GM problems

What is up with the GM styling and design team. Ford and Chrysler are pulling away. I am a GM junkie but I find myself always looking back at the "good ole days" instead of the present. Other than the Corvette the Chevy line up is weak. It seems as though the bean counters have left Ford and taken up residence at GM.

Maybe they will wake up and realize that most people want well made and good looking cars. That will answer the question of why they aren't selling the cars that they currently are producing. For the love - I find myself considering a new Mustang.

Rick

73 LS4 vert
Reply to
RLETNER
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Yeah, the 500, the Freestyle, the Focus - those are really exotic. And that retro T-Bird was so hot they couldn't keep 'em in stock.

Which is about all they'd have going for them right now if it wasn't for the F-150.

Ford isn't GM's problem - the imports are. That and their bloated executive ranks, and labor contracts that the market can't support anymore.

AJM '93 Ruby coupe, 6 sp

Reply to
CardsFan

LMAO! You hit the nail on the head.

Reply to
StingRay

Reply to
RLETNER

For crying out loud, for 140 grand, it had better be, huh???

Oh, and nice top-post. *PLONK*

AJM '93 Ruby coupe, 6 sp

Reply to
CardsFan

Now if you were going to spend money like that, try the Grand Sport replicar and kick the neighbors GT40's ass with a 700 HP big block..

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Reply to
Dad

You're right - the GT40 is 140 large. I can only dream of getting a car like that. The point is that Ford stepped out and brought back a modern day version of a legendary race car. It is in an exclusive club. I probably will never be able to own one, but if given the choice between that and a replica of a Grand Sport the GT gets my pick. Now if it was a REAL GS it would obviously be a different story.

Reply to
RLETNER

Tell me the difference between the hand build Ford and the hand built Grand sport? Both will be an exclusive club populated by hand built replicars. By the way the REAL GS was a hand built race car as were the Fords. The point is that they were both bitch'n cars but both hand built and it's the only way they will be produced in this day and age. Myself I'd take a nice Studebaker over a factory hand built Ford at that price. Yes, I own a Ford but I'm not a fan of factory hand built rip-offs, Ford or otherwise.

Reply to
Dad

point

You know they still make the Avanti.... However I think they changed from the Camaro/firebird chassis to a FORD Mustang last year or so......not sure .. Reason of course is the lack of new Cameros etc... and I do not know what is now under the hood...

Fellow Corvette Club members owns a 2002 Convertible LS1 under the hood...darn nice car ...

Bob Griffiths

Reply to
Bob G

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:58:54 -0500, "Dad" puked:

Can you drive the GT 40 on the street? That GS replica isn't street legal.

-- lab~rat >:-) The less you care, the more it doesn't matter.

Reply to
lab~rat

What is up with the GM styling and design team. Ford and Chrysler are

back

Corvette

the Chevy line up is weak. It seems as though the bean counters have

and taken up residence at GM.

most people want well made

question of why they

producing. For the

73 LS4 vert

I agree. And it just seems to be getting worse.

Look at this HORRIBLE and UGLY HHR that Chevy is releasing

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Hopefully it is not a sign of things to come

Reply to
Bababooey

Looks a LOT like a PT Cruiser to me - which brings me to my next blasphemous thought...

Anyone think the new Corvette looks very similar to the Viper? Now I've only seen a couple on the street plus pics but that front end reminds me of the Viper - maybe it's the exposed headlights or something.

These days GM reminds me of Microsoft - few original ideas, just following the pack (Chrysler in this case, Apple and Mozilla in MS's case) and glomming onto good products but reworking them without taking the step to a higher level. Where's GM's innovation and styling departments? I think, looking over the fence at the Chrysler design studios.

Chrysler has done a FANTASTIC job of rising from the ashes of bankruptcy and then the K-car. They've built mountains from the success of the Dodge Ram trucks. They've not put all their energy into the trucks though; they've pushed the styling and taken great risks in the Viper (fer God's sake stuffy 'ol Chrysler put a V-10 in that thing!), PT Cruiser, Prowler and Crossfire (that Bugatti-like styling just looks great to me - must be the fastback look I've grown so attached to over the last 26 years...), brought out the magnum sedan and wagon-looking cars. Chrysler has really set themselves apart from the Big-3 pack. They have new cars and great styling to appeal to all types of buyers. However, when you look at GM, they're standing still. All they've done is put out big, gas-guzzling SUVs, cut out the Camaro and Firebird, put out ugly cars like that weird boxy Pontiac thingamajig that's not even remotely quirky like the Scion line, and restyled the Corvette to look like a Viper. Where's the out-on-a-limb restyles of the past Corvette generations? '63 was a milestone of design as was '68 - radical. Where're the Shinodas, Mitchells and Duntovs? Working at Chrysler. The new Corvette should have been on the order of the Ferrari Enzo - at least drop a V12 into the fiberglass.

On the other side of the coin, the Asian imports have stuck to much of their strong suits in continuing to build quality cars that get very respectable gas mileage - my wife's '03 Accord 4 door gets just shy of

30 mpg. They've started brand new companies (Accura and Lexus) to attract those who started in the Civic and Corolla 20 years ago, the Accord and Camry 10 years ago, and are now financially comfortable enough to look to the luxury market - quite successfully I might add . They've also invested quite a few bucks into the hybrids with outstanding success - the waiting list for the Prius and Civic hybrids are 6 months long. People can sell their used Prius for more than they paid for it last year. Can anyone else say that of their mass-produced vehicle? The Japanese have not been sitting on their asses milking a good trend with no eye on the future of the oil situation. Toyota, is it?, who plans a hybrid powerplant for a model in every single line? Where is GM in this new market? Playing catch-up.

