General Motors

[osprey]

<font color="blue"> Thanks for the link. It is an excellent column. </font>

I thought it was,pretty much sums it up how I see it.

 

[KENSFM]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( For me, GM just squandered a golden opportunity in the retro market, and continues to do so)</font>

So true, what a disaster the new GTO turned out to be, hopefully anyone involved in that design project is no longer employed by GM.

Ken /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[HGM]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">(
</font><font color="blueclass=small">( For me, GM just squandered a golden opportunity in the retro market, and continues to do so)</font>

So true, what a disaster the new GTO turned out to be, hopefully anyone involved in that design project is no longer employed by GM.

Ken /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif )</font>


Yea, it looks like a Grand Am to me... An old one at that.. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[MotorSeven]

The GTO is so far off the mark i didn't think it worthy of a bash /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif. GM inovation seems to cater to only high end users: vett & sst, which are priced over the heads of most of us blue collar types. But what GM has forgot is that it's us blue collar types that buy the high production runs....er...uh....used too /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif!

RD

 

[osprey]

<font color="blue"> So true, what a disaster the new GTO turned out to be </font>

They missed an opportunity for sure.

 

[CarlGlas]

The Tragedy of General Motors

 

[EddieWalker]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( So true, what a disaster the new GTO turned out to be )</font>

This really sums it up. My local radio station has a car show and these guys love everything. Just a basic suck up show about how great the new GTO is. Than one of the car shows ran a segment on it telling how amaizing the performance of the car is and how well it did in it's original version in Australia.

They had one guy on the show who kept disagreeing with all the experts. Said it was an ugly car that didn't give you a feeling of power when you drove it. Just a economy car with a great name to it. No new engineering or anything special about it.

Reminded me of Ford's Cobra II. Another disaster piece of junk.

Has anybody ever even seen one of the new GTO's?? I wonder how many they sold. hmmm

I will give Ford credit on the new Mustand. They nailed that one!! I'll never buy one myself, but it's sure an impressive looking car and they seem to be selling like crazy.

Eddie

 

[osprey]

To me the new GTO is unique,not because they are selling it as a GTO which it obviously is not a GTO,the fact it is a Holden Monaro is unique because we do not have Holdens here in the states.
I would thought GM would have sold more of these cars here in the states if it had been sold as Australian Holden Monaro,an Australian sports car instead of calling it something it is not. GM definately fumbled the ball on this one.

 

[osprey]

Excellent article !!

 

[RonL]

Look at a ten year old Chevy. Compare it to a ten year old Toyota. That says it all.

RonL

 

[rdln]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Meanwhile, GM people haul out comparison charts showing, for example, that a Chevrolet Malibu outdoes Toyota's Camry in just about every performance rating going, yet costs $2,640 less. Customers shrug their shoulders and keep on buying Camrys--their memories are long, and their motivation for returning to GM small )</font>

Actually peoples memories are too short...

 

[3RRL]

I've only seen one on the road. It's really too bad, The GTO was one of my favorite cars when they first came out in '64. My older brother bought one in '64 and one of his friends bought a corvette stingray. That GTO beat the **** out of it every time. I can remember those tiger paws commercials too.

 

[RedRocker]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( It started with the volkswagon beetle and pot smoking anti-american hippies in the sixties snowballed from there to the SUV crazed nineties where gas was relatively cheap and GM didnt seem to need an updated gas mizer carline and the hippies daughter, moonbeam graduates college with an accounting degree working for a firm handling american automotive retirees pensions but doesnt think her job is linked to automotive industry and sees her parents now have a lexus and thinks its cool to buy a scion. She gets laid off, gets po'd at corporate america and gov't, decides to hold a sign outside a ranch in Waco and starts the cycle all over again.

