Seems this car not only had heavy hitters running blocker to obstcales, it damn near set a record in going from concept (idea) to production.

Pretty interesting story.
http://cheersandgears.com/boards/top...TOPIC_ID=10444

 

Lori Queen the Vehicle Line Executive? I hope that's a psudonim or her parents were real bastards for naming her that.



nice article though.

 

Well, she married Jim Queen....so that's where the Queen came from.

Maybe I'm just thick, but what's wrong with the name "Lori Queen"??

 

Article sounds good.

BTW, I don't get it either.

 

after some dark years it's good to see chevy coming back strong. The C6 by all reports will be a bad***, the cobalt will be a definate improvement on the cavalier, and the camaro ought to be back by 2007. Also the new malibu seems to be a pretty nice car, just waiting for the Impala to catch up.

 

Woman VLE...and she was pulled off the Colorado. Good to see GM is progressive.

I think at GM pretty much the only roadblock in how fast a car can be developed is how much money you can get the board to pony up...

 

There are some major engineering roadblocks on getting the dev. time under say 20-24 months. GM has a very advanced CAE (computer assisted engineering) department and their "digital buck/digital vehicle assembly simulation" technology is tops in the entire world, but you still have to do real life testing. And there are only so many hours in a day, and there is a limit to "accelerated durability testing." And let's not even go into the assembly side of it...

 

Woman as a VLE?? Don't forget Lynn Myers. She's been Pontiac's General Manager for years!

 

Yeah...and she is also a bit loopy...telling the media the GTO would debut with 400HP!

 

Not very nice, respectful, or fair.

*Scott said the Monaro would never come to the US, even as it was being developed for the US at that very moment he was saying this.
*Bob Lutz claimed the new Grand Prix GTP would have 280 horsepower right about the same time GTP's horsepower was finalized (as well as also stating 400hp for the GTO).

Both very respectable and compentent people, and by no means loopy by any definition even though they made wrong claims. Both you and I have made claims that were in error.

Having once spoken to Lynn Myers, I can assure you she's very intellengent, capable, and very much on top of things. She joined GM in '73 and began at Oldsmobile. She's been a General Marketing Manager, a Brand Manager (called VLE today), Marketing Manager, and a Division General Director. In addition to Pontiac, she also is the General Manager of GMC!

Tell me again how GM would put someone "loopy" in charge of a group that grosses billions of dollars in sales per year???

Lynn Myers also won an award from Ward's (the ultimate automotive media) Outstanding woman in the Auto Industry award in 1994, was honored earlier this year by the Automotive Hall of Fame.

So it's pretty low to say that she got her position because GM is progressive, and to say the least, pretty disrespectful to call her "Loopy" simply because she was off 30 or so horsepower on the GTO's output (the identical mistake Bob Lutz made).

BTW:
*Maureen Kempston Darkes is the President & General Manager of GM-Canada and a Vice President of General Motors North America
*Debra Kelly-Ennis is the President and Chief Operations Officer for SAAB-USA
*Bobbi Gaunt was President of Ford of Canada before she retired.
*Jean Jennings is the Executive Editor of Automotive Magazine, and you simply won't find anyone in the industry who even thinks she doesn't know cars or isn't an automotive enthusiast.

There are plenty of women in key automotive positions.... and it's safe to say being progressive has very little to do with it.

 

Ron Zarella?

She was appointed President of Latin American operations a couple of years ago. But your point is well taken.

 

Ron Zarella actually is a very good executive. He was simply out of his league in the automobile business. Coming from a totally different field without any insight about cars, he simply saw them as appliances, and ran GM that way without realizing vehicle purchases are emotional as much as practical. Get a board of directors more interested about the bottom line than anything else, and Zarella looked pretty good to them.

You did make a pretty potent point. It's just that GM looked at Zarella's ability to make profits & turn companies around instead of someone with experience in the Automotive business.

BTW: There are 2 things Zarella absolutely did right!:

1. GM's trucks (his initial opposition to Cadillac's Escalade notwithstanding) is top notch.... at least till the current F150 showed up to give it a serious run for the money.

2. Supported Cadillac's drive to become world class over massive opposition within GM and it's divisions, and stuck by the Cadillac CTS when the rest of the board tried to kill it off, then water down it's styling.

 

Whoa Whoa....don't get your Camaro Z28.com thong in wad Guy....

I am just saying from my experiance she is more a marketing person than a car person. Also Pontiac has whole has under performed the last few years...so it's not like she has had a "light the world on fire performance". During her tenue Pontiac went from cladded cars, to saying cladding was dumb, to this now sleek BMW styling. And I am sure the Aztek was not purley Zarella. Any exec can talk game.....but without Bob Lutz throwing money at Pontiac....she would just be another cog in the brand system spewing the corprate line.

All I am saying, is if I was the GM of Pontiac...I would damn sure know how much power my halo car has (especially since at that ponint every other release said 340-350.. Scott was speaking off the cuff at the time concerning the Monaro...from studies they did like 6 years ago.

I understand things change...but if you look at her overall record...she is just another talking face in the GM machine....without Bob Lutz nothing would have changed.