Good points. I've seen written several times (and assumed it was correct) that Sigma was too expensive for the mass market models, or that it couldn't scale to a large enough car, but never a good explanation what it is that makes it so expensive, or why it couldn't be stretched.

But such details would be considered a corporate secret, so I didn't really expect any sort of detailed explanation...especially if the answer would be somewhat embarrassing.

 

I don't think that it being scaled up was the problem. After all, we do have the SRX and the STS (both for now) which are spawned off the SIGMA chassis - it was the scaling down for a smaller than CTS car that may have been the issue. One could also argue that ZETA isn't easily scaled down either since the Camaro, while being trimmer (in some dimensions) than the 4th gen is a fair bit heavier.

That being said ZETA has a few more variations than SIGMA - VE cars, sportwagons, longer wheelbase WM cars, Camaro which is slightly different than the VE cars and the Ute as well. Going forward SIGMA looks to be just the CTS - wagon and coupe versions notwithstanding since STS is going and the SRX is shifting to another platform.

I for one would have loved to see the SIGMA SLA front end under the Camaro nose.

Has it been said for certain why Holden opted out of the SIGMA program to develop the VE/ZETA platform? Cost difference can't be the whole picture. Is the Cadillac platform durable/robust enough to underpin Holden product in its home territory(?). ZETA by all accounts is pretty beefy - to handle Australian roads (or lack thereof).

 

Corporate politics 101

 

*This whole thing about Zeta being built extra tough to handle Australia's primitive road system is I think a myth, and it's about time we shined a light on that. I've never been to Australia, but I have Australian friends and extended family - and it sounds to me like they use asphalt down there, just like everyone else.

*The story I hear, is that Holden wanted something abit more roomy than Sigma, so developed VE/Zeta. Hmmm.

*From what we've seen both Sigma and Zeta have demonstrated the ability to be scaled down equally (if you want to call it "scaled down"). The Camaro and 1st gen CTS have essentially the same footprint.

*So we're down to, "Sigma is so expensive". Again, for the life of me I don't see how. There is nothing especially exotic about Sigma. It's not bottom of the line, but nothing extraordinary either.

*At the end of the day, I'm sure politics played a larger role than we think here. If the BOD had told Caddy, 'hey share Sigma, it's already developed and we've already built a fancy factory to assemble them' and told Holden, 'hey use Sigma it's already developed and get over the couple of inches of rear leg room' or told Chevy, 'hey use Sigma for the Camaro, it's already developed and we have an underutilized assembly plant', GM could have saved a ton of money - maybe over a billion dollars.

 

I agree with Charlie. Sigma should have been better utilized and Zeta just shouldn't have happened. Sigma had a compact version (even if it was heavy it was developed and paid for), 2 wider versions (LWB and SWB), and an SUV. Zeta has produced 1 width LWB sedan, SWB sedan, SWB wagon, and Ute. Does this sound like a good $1 Billion investment to make?

It is fairly obvious that politics were working in both directions. With Sigma Caddy wanted to use Sigma exclusively, Holden wanted to use their own engineers/chassis. If Zeta was supposed to replace Sigma then Caddy didn't want to give up their chassis.

It is interesting when people thought the Sigma chassis would be used for Camaro, one of the big complaints was the high firewall on the CTS. Now look at the Zeta Camaro and you can see the firewall is very high, also the gun slit window look demonstrated by the 300 has made this a non-issue.

 

I thought it was more like... Cadillac didn't want to give up control of Sigma to allow Holden to tinker with it for their needs, so Holden developed Zeta and then didn't want to give up control of it to allow Cadillac to tinker with it for their needs.

If someone in corporate (Mom) got the kids to play nice together, we'd probably now have one or the other but not both. I guess its just another example of the politics that has put GM in the situation they're currently in.

 

Haha...Charlie hates Zeta like it's the Firebird reborn.

 

In fact, I think there's alot of truth in that statement.

 

Yeah, I could see both Cadillac not wanting to share Sigma and Holden wanting to do their own thing. 'Not Invented Here' + 'Mine Mine Mine'

I hope that's not what happened and that there is actually a good reason.

 

There is. Sigma was deemed too expensive for the 'average' mass produced offering that Pontiac/Chev/Buick/Holden needed.

 

That has been the standard answer. But it's being questioned in this thread. Do you know what made it too expensive?

 

I think it has been the defacto answer too, but never has really been qualified or explored. Yo SS, I'm not implying or saying that you know - maybe nobody really knows and the actual answer is lost in the byzantine decision making apparatus that is GM. Truth be told, I wouldn't be surprised it probably did come down to divisional egos and turf; it wouldn't be the first time.

Z284ever has some valid points about SIGMA not being overly special in so far as what it is, to make it so "expensive". Surely the SLA front end can't be it - it looks to me, at least visually to my non-engineer eye to be primarily a holdover design from the 4th gen F-body and nothing completely new. It's not materials, it seems to be pretty standard fare there too.

Personally, I'm not knocking VE/ZETA, I think the cars are top notch and deserve much more success in the NA market than achieved so far - I would love to have one.

 

We hear this being stated quite a bit. But at the same time was Sigma so expensive that it justifies the $1 Billion spent on Zeta, in addition to tooling for new materials and updates?

The 1st gen CTS selling at $28k should have still been making a profit. The car was smaller than the STS, SRX, and current CTS but one would assume that it wasn't selling at a loss. The higher cost Sigma vehicles should have helped make up the bulk of the chassis' profits. But would not the volumes of scale (distribution of the development costs especially) have brought the costs down enough for a $25k V6 Camaro/Impala/Commodore? Even when you consider the increased costs associated with the LWB version (the 2005 STS V6 started at $41k and the V8 costs $48k) I am sure that it wasn't financially worth spending $1 Billion to develop an all new chassis. That amount of money could have been better spent subsidizing Sigma or re-engineering the chassis for volume versions than starting clean sheet.

 

Yup, like I said, politics and infighting.


Hopefully Alpha can escape that kind of wasteful BS in whatever company the "New GM" becomes. The goal here is to have one assembly line, which builds many cars on the same architecture, vs multiple underutilized assembly lines, building cars on various, but interchangeable architectures.

Cadillac Alphas, Chevrolet Alphas, maybe even Buick Alphas - all on the same assembly line. Seems to me, that makes good business sense.

 

And this.....


Apparently, there are reports that GM is working on a stretched version of Alpha as a Sigma/CTS replacement for 2014.