Kicked upstairs in my day job. Don't nearly have as much free time as I used to.

No. Even if I had, I'd probally be told to not to post it to keep it to myself, & wouldn't be free to describe it. However, others have even here on this website (yes, others as in plural).

It's not really that. You can probally rest assured that anything that's 12-18 months from production, other car makers know about it and probally have a decent idea as to what it's going to look like. Not from espionage, but because of guys getting together & talking. Think about it: GM is bent over pictures of a car that looks much like the existing Corvette & will be shown to the public anyways in just over a month.

The real reason is public impact (GM's getting pretty big on creating the "wow" factor).... plus, GM is very aware of their own tendancy to kill off products at the last moment.

Say someone posts internal pictures of the next Camaro, even though it's 2 years from production. Being that GM doesn't "approve" a car till it's time to actually set up the plant it's going to be built at, and GM's vast middle management doesn't like to be "end-runned", it can create an embaressing (or at least difficult) situation within GM over that car.

 

you talking about the ones that went to that survey thing?

 

That & alot more. A whole lot more.

 

On the Redplanet thing, I can not speak for him, but one thing you all need to realize is how seriously GM takes internal security. The investigation into the Z06 pictures is not them going after an enthusiast or websites. More than likely, it is that they have reason to believe "Paul" got the picture from the inside, someone in the pressm, or stole it. If the picture had been placed on the media site by accident like the GTO/SSR stuff and was a GM mistake, no one would be at his door. From what I can tell in past dealings with GM, they are much more concerned with plugging the leak than worrying about info like this that will be public in two months anyway. In reality, it getting out now may have been a good thing for the Z06. If they released the info at NAIAS, it would have been moshed in with the 80 billion other cars that get introd that week..and never gotten all the attention it has this week between the leak, and all the controvery over the investigators.

Now if someone had leaked or stole the GTO/SSR info, I really believe that GM would have taken legal action, because putting that info on thier public site was a VERY expensive mistake.

The key here is GM takes employees and the non-disclosure agreements they sign very seriously.The Z06 pic is not a big deal, as no competion is gonna adjust a product and upstage it, in two months. But the same person who leaked the picture could easily leak stuff that is planned 3-5 years down the road, which is murder in the auto business. As a GM employee, you basically can not talk to anyone about your job (including post on a message board). For example, it is not uncommon for GM to pull an employee in and show them a folder full of stuff they posted on the internet, and threaten them with thier job. This happens all the way down to the supplier level. Red being higher up has even higher standards he has to uphold because he is one of the few that knows the whole picture and not peices. We all know that Red does not talk about anything he should not, but you have to remember that sometimes, perception can become an assumed reality. That being said, it is proably best for all if he does not walk that tightrope.

 

I'll agree with you on the "Leak Anxiety" prognosis. I suspect Fbod' seems to have even got caught up in it.

As far as the rest of your post, I can't really agree with you on all of them. The Colbalt is a strong contender, and the coupe (especially the SS) is certainly on the right track. But the Colbalt sedan's design fall under the "what were they thinking" catagory. Solstice looks like a home run. So does every Cadillac coming over the horizon.

G6 and Malibu are good efforts. Malibu has solid quality but uninspired design, but so is Camary and Accord. This segment isn't as intrested in horsepower as to what they get for the money & how trouble-free their car is.

Equinox is a sharp looking piece & it's power is competitive. The Z06 is expensive as h*ll, but so is the Acura NSX, Dodge Viper, & Ford's GT. The high priced but accessible regular Corvette is the world's fastest car under $60,000 (let alone $43,000 and some change), so it's not like GM doesn't have a hot runner.

You know I have no problem raking GM over the coals when they need to be raked, but GM's only problem right now is that they simply can't keep up with today's rapidly changing market because it's simply too big and has way too many levels of management with the power to block or bring any project to a crawl.

GM actually does have plenty of good stuff in route. It's just that it's like moving molassas uphill in the winter getting them to market.

 

As usual your comparisions don't add up to make alot of sense. The Malibu is doing fine in its market and is very competitive, but how can it compete with some future model that is not even released yet? Of course when something new comes out it should have a little edge over its competitors. Styling wise is the Malibu anything special no, but it gets the job done for that intended market. The Malibu and Impala are the main reasons why Chevrolet is now #1 in passenger car sales so I'd say they are competiting very well.

Comparing the top model Altima with the base model G6 doesn't make much sense either. The G6 was just released and when the full line up is out then take the top V6 Altima SE vs. the G6 GXP. That would be a fair and interesting comparision.

I could go on with more, but whats the point. The Z06 pricing discussion is on about a dozen other threads that have been hijacked.

 

That sums up the problem very nicely.