Off to car heaven

If they had as much room on the inside as they take up on the outside, they'd be more popular!

Reply to
Happy Trails
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Evidence ?

Reply to
Eeyore

Do you know of anybody in the NGs that owns a NEW Corolla?

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Obviously you have never been inside of one, if that is what you believe. ;)

Reply to
Mike Hunter

I don't know where 'ol Ed goes to see/get Hummers, but he claims to know the penis size of every Hummer driver out there. I wonder if his wife knows what he's up to when she's not around.

Reply to
Hairy

Ordinary cars now have build in obsolescence. Not necessarily due to engine, but the many electronically controlled safety gadgets; airbags, abs, active suspension. Any failure lights in those circuits and it's a MOT failure. You're supposed to scrap your car after 10 years. A 10 year old car is deemed to be excessively polluting. But is this really true?

My 1993 Saab 9000 LPT does 40 mpg on motorways, much the same as many modern cars of the same size. This car was already designed on the back of 1970's fuel crises, hence the use of turbo rather than a 6-cyl.

To be fair, a modern Vauxhall/Opel overlaps considerable with Saab, so there is hardly any point of the make. Except the wish to be different...

Reply to
johannes

You don't appear to understand the American market...

Reply to
DervMan

"DervMan" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Scania's hardly likely to step in, since they're largely owned by VW - and in the financial shit themselves.

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Reply to
Adrian

They are not intended to all maximum load or passengers. They are intended for a very different purpose. Get a van if that (more room) is your objective. Your comment points out how misunderstood the H1 is by some people, and typifies how GM misread the brand and market.

Reply to
PeterD

When was that? 1943? GM is an impending disaster.

Reply to
Gordon McGrew

Has VW really been taken over by Porsche? Was that Jan 2009?

Charles

Reply to
Charles C

That was supposed to be the deal, although I haven't 100% heard that it's gone through.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Charles C gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Porsche have long held a significant stake in VW - and upped it last autumn to 40+% with a stack of options - which caused significant amusement at the expense of the hedge funds...

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Reply to
Adrian

He made the initiating comment, all right. I mostly see soccer moms driving them. I think it gives them a sense of safety.

Reply to
HLS

It's not American's, per se. It's GM. Most Americans have a clue about cars, after many years of ignorance for most of them. Slowly they got a clue. That's why the "big three" are now going down the tubes.

Reply to
me

But they're going out of business. So why does that matter?

Reply to
me

You're right. There's a significant number of the population that will only buy American. The numbers are declining, but are still there. Saturns and Saabs are not American enough to appeal to this group. They're also not European enough to appeal to those drivers who want something European (typically meaning BMW or VAG stuff as Mercedes seems to have always been its own appeal). Then there's the growing numbers who buy Japanese because "it works."

The same thing sort of happened in the UK; when the population realised that most of the home-built cars really were not put together properly and really did apart after four years but the European / Japanese stuff was still working, trends changed. Many Rovers were considered to be good cars in their day, usually had design faults or characteristics, but weren't so "meh" to drive as something Japanese nor as expensive as something European.

Ahhh I remember the import restrictions on Japanese cars in the early

1980s...
Reply to
DervMan

The restrictions for Japanese cars still exist across the EU as far as I know (import quotas), and they whey the Japanese bypassed that was to set up factories within the EU. Imported cars are still subject to quotas.

Reply to
Charles C

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:23:03 -0000, DervMan cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

There is not really any "significant" number of the population that will only buy American. Never has been - at least not for the past 30 years. There have been buy American campaigns, but outside of those groups that fostered those campaigns, there has never really been a successful movement to do so. There certainly is not now.

Saturn was designed to appeal to a very narrow group and it did so. It's own reputation is what hurt Saturn. Saab is not an American car regardless who owns it. Saab has though, held quite steadily to it's market segment. It never did develop a large market segment, but not because it wasn't American enough.

I think you are over analyzing this stuff.

Reply to
Mike Marlow

Baloney. I know many people who will only buy Ford, GM or Chrysler. A significant number of people. If you don't know this it's only because of the company you keep. But you don't have to personally know these people.

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"One-third of respondents to the survey conducted by Kelley Blue BookMarketing Research said they would only buy cars produced in America,while 12% indicated interest in buying Japanese-made cars and 5%expressed a preference for German vehicles." If that's not clear enough, another take
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"One-third of new-vehicle shoppers say they would only consider carsfrom U.S.-based manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford orChrysler, and that they would not consider vehicles from any othercountries."

One third is a significant number. And that number has been much higher less than thirty years ago. If you have something to dispute except opinion, fire away.

--Vic

Reply to
Vic Smith

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