http://www.autonews.com/news.cms?newsId=3526

If they can truely make it seamless, then it sounds like a good idea.

 

and as long as its defeatable too..

Some neat stuff from GM! Does anyone else have somethign similar to this = tech?

 

Honestly... if it is 100% transparent, what would be the purpose of making if defeatable?

 

Good point...... i guess we'll see when it actually comes out!

 

This maybe a really good reason to buy a malibu now. I'll be watching.

 

 

thats what kinda crossed my mind too.. I had a chance to drive a brand new malibu as a rental, and to my surprise, it was a great car for what it was. I thought the interior was nice for its class (in some ways better than my camaro), it was quiet and everything felt solid...

If I was in the market for a small 4 door car like that, I would probably get one.. or at elas put it on top of the list for cars to consider.

Now if they add displacement on demand for another boost on mpg, keep the reliabilty, operating costs, and initial cost.. they'll have a set above the competition.

 

I was just thinking about the Malibu rental I had for afew da.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sorry must have dozed off thinking about it.

The best thing I can say about it was that it was a reliable transportation appliance.

Not quite as exciting as my coffee maker though.

 

I echo what Z284ever says. Mid-sized 4dr cars are a dime a dozen. This is the only thing that seperates the malibu from all the others. They all get good gas miliage. They all are about the same length, and have about the same room inside. So in my mind, if GM pulls this off right, it'll be the car to get for a daily driver. I plan on getting, if I'm lucky, an A4 quattro and turn up the boost alittle. A nice used black one will suit me fine. Too bad GM won't ever look in that direction(AWD turbo). With 4 doors to boot.

 

I like it.........

 

Yeah... I always found it somewhat odd how my g/f's 98 malibu had better interior materials (dashpad, door panels etc) than my 98 Z28. Better than the materials in in my 99 C5 too. The surfaces in the Malibu's interior seem much more resistant to scuffing / scratching. She's put 100k on that car and apart from the seats, the interior still looks new (after a good vacuuming).

Oh well, I didn't buy an LS1 powered car to enjoy the interior. Still I think GM is aware that if they are gonna stay at the top, they need to strive to improve the quality of materials used or people are gonna go buy more imports.

Time to get back on topic .

 

Did anyone notice the part about the rear drive 6 speed automatic that's comming out in 2005? Is that a Caddy & Vette transmission, or something I should get excited about?

 

I got independent confirmation on GM's V12 from a reader who works at Kellogg Manufacturing in Jackson, MI. He told me two weeks ago that they just got a ton of orders from GM for prototype billet V10 and V12 crankshafts.

 

HMMMMMM. Wasn't it you that did an article on how originally the Vortec program included a V10?

 

yea, i think it was in the last issue no GM High Tech Performance.. Had nice numbers.. they had some issues with vibration or something that they had to work on in high rpms.. the article mentioned if the old bigblock V8's haven't been so successfuly in the past, GM probabyl would have pursued the V10's more..