Americans need to be more tribal.
)</font>

Now there's an explination that didn't come to mind /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[MotorSeven]

And Dodge Charger & Challenger, both very well done. They don't have to be carbons of the originals, but there has to be something in the lines that stirs up those old memorys. The market for this is huge, most of us want to remember those days, heck, we are also intrigued by our fathers era of cars/trucks........= GM = a failer to exploit!

RD

 

[EddieWalker]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( My older brother bought one in '64 and one of his friends bought a corvette stingray. That GTO beat the **** out of it every time. )</font>

Don't get me started on the corvette. OOOPS too late.

Every year I read in the auto magazines the exact same thing about the new corvette for the new year. GM has really done a great job on fixing all the flaws and problems in the vette and "THIS" year's model is the ultimate sports car.

I don't have one, don't want one, but I've read this same statement so many times that I'm always amazed that they write it again. I know the magazines have to kiss up to the auto companies for advertising and they have to write glowing reports of everything they test, but come on.

How many years do they have to keep fixing last years model???

Eddie

 

[osprey]

<font color="blue"> I will give Ford credit on the new Mustand. They nailed that one!! I'll never buy one myself, but it's sure an impressive looking car and they seem to be selling like crazy. </font>

I love the new Mustang !! I think Ford has scored high on this one ( Steve McCqueen Bullitt). I think GM tried to do the new GTO on the cheap,they did not have to retool anything. Just bring a Holden Monaro over to the states,drop a Vette engine in it and put some snazzy seats in the car and some GTO emblems on the car.
When I was in 2nd grade in school my father bought a brand new 65 GTO, 3 speed on the floor. Fast car mom could not hardly drive it...(too fast of a car for her)

 

[ToadHill]

I spent many years racing sports cars. an Alfa Romeo to be exact. When we ran practice sessions cars from many different classes ran at the same time. Every time a big horsepower vette blew by me in a stright, I'd catch him in the corner and if I had a horn I'd have been blowing it at him. How they can call that sled a sports car is beyond me.

 

[Gatorboy]

<font color="blue"> ( How did GM get in such a financial bind ? ) </font>

Unions.

I wonder which are the least productive -- Union workers or Government employees?

 

[Bird]

Big horsepower corvette? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Paul, the evolution of the corvette is interesting. The first one I ever drove was a '53. How many remember the first two years? Six cylinder inline engine, 3 carburetors, powerglide transmission. A friend had one in '58; fun to drive but sluggish starting. In a drag race, I could easily run off and leave him in my '56 Mercury. The corvette could almost not even burn rubber from a standing start. From a 50 mph even start, I could easily pull out ahead of him; somewhere above 100 mph, he'd catch up, then the Merc would top out just over 120 mph and the corvette would still be winding up and leaving me behind. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Another buddy had a '60 model, big V-8, two 4 bbl. carbs, 4 speed manual, solid lifters and later traded it for one of the first Stingrays in '63. Both were fun to drive.

Like you said, a lot of power and acceleration, but couldn't compete with the European cars on the turns. The Dallas Sports Car club and the Oak Cliff Sports Car club used to have Gymkhanas on big parking lots on Sundays. They divided the classes by engine displacement size, but the largest class included things like Austin Healy, Jaguar, and some others as well as the corvettes, so a corvette could never win. Then when the Dallas Corvette club had their Gymkhanas, they divided the classes by displacement size, but their largest class was only corvettes so at least one corvette would win one race. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif A local Chevrolet dealer's son raced corvettes and occasionally won a race. He could easily outrun the Masseratis and Ferraris on the straight-a-ways, but they'd pass him in the turns. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

I don't know a thing about the newer ones or how they handle, but yesterday the newspaper had a short story about a 54 year old man who blasted off from a stop sign in his corvette, lost control, hit a Suburban, and killed himself. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Don't really know, but figure it was probably inexperience at handling a powerful car rather than any handling problem with the machine.

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> How they can call that sled a sports car is beyond me.</font>
Easy, Corvettes are doing very well in races like Sebring, LeMans and 24 hours at Daytona.