Not sure what you mean "compromised" by Holden.

The Zeta was a Holden vehicle. Started off as such. It was made to be highly adaptable to fall into Holden's flexible car line. To make a wide range of vehicles off of a single platform with little additional costs.

GM North America saw it as a cheap way to bring back RWD cars here, and ran with the program. But GM North America needed to invest in setting up an all new OEM network to supply Zeta parts here in the US. GM opted out of that. Killing the Impala took away the financial case.

Camaro made the grade because it's of low enough production that all it's Zeta unique systems are simply shipped from Holden. It's assembly line is small, and it's plant is highly flexable (like Ford-Mazda's Flat Rock plant that makes both Mustang and FWD Mazda sedans).

The Zeta is the best handling volume platform in General Motor's arsenal.

Holden didn't compromise squat.

 

I'm just going to touch on a few things since you bring up alot of points.

1. If you were born in the 1980s, you're going to have an unaccurate view of the cars that came out of that decade. As a whole, all cars were trash at the begining.

However, going back to the Chrysler K car, they were VERY good cars. Your 1st memories of the K-car likely happened when those things were already a decade old. But at the same time they came out, GM came out with it's X-body (Citation, etc..) that actually were junk. So much so, that GM tried to erase all memory of them within 2 years. Ford was at the begining of their "Quality is Job 1" era, and frankly, they were off to a lousy start.

Chrysler was the company that was making quality US cars in the early 80s, untill they sat on their laurels and didn't create a new chassis. The Daytona was as quick (if not quicker) than Mustangs. While GM was depowering everything and making diesels that measured life in months, Chrysler became the leading expert on turbocharging.... in the world!

So, sure, Chrysler K-cars might not have looked like much if you went to high school in the early 90s or later. And there were still an army of RWD vehicles in the early 80s. But by 80s standards, and on it's own, Chrysler did a great job with the K.

If GM does the same thing with the Alpha, they will be blessed.



2. In case you may have forgotten, the whole purpose of ANY company is to make money. Ideally, you make money by making a better product than the other guys. In the end, General Motors' leadership did neither.

So if the idea of a General Motors that actually has to make money by selling good quality cars scares you, you probably would have done well working for the old General Motors management.


3. No one expects miracles. However, the fact is that GM was so badly managed that even government involvement is a massive improvement means that GM will at least get healthier and better. There is going to be a fixed amount of money loaned to GM. That fixed amount of money will do far more with 3 car divisions than 7.


4. GM will be running at reduced cost. Government intervention will accomplish what GM couldn't legally do themselves. Change contracts, set bond values, restructure UAW health care and wages, close dealerships, spinoff divisions.


6. Don't let your fears center around cars you want, not what will sell.

General Motor's has the BMW-fighter market cornered. Both the upgraded CTS Sigma cars as well as the Holden Zeta cars are both solidly BMW-like in chassis and handling performance.

But, what you seem to keep missing is where the volume sales (and profits) are is in good, solid, high value, high quality, family sedans. This market is also the most competitive, so therefore it's a market that you can't simply bring out a good car, then let it sit for a few years or longer. That's how Ford blew it with the original Taurus. That's where GM runs the risk of blowing it with the Malibu (anyone hear if GM is going to update it?), and GM has thrown the towel in on the next Impala.

The Corvette will continue to sell. The Camaro is going nowhere as long as Mustang's around (and it's going to be around as long as Ford is) and GM has people who can find their bottom with both hands and can make money on it.

The LS3 engine gets about the same EPA mileage rating as an Infinity G37, so it's safe for some time until the public turns away from it.

And that brings me to what REALLY matters, and dictates what will and won't be made.... it's the public.

Even the government chastized GM for pumping resources into the Volt despite it not being a financially feasible vehicle. The focus is clearly on being solvent, as it should be, and the only way that's going to happen is to make vehicles people actually want at percieved quality that betters Toyota.


I don't by into the fear that the government will force Volts on all of us, because that is clearly not the case. Nor do I buy the panic that the 422 horsepower Camaro is in danger because the government will "regulate" it out of existence.

What will (and always has...even in the 1970s) has been the buying public's intrest and the ability of car companies to make money off the things in the process.

Maybe insurence companies will send rates skyrocketing on performance cars again, scaring buyers away. Perhaps there will be some item in gasoline that will mandate it's removal and engines will lose power because of it. Maybe fuel will once again skyrocket 400%, making people abandon cars that don't get high fuel economy.

But it's the public that makes the decision on what automotive trends are or aren't. It was that way in the 70s, the 80s, and years both before and since.
The car makers that can quickly adapt (or have an uncanny sense of timing) will as always, gain the most.

A smaller, quicker GM (just like the smaller quicker, more focused Ford) will be in that position.

