Good idea.

I am in as well.

As hard as it is to not reply to his idiocy, I will do so.

Hopefully everyone will do this.

Also, redzed, from this point on, if I start a thread, you are not welcome to post in it.

 

I figured out a long time ago that you don't like to be challenged with reality. You're the one that started that "post a pic of your vehicle" nonsense and you're the one that repeats it on just about every thread on this board. It was never relevent and it still isn't. Do I ask to see your GTO?

 

Maxima? Altima? Nissan nut-swinger...preach on.

 

I care...Speed World Challenge GT series. It's about as close to racing "real" cars as you're gonna see on TV.

 

Uh-ohhhh spaghetti- O's!

 

Not far. WHO CARES? Another rediculous comparison. The SRX is a crossover SUV, not meant for rock crawling. You do know that others make car-based SUVs that are just as useless off the pavement right? I'm sure Lexus RX buyers go forging through deep ponds and crawling over large rocks ( ) just as much as any other self-respecting luxury SUV buyer does ( ). I'm not one for judging cars by what the auto rags say but C&D chose the SRX as its Luxury SUV of the year.....someone must like it.

 

I sure would like to take an Infiniti FX45 off road. Oh wait, you can't. Or how about the truck based QX56? I wouldn't want to take that beast off road. On Infiniti's web site, it doesn't even list specs like approach and departure angles, or even ground clearence. For people buying a luxury SUV, off road ability does not matter. Even rich people aren't fools enough to take a 50K+ vechile off road and risk bottoming out, scraping the bumpers, scratching agaisnt tree branches, or getting stuck.

 

Except maybe the Hummer owners. Some of those guys definately will take their SUVs offroad.

 

Grand AM and Speed World Challenge.

WC is where the factory effort is for Cadillac. Read the domographics...

http://www.speedvisionwc.com/competi...mographics.pdf

Read them and you'll figure out why it's a very popular series for manufacturers to offer different levels of support, up to and including full out teams.

The Touring and GT series have cars that even you are a fanboy for, no doubt.

How do you think Toyota will do in F1 this season...

 

You got me there. Even then, I bet the % of H2 Hummers that see off road duty is small. H1 Hummers you'd think owners would buy them for that exclusive reason, I bet most of them have gone off road.

 

There's so many areas you are dead wrong in, I'd probally wear out my keyboard trying to point them all out.

You have just lost the last little sliver of any potential hope of credibility with me that you just might know what you are talking about, or at the very least, have opinions that are remotely based in anything that resembles fact.

Less Ambitious? Care to count the number of cars Holden builds off the current V body? They will build the same number of variations off the Zeta, minus the Monaro-GTO. Care to name a single assembly line in the world that produces a larger variation of models? Sounds pretty ambitious to me.

Very accepting & unsophisticated market? It's plainly obvious that you haven't even sat in a Pontiac GTO, let alone taken 5 seconds to actually talk to someone from Australia... or even someone who's visited there. Being sophisticated involves learning about things outside your sphere of life. You refuse to learn anything beyond what your knee jerk view is, so hearing you criticize without knowledge, fact, or even the desire to learn is extraordinarily uaccepting and unsophisticated of you. If the phrase "It takes one to know one" held water, you would be the unquestioned expert in judging what's "very accepting & unsophisticated".

Care to go over the list of US made cars that made an attempt there in recent years that didn't hold up? The most famous recent example is the Ford Taurus. Even the Mustang Cobra was viewed as "cheap" in quality and assembly.


Let me guess: You expect an Escalade and a Cobalt to be built off of the same chassis, right?

The STS, CTS, and Cadillac's crossover is a perfect example of flexible assembly. No ifs, ands, buts, or slobbering excuses.

Ron Zarella was the chief executive officer of General Motors. Bob Lutz is vice chairman of product. The current CEO of GM is Rick Wagoner, not Bob Lutz. Learn who does what before spreading blame.

General Motors is one of the slower companies when it comes to bringing out new models, unless they have a gun to their head. That means that it takes 4 to 5 years for anyone's influence is felt... or is erased! The Solstice a perfect example of how long things take. It was inititated just before Bob Lutz even stepped in GM's front door. He (with vehicle line executive Lori Queens) helped ram Solstice through GM's development system in near record time, and it STILL won't be out till this summer. Anyone drawing conclusions about Bob Lutz today based on cars that are out now, is being unrealistic. Cars developed completely on his watch aren't even out yet.

No, Cadillac's marketing direction is pushing prices into the stratosphere. Check out Escalade prices. People are still buying them up, so whatever segment Cadillac's products are being pushed into, sales have been going up and Cadillac's doing better than it has in years & it's quality level in the top 3 in the US (foreign and domestic), so I wouldn't say they don't belong.

Don't be so accepting & unsophisticated.

The decision against a Sigma Camaro had little to do with the beltline. The "firewall" (sorry PacerX, it's just more convienent to use that term) was a bit high, but the guys working on it were working around it from what I hear.


I went to Vladivostok, Siberia (part of Russia last time I checked) in September 1990 on the cruiser USS Princeton (with the destroyer USS Ruben James riding shotgun). Spent 5 days there.

Ladas suck. Volgas are taxis, they also suck. Didn't see any Zils.

What's your point?



Doubtful. It's probally cheaper to make a $20,000 Solstice than a $18,000 Cobalt.

Yep. And the Chevy Nova should have debuted 1st instead of the F-body, which should have also been pie-in-the-sky projects, instead of the other way around.

Lets see:

Ron Zarella:
*knew nothing about the automobile business before being tapped by GM's Board Of Directors.
*experience was in dealing with fast moving, household consumer items, such as soaps, laundry detergent, etc. where consumer preference is on price and value.
*best known for squeezing money out of operations over product innovation (how can you be innovative selling soap?).
*essentially shut down GM's automotive side and development and diverted cash, resources, and at least one profitable automobile plant (Arlington Texas) towards trucks & SUVs.
*viewed any car that wasn't a "premium car" (ie: Corvette & Cadillac) as a consumer applience, and helped kill alot of good car projects including the 5th gen Camaro & a Holden based Buick Roadmaster.

Bob Lutz:
*worked for just about every major car company in the US and Europe over his career.
* worked as executive vice president of BMW's sales division...in Germany.
* worked in a number of senior level positions at GM's european branch, incliuding Opel.
served as Chairman of Ford, Europe.
*served as executive vice president of Ford internal operations, then Ford truck operations. Also was on Ford's board of directors.
*served as executive vice president of Chrysler, directing all sales, marketing, & manufacturing, later becoming CEO of Chrysler.
*is a person with a proven history as a product driven "car guy" who tends to thrive in a freewheeling enviroment that encourages people to bring up new ideas, be prepared & constantly improve.

Pretty unfair comparison, huh?

Hell, even though Rick Wagoner's background is in finance (yep, GM's run by a beancounter), he is completly honest enough to say he isn't a car expert, and pulled in almost every single top drawer car executive he could get his hands on, and gave them full freedom to focus on the vehicle, not on penny pinching & brand management.

 

again!

 

 

I agree. It's a great series and has a knowledgable fan base.

Where many racing series are losing manufacturer interest, WC continues to draw out the companies that understand much is to be gained engineeringwise and saleswise.

The folks that follow WC are buyers with money and are enthusiasts.