That is no joke. I was floored with the number of Grand Prix's I saw on a recent trip from Lexington, KY to Indianapolis, IN. I must've seen 30-40 or so each way...

 

With sales of 250k in one month, it looks like Chevy's goal of 3 million cars per year might finally be within sight.

No doubt Impala has been a great success story for GM. However I think it has at least partially benefitted by the demise of the Intrigue.

The Bonneville, on the other hand, is a real train wreck. Back in the early 90s it was selling well over 100,000 units per year. Look at it now .

 

Isn't the Bonneville being canned along with the Grand AM?

 

I think the Bonnie GXP is a really nice car for about $27k-29k. I'd consider it over the soon to be replaced Caddy variant. In fact I wouldn't even have looked at the Caddy if I was shopping for this type of car. It's got luxury, sport, style, handling. It's just overpriced, especially on the lesser models which are redundent if you think about it. The new Grand Prix GTP overlaps with the lower Bonnies in price, but offers loads more car for the money. Not even speaking of the lesser Grand Prix models. If they had eliminated these lesser Bonnie models altogether or put in the 3.6L V6 as base it would have given the Bonnie an image boost and GM could get away with chargine a premium over the Grand Prix. As it is, the Bonnie just doesn't offer much over the Grand Prix to be asking for the kind of money it's asking. Best solution? Just get rid of the lesser Bonnie models altogether and make the Bonnie GXP the premium Pontiac that it's meant to be in the first place.

 

Actually, I think the Taurus numbers are amazing. Ford has blatantly stated that they are more interested in profit than market share. They have really restricted fleet sales due to the fact that they have a very low profit margin.

Considering that a large amount of Taurus numbers used to be to fleet sales, and Ford has cut that down alot, it is surprising that the Taurus is still showing good numbers.

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of numbers of fleet sales vs retail sales for all the vehicles. I would tend to believe