Uncle Charlie had a 1965 Impala.
My Grandpop had a 1967 Bel Air.
My Great-Grandpop had a 1967 Biscayne.
My Uncle Daniel had a 1970 Impala Custom.
This is what I'm talking about. Do they really need three cars to cover the mid-to-full category? Most manufacturers do it with two (a "standard model" and a higher end "prestige" model), and a few (Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi) make do with one and just let the higher trims fill the "prestige" role. As it is, not only is GM competing with itself, but Chevrolet is competing with itself here.
Whee everyone else has for all intents and purposes merged the midsize and full-size categories, GM shrunk one of their cars in order to re-create the two distinct categories. And then they go and plan TWO cars for the full-size category anyway, the Impala and the SS. How much does it cost to create, build, and market three models in a segment that could be filled (theoretically) by one car? And how much is that going to eat into profits? The only other manufacturer that does this ALSO needed a government bailout. Which should form an obvious pattern.
And there's the whole argument in a nutshell. :shades:
Eh, I don't want to hear you say "miled up" and "Grand Marquis" in the same sentence, until you've gotten it up to ~230,000 miles like my buddy did with his '04 Crown Vic. Or at least, to 175,000, like he did with his previous car, a '95 Grand Marquis! :P
I'll be curious to see how the new Impala turns out as well. It's essentially the current LaCrosse, in different sheetmetal and with a larger trunk. So, it may not be an automotive revelation, but should be worth looking at, I think.
Classmate's mother had a 1972 Impala.
Best friend's Dad had had a 1973 Impala.
Grandpop had a 1974 Impala.
Neighbor down the street had a 1975 Caprice.
Best friend's neighbor had a 1977 Impala.
Best friend had a 1978 Impala.
Parents of kid I went to church with had a 1979 Caprice Classic.
Grandpop had a 1980 Impala.
Another friend had a 1982 Caprice Classic.
I had a 1987 Caprice Classic.
Grandpop had a 1989 Caprice Classic Brougham LS.
Heck, the Philadelphia Police Department had 1978 Impalas.
Must...resist...the.......urge......to............buy!
1940 Chrysler Royal (Granddad had it when he met Grandmom)
1949 Pontiac, bought new
1952 Buick, bought used around 1955
1955 Pontiac, bought used around 1958
1960 (or '61, nobody who's still alive can remember anymore) Impala wagon (or Nomad or whatever they called the wagon then)
1964 (or '65, again, nobody can remember exactly) Impala wagon
1968 Impala 4-door hardtop with a 327
1972 Impala 4-door hardtop with a 350
1982 Malibu Classic Estate wagon with an anemic 229 V-6. And, don't get Grandmom started about those stationary rear door windows.
1985 Buick LeSabre Limited
I don't know what made Grandmom and Granddad get the Malibu, instead of another Impala or Caprice. With high fuel prices of the time, maybe that played into it? Plus, it was a versatile, roomy car at a sensible size. Sadly, that Chevy 229 was just too gutless in a car that size. My '80 Malibu coupe had the same engine, but in '80 it had an extra 5 hp (115 hp versus 110). Plus, the wagon body probably weighed about 200-300 lb more than the coupe. That Chevy 229 also wasn't very torquey, compared to, say, the Buick 231, Ford 232, or even the Mopar 225 slant six.
Anyway, they hated that Malibu enough that it made them go back to a big, V-8 car the next time around!
This was my grandparents on my Mom's side of the family. On my Dad's side, they preferred F-words, so we won't talk about them.
I liked the '73 Cutlass when it came out, and in fact it actually outsold the Chevelle that year. But, I always thought the passenger side of the panel was plain, and the '77 revision added a trim panel over there.
That first link you said mentioned swivel bucket seats on the Cutlass Supreme, but oddly enough, the picture shows the vinyl, non-swivel seats of a Cutlass Salon (manySalons had corduroy-like upholstery). The swivel buckets were only used the Cutlass 'S' model. Supreme's bucket seats were non-swivel, and the Salon used the high-back, almost 40/40 reclining buckets.
In town, the local business supply store owner had a firethorn 4-door '77 Caprice Classic with bodyside molding, no pinstripe, and a white vinyl top. It had the F41 suspension so had the larger, pinstripe-whitewall tires and the scooped, plastic 'spoke' wheelcovers. I just would love that exact car but in a coupe. It had the red velour "Custom" interior--almost Buick-like.
I didn't like the Caprices with bodyside molding AND a pinstripe..too busy down the side. One or the other was OK IMHO!