(Damn, I didn't plan on writing all that rant - just sort of came out on its own.)

Here's waving to ya - \||||

Owen ___

'67BB & '72BB

-- not affiliated with JLA forum in any way -- alt.autos.corvette is original posting -- ___

"To know the world intimately is the beginning of caring." -- Ann Hayman Zwinger

Reply to
Barking Rats

On Fri, 13 May 2005 01:14:52 -0700, Barking Rats puked:

I agree with pretty much all of that except I don't think the Vette looks like a Viper...

-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?

Reply to
lab~rat

I agree, it is far too easy to write a full page or two of rant when you begin talking about GM these days. And this is a person born and bred on Chevrolet, whose first car was a Chevy, whose first new car was a Chevy, and has had a Chevy in the garage forever. Well, almost, these days the everyday isn't a Chevy, it is a GMC.

The look of the new Corvette has grown on me once I saw it in person. However, I can't pick them out of traffic. Neither can my daughter, who is currently into calling out Corvettes on the way to anywhere. A C5 stands out. A C4 stands out. C3 and back stand out incredibly. But the C6 looks far too much like a typical Japanese import sporty car/sedan from the front.

GM's innovation? Dead. When the Camaro/Firebird began their bloated rounded look in '96 or '97 or whatever it was, I knew that was the end of Camaro/Firebird. With regular tires from the back, the look was all wrong. It wasn't a pony look anymore, and that was what the whole deal was about. The engine shoved under the windshield, good grief Charlie Brown, didn't anyone remember lessons from shoehorning in a V8 in the Monza? A look at it and the Mustang and it was no contest. The Camaro may have been sleeker looking, but the Mustang was Saturday night ready. And easily modified for more Saturday night fun.

I had thought once of doing some SCCA IT racing but that involved everything non-GM. Well, you could drag out a Vega or Monza, but they had to compete against much newer technology Japanese cars. Nothing in the GM lineup was even close to being good for IT. Cavalier? Yeah, right.

And really, if you look at GM engineering, the only real saving grace they have had is the Chevrolet small block and big block. Look at where the bolts are on a trailing arm of a C2 and C3 and call that good engineering. Look under the hood at almost any Corvette for any work on anything and call that good. It is squeezed in like a slave ship out of Africa in the 1700s!

The C1 and the C2 can be forgiven many problems because they were fast, they looked good, and they provided you a basic platform to do almost anything you wanted. C4 allowed much less of your own. C5 was designed to have you do nothing. And C6?

Reply to
Tom in Missouri

Oops, didnt' read what I wrote. There is still aChevy in the garage forever. The Corvettes ahve been there for the las 30 years. I was thinking of the daily regular transportaion, although the '79 is getting more daily use lately that the GMC, especially at the price of gas.

Look at the '69 Camaro for the perfect street fighter. The right look, the right everything. The newest Camaro may have been faster and a road racer, but if you want to live at 150 mph, you buy a Corvette. The pony cars like the Mustang, Camaro, and so on were not bad at that level, but their real home was a Saturday night at any traffic light. The '69 Camaro worked well with a set of 10 inch wides on front and back and also with a set of 4 inch wide fronts with 12 inch wide rear. It could go drag racer or road racer.

Reply to
Tom in Missouri

Reply to
CardsFan

Sorry about that previous post. Clicked "Send" w/o meaning to...

I might get flamed all to hell, but I used to buy and drive GM intermediates back in the day. I liked my Grand Prix, but the '84 Regal did it. Without exaggeration, the car was nothing but trouble. Electrical problems out the

*ss. Mechanical problems. Plain annoying crap like glovebox latches and turn signal stalks that would break. Lousy fit and finish. Just for the hell of it one day I stopped by the local Honda dealer and drove the '87 Accords, one with an auto and one with a 5-speed. Bought one the next week, and 3 Hondas and 3 Acuras later, I've never looked back. The things just don't break. We bought an Acura TSX a couple months ago to go with our 2000 3.2TL. I will bet that in 8 years we'll own it I'll only have paid for the routine maintenance, and consumables like tires and brakes. Maybe the exhaust because of the winters around here, with the insane amount of salt they dump. I can't imagine how GM could get me back now for a car that would be a daily driver. The Cadillac line is at least a little interesting lately.

I am really enjoying having the Corvette, but it has 79,000 miles on it, and I could put better than twice those miles on a Honda and have nowhere near the rattles, or mechanical problems I've already fixed on the 'Vette. Maybe if I'd owned it the first 76,000 miles it would be a different story, but from following this group for a year and a half now, I sort of doubt it.

Call 'em ricewagons or me unpatriotic if you want, but GM blew it with me back in the 70s and 80s. They haven't made up any of the engineering gap at all. One thing they might do is forget the bajillion-long option lists and build more standardized cars, and really, really, really focus on getting right what they do sell. But I guess the problem is, how do you get people like me back in the showrooms? Not with an Ion, a Malibu or a Lacrosse.

AJM '93 Ruby coupe, 6 sp

Reply to
CardsFan

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