 

The really great thing about the K-Cars was that Chrysler was able to spin off about 20 different models from a single platform, keep the factories busy, and make tons of profits to pay-off the government loans.

What GM needs to learn from the K-Car is to figure out how to use Epsilon and Delta to cheaply create a large number of unique models. Not like Aura versus Malibu, but stuff that actually is perceived to be different enough to sell in the same dealerships.

I don't think Alpha is ever going to be a "new K-car" -- even in the best case it probably won't sell in huge numbers. In fact, I'm worried that Alpha might be a financial drain on the volume products, but on the other hand it is something that GM really needs.

 

I agree. If enough of the public demands a V8 pony car, the public will get a V8 pony car, even if it's a 2.5 liter hybrid. Of course, the auto companies have to recognize the demand. But there's enough competition out there that if there's a big enough demand, someone will figure it out and fill it.

However, I don't think very many people care how many cylinders are in their car engine. Most people I know can't tell the number of cylinders in an engine by listening to it. I'll tell someone, "this is a V6, eh?", and they'll ask how I knew. They are surprised when I say, "I can tell by the sound."

A few weeks ago, I saw a Camaro with Z/28 badges and was quite disappointed to hear a 3.8 V6 sound as it took off

 

I don't see the K-car connection with Alpha either.

Let's hope that the business lessons learned on Sigma, Zeta , even Kappa are applied here. This program not only needs to deliver the goods on the product, but it also needs to make a profit. And I think - well, I hope, it will.

Getting back to this Alpha Camaro/V8 thing...

As long as Chevy has trucks and Corvettes, smallblocks will be sold into the foreseeable future. So there's that. New versions of the smallblock will continue to be available. That in and of itself is kind of a big deal.

In the end, if the Mustang has an available V8 and real consumers demand as much from the Camaro, the pressure will be substantial for GM to deliver.

 

I think Holden developed the perfect architecture ---- for their own home market purposes. I guess the "compromise" comes in when you start to believe that this architecture - which was specifically developed for Australian homemarket large sedans - can be used on anything and everything without compromise.

 

As opposed to the RWD platforms designed in Germany or the US? How are they designed so much different that makes them capable of delivering a coupe (or sedan) that is completely to your liking? What does the 6 series, new E Class coupe, etc measure in at? For its class I think Zeta competes very well on this, not to mention for its price point.

I think the problem is that you don't agree with using a "large car" platform for Camaro. There really wasn't a choice at the time other than wait another 2-3 years for Alpha (at the time). In the end, I think they made the right choice to make the Zeta based Camaro for a few years while the "sport bike" is being finished.

 

Well yeah, no secret there.

 

K cars were better than people give them credit. They were pretty good for the time and were great for Chrysler at a time when they really needed a hit.

Exactly what point are you addressing with this post. Did someone suggest that GM shouldn't be making money? Did someone suggest that GM has been making money? Does putting a smiley face at the end of a sentence make you seem like less of an ***?
Also, do you honestly think that someone is scared of a GM that makes money by selling quality cars? If so please point them out so that we can all ridecule them.
I think the whole point is whether government involvement will be beneficial. The jury is still out on that. You are obviously of the opinion that the government will fix this mess. Believe it or not some people disagree. I think there is a good chance the government will get this one right but it remains to be seen. GM needs government help to fight legacy costs, contracts and other things. The question is will the government do what is necessary to fix GM or will the governments own beurocracy get in the way. Democrats for instance may have a difficult time cutting union workers as they are a large constituent base for the democrats. Republicans will want to protect the upper management, board members and bond holders. There could also be some extra government influence on green technologies. The fact that the government is calling out the Volt is actually a promising sign though that they are going to do what is necessary to make GM profitable.

If they can do all of this then GM will stand a good chance of coming out the other end a better company.

Your right that people shouldn't base their judgement about the bailout/ loans /bankruptcy just on the cars that they are interested in. You have to understand that sentiment though right? If GM doesn't make any cars that I am passionate about then why do I care one way or the other what happens to GM. The fact is there are tons of jobs on the line and possibly the American economy and that is why people should care. But if that was a concern for the general public then you would see people paying a lot more attention to where their cars are made.

The public certainly has a strong influence on what will and won't be made but you have argued yourself that GM dumped too much money into SUVs while neglecting the small car market. If small cars are what people wanted and the public dictates what is built then how did GM miss the boat. If the public truly decided what was built then we might get our sub 3500lb camaro. Fortunately or unfortunately GM has to decide if they can make money and meet government regulations for safety and emissions. They have to correctly identify public demand before they begin this and before they move on to production.



Everybody on this board wants GM to thrive and make money. Everybody would love it too if they could do so without firing anybody or closing any brands or dealerships. There are some who think GM can turn around without firing anybody or closing anything. It's their opinion and we will probably never know if it could have worked. If GM becomes profitable by cutting brands and workers there will be people who are not happy. This doesn't mean that they are unhappy that GM is profitable. It just means they are unhappy with the way GM became profitable.

