Proud, you have precisely verbalized what I am trying to say.

The market is moving forward....and rapidly! When we talk about the 300 and 300C, it's not enough when someone says..."just wait 5 years, when Chevy gets it's car". What Chevy has now is the Impala. It's a competent piece alright, and it's an unmitigated sales success.

But......

If someone said, here's 30 grand , go buy yourself an Impala SS or 300C....there should be very little doubt on which car I would purchase. In this scenerio, the Chevy choice is irrelevant.

 

http://cobaltSS.net

 

I don't know what to say friend.

The cold-hard truth is that GM (read that as CHEVY) may be on track to provide exceptional "appliances" to compete head-on with Toyota, Honda, and the likes. Maybe it's hugely profitable, and the best thing for the company to do in response to sherholders and bean counters - but it sure does leave the enthusiast out in the cold.

I think Chevy will continue to put out sporty or "hopped-up" versions of their mainstays, but will those be sufficient to satisfy the enthusiasts?
I guess my concern along those lines is just what you named the thread... if those efforts don't satisfy the enthusiasts to the point of prying open their wallets, then the programs are destined to fail, and the Limited Eds and SuperSport versions will cease to come, leaving Chevrolet synonimous with Appliance Central.

Honestly, that would really break my heart too. Too much heritage there to flush it all down the chitter, especially during a musclecar-loaded time like we are in now.

 

So does the Corvette, SSR LS2, Trail Blazer SS 385hp, Cobalt SS 210hp+ count? I think what you and everyone else is refering to is the absense of the Camaro. Well, all you can say about that is it's comming and I think it will definatly perform and satisfy enthusiasts at that time, not a few years earlier. Just mark the times of the new C6 to gauge performance of the Camaro. I'm just worried about the styling.

Another thing to remember is that GM has many brands and many options to place performace vehicles between thier brands. They are not going to have every Chevy car try to grab the performance enthusiast. They can have these cars from Chevy, Pontiac, Saturn, Cadillac(if you want to count them), and even Buick. Some will be cars like the Malibu where they are after a certain market and are not too concerned about the small performance segment. Anyway, it seems to me that the better these "bread and butter" cars do, the more options GM will have for specializing these vehicles.

 

Ok, I think we are looking at chevy as if it was making performance cars for the past 30 years. OUTSIDE of the corvette and camaro, what else did it have from 74 to now that was sporty? Chevy never was a performance brand, Pontiac is. Pontiac will have more "sport" then Chevy. Chevy is a bread and butter company. But they offer more "sporty" cars now then they have before. Do they all need 500hp superchaged V12's to be considered sporty?
I think our idea of "fast" is scewed because of the cars we drive and love. I see comparisions to modded fbodies to the GTO. "Well, my car can run 11 sec in the 1/4, why cant the GTO?"
In the day of 400hp Corvettes and Mustangs and 500hp pick ups, if anything steps out onto the street that is slower then 12 sec, its considered slow and worthless.
Chevy can keep making money on trucks and then toss it to the program.
I have ZERO doubt that when the Camaro returns, it will take the crown back of bang for the buck.

 

Don't have much time, but just off the top of my head:

*Monte Carlo SS (G-body)
*Impala SS (B-body)
*Beretta GTZ
*Z24 (V6)
*Laguna S3
*Various Nova models
*Citation X11
*Cosworth Vega/ Vega GT
*Monza Mirage/Spyder
*Turbo Monte Carlo
*Malibu/ElCamino (Malibu could be ordered with 305 4 speed/ Elky with 350 4 speed).

Gotta go...I'll think of more later.

 

EXACTLY! Chevy is not going to get ALL the goodies like the Ford brand does because GM still has the Pontiac "excitement" division. Besides the Marauder (good concept, poor execution = failure) no one looks to Mercury for performance. Even though Chevy and Ford are traditional rivals I think, at least right now, their missions are quite different. I think we'll start to see Chevy turn back into the "everything for everybody" division soon with the better SS trucks, LS2 SSR, C6,....*fingers crossed* new Camaro.....

 

Yup, Chevy had more performance models that any division of GM. People try to say Poniac is the performance division but to people GM performance, or sometimes even performance in general, is spelled C-h-e-v-r-o-l-e-t. Pontiac had what in all these years? GTO and Firebird?! And where'd the Firebird really come from?! Who had all the cars Z284 listed? Who had ZL1 Camaros, (the fastest and highest powered musclecar ever) Z28 Trans Am racing Camaro's, SS454 Chevelle's, Nova SS's, Impala SS's, MC SS's, Corvettes, and so on? Who has cars like that that were modded buy guys like Yenko? Which division is named after a racecar driver and has the bigger following in performance? I'll tell you who, not Pontiac. They might have came up with the first muclecar, but they are not famous for performance like Chevy has become.

So why should every car now be boring? And when they do try to add some power, it's never enough to be competitive anymore. Chevy has always been F*rd's direct competitior and it's about time they act like it again model for model. Chevy used to outsell everyone all by itself, you can't do that with just plain cars and stepped up interiors.

 

Yeah, but you could say the same for Ford. What do they have beside the Mustang? They have the Taurus, Crown Vic, Focus and none of them have any performance variants...............If Chevy isn't competing, then Ford definatly is not.

 

IMO the way things are going, chevy is becoming the s*** division of GM, except for the corvette.

 

Well, I think the Crown Vic LX Sport is pretty neat. As far as Focus goes...we still have SVT Focus and Focus ZTS for '04. In '05 we'll get the first North American ST....the Focus ST.

You got me on Taurus.....nothing since the SHO.

 

wow...the way some of you think, things should never change. I think GM as a whole is moving in the right direction.

 

You are correct... As an engineer, I am often the person ASKING for changes or improvements, but there are also the right places to do it and not. I guess it's just my personal opinion, but it saddens me to see the 6-decade-long rivalry of Ford and Chevy turning into a "Battle of the Appliances".

I really don't find 13 cupholders to be a sizzling sales point, at least not like dual exhausts and a V8. But like others are pointing out - and I admit - I am an enthusiast and so my tastes and spending habits are different from the common Joe.

Even though change is inevitable, that doesn't always mean it's a good thing for everyone.

 

I agree with you whole heartedly. However, my opinion is that there will always be cars for enthusiasts. Chevy has not and will not give up on enthusiasts IMHO...

 

you mean they wont give up on the corvette enthusiastists?

I think the ford vs. chevy thing no longer exists... pontiac is becoming the performance division, and GMC is getting the better trucks... that leaves chevy with the plain-jane econo-cars and the vette... Unless you consider the SSR a performance vehicle