[SprCForr]

Impractical how?

[OnTheIce]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I don't want a Camaro. My Jetta is fast plus it fits my kids in, plus its good on gas.
I rather like the new Passat though.....or maybe an Audi A4.......

Well, 'fast' is a relative term. Is a Jetta even close performance wise to a Camaro? No....but it'll do for most people.

Fuel economy is outstanding for a car with 400+ horsepower, 9L/100km on the highway is great. Puts it close to it's family sedans like the Grand Prix.

Impractical for the family? Yes....but they'll sell a fair amount of these

[EyeBrock]

It'll do 0-100 kph in 7 seconds which is good enough for me! The Camaro is a nice looking 'muscle' car and there obviously is a market, albeit small, for that type of vehicle in North America. From a money making point of view though, it's no Camry or Civic.
For the development costs incurred and profit per item for GM, it's probably another wrong move and sums up the lack of true money making vision that our auto-industry leaders are now famous for.

[SprCForr]

The Camaro isn't supposed to rival the Camry or Civic. This thing has been in the pipeline for a while now and it was never touted nor intended as the car that'll "save" General Motors.

The drive train was shared with many of the other GM products, so that would have saved a pretty good bundle. Body design is a cost that all auto-makers face. IIRC there isn't any groundbreaking tech in the car, just a change in the wrapper.

[EyeBrock]

I'm not saying it was touted as GM's saviour but GM's problems didn't start last year. They have been making products that were too expensive to develop and made too little money for a long time now. To me, producing a vehicle like this at this particular economic point in time is akin to Nero, fiddling while Rome burns.

It's a nice looking car but GM do need a saviour product, not another honking muscle car.

[SprCForr]

I figure it was more a pipeline/timing issue. The economy goes boink and concurrently the Camaro pops out.

It seems like it's becoming a lightning rod for the trouble GM is in. We've seen this sort of thing before, the oil embargo comes to mind. The auto makers rushed to alter their products to meet the baying of the mob and we ended up with some real stinkers. Given a reasonable amount of time, the engineering was able to catch up with better designs.

A good example of that issue from the front side is the changes in diesel engine requirments coming for 2010. They aren't ready for them and the enforced timeline is raising hell with the engineering side. They can meet the requirments, but not efficently, economically and intelligently in the time they've given them. This change doesn't happen over night, that's obvious. It's also obvious that they should have been working more diligently on the alternate fuel/enviro aspect, which they didn't. Forcing a timeline in thiscase is the poorer decision.

I'd love to see what the backroom guys have in mind for production.

[poquas]

SprCForr SprCForr:

I'd love to see what the backroom guys have in mind for production.

The Volt. They've been selling the damn thing for two years!

My comment about the Camero being impractical relates to the small number of people who will actually be buying it, and the need for GM to come up with something groundbreaking to survive.

[OnTheIce]

poquas poquas:

SprCForr SprCForr:

I'd love to see what the backroom guys have in mind for production.

The Volt. They've been selling the damn thing for two years!

My comment about the Camero being impractical relates to the small number of people who will actually be buying it, and the need for GM to come up with something groundbreaking to survive.

GM has to reduce their brands and redundancy which they are doing. Keep Chevy, GMC and Cadillac and sell off the rest and move forward.

I have high hopes for the Volt, I may even buy one.

[SprCForr]

I was thinking more along the hydrogen type lines.

Or the hovercars they promised us. I think Barry needs to look into that.

[EyeBrock]

Sapper, I'm not knocking GM just for the hell of it. I think decades of bad leadership are involved in the current shite state the NA auto industry is in.

I would much prefer us to have a cutting edge product line that was flying from the showrooms and was far superior to the competition.

I take no joy in seeing this kind of stuff, but bad leadership is squarely to blame.

Continually bad corporate leadership.

[SprCForr]

I know, don't think that I was hacking on you. I get the de ja vu feeling over some parts of this issue. I'm also wary because of some of the regulation seems to be based more on emotional reaction as opposed to the considered approach. I do heartily agree that they've not engaged in sound business practice.

Building the best cars for a fair price was key and they (as well the others) thought they didn't have to. Now it's biting them in the ass. Hard. They knew they were falling behind Europe and Japan for quite a while and kept blindly to the path they were on.

At a personal level, I'm happy the after market long ago filled the void with quality equipment that's reasonably priced. Especially if you drive a Chevy.

[EyeBrock]

Nah, you were'nt 'hacking on me'! I just wanted to clarify that I have no grudge against buying domestic, and it has been flogged to death as a thread topic. Hey, I saw that horse twitch a bit.......

[Gunnair]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

Nah, you were'nt 'hacking on me'! I just wanted to clarify that I have no grudge against buying domestic, and it has been flogged to death as a thread topic. Hey, I saw that horse twitch a bit.......

Heh...

You are absolutely right though. The amount of effort GM must have put into the Camero, and other retro vehicles like the HHR and SSR is puzzling given the fact they don't seem to have a flagship vehicle like say the Toyota Camray - or at least one that can really compete (I don't include the Impala!)

Their trucks certainly don't attract the attention of Ford's F150 or Toyota's Tundra either.

Bad management and leadership is bang on.

[stemmer]

Chevrolet's flagship vehicle has always been the Corvette... Seriously...

[Gunnair]

stemmer stemmer:

Chevrolet's flagship vehicle has always been the Corvette... Seriously...

That explains the mess... seriously.