 

I only had about 30 seconds to respond before - now I've got about 2minutes.


Therein lies THE glaring problem, that (at the time) the largest automobile company in the history of the planet Earth, couldn't have available or created something more cogent. On the shelf were two large car RWD architectures, (Sigma, Zeta) and two smaller sporty car architectures (Kappa and Y-car) which BTW, can only package one row of seats, ie two seater.

Seems like alot of money spent and energy expended in order to create alot overlap and duplication (and 4 seperate NA assembly lines for 4 seperate low volume players) with a big glaring hole in the line-up if you wanted say a 3 series competitor for Cadillac or a pony car for Chevy.

Seems like a microcosm of what's wrong with the way GM did business to me...

2 minutes are up, gotta get to work!

 

And therein lies the problem...

According to what I've heard (take it for what it is, I'm no expert) The added flexibility and reinforcement made to Zeta was WAY out of line with what Cadillac wanted as a replacement.

That's why Cadillac was fighting with Holden. Cadillac was lobbying for a new version of Sigma and control of Alpha. They were granted the lead on Alpha to ensure that the brands succeeds in Europe.

And Impala was killed because of CAFE, right? I mean, I know that a lot of people within GM did not want a Zeta Impala, but the CAFE issues were what toppled the plans.

That, and it was so public that GM couldn't cancel the program. IMO, had the concept not made uch a splash and had the development not been so public, GM wouldn't have hesitated to kill the program.

Oh, I agree 100%!!! What happened to Zeta pisses me off royally. Especially if it went down as I was told (due largely to politics and corporate BS) I'm just glad we at least got the G8 and Camaro out of the deal.

 

yep.

 

But let's look closer at this.

How much did Kappa really cost to bring to market? Could GM have sacrificed Kappa to build an Alpha at the same cost? From what I've read, a proper Alpha would have cost much more. And building the Solstice on the Corvette platform wasn't an option.

Holden couldn't use Sigma, because it was too expensive for a mainstream model. Could Cadillac have used the previous Commodore for the first CTS (and VE for the second) and spent its money instead on a smaller Alpha? And if Sigma was too expensive for Holden, and you had the same guys designing Alpha, would not Alpha have been too expensive for the Camaro?

Finally, the term 'full size' doesn't mean what it used to. The 2010 Camaro is really close to the size and weight of the 1970 Camaro, as long as you don't look at a stripper '70. Yet the full size cars of 1970 were two feet longer than a modern Holden Commodore. Even the intermediates came in over 200", and as much as 209", which is over a foot longer than the current Commodore. Go into the bumper era, and the differences are even more pronounced.

 

Reflecting on this a bit more, I think the issue of what the four RWD platforms are is kind of a canard. Whether it was the 5th RWD platform or the 15th, GM should have had a competitor in the 3 series size range long ago.

I don't think it's a case of doing that instead of a Corvette, Solstice, CTS, or Commodore. Those presumably all had standalone business cases. If the CTS and Commodore could have share more parts, it's a shame they didn't. Regardless, there should have been a smaller RWD from what was at the time the largest auto company on the planet.

And I'm sure that Charlie's point is that if that platform had been built, Camaro could have used it. I believe it's an open question how much rework the platform would have needed for Camaro and how costly a resulting Camaro would have been [if it had been limited to 6s or smaller or had been gold-plated like Sigma].

It seems to me that GM may still have used Zeta for Camaro, but at least the option would have been there.

 

Okay, Corvette is Corvette, sooo we'll give it a free pass. Kappa? Well, that was a rush job to create an architecture for the Solstice, too bad it posesses no flexibility whatsoever.

This Sigma - Zeta thing is the meat of the matter though. On Sigma being expensive --- is that because it has those fancy SLA front control arms (I'm being sarcastic), or is it because the Lansing plant builds 65K Sigmas vs say, 300,000?

We can nitpick pros and cons of either or both, but no one can tell me that it was cheaper to have BOTH Sigma and Zeta, rather than just one or the other. What makes it worse is that Oshawa and Lansing are two of GM's most efficient plants, which will now build a fraction of their capacity, maybe 50K RWD cars each. What a waste of valuable resources. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to simply build Camaros on Sigma at Lansing? (Zeta *****--yes you Guy---don't spill your Kool-aid, I'm just using this as an example. )

Even if Sigma cost afew hundred dollars more to build than Zeta, you'll NEVER recapture any savings at these Zeta volumes.

I mean GM will blow billions in a vain attempt to save millions. Like the guy who drives 80 miles to get cheap gas.

Well, whatever. Hopefully GM will run smarter on the other side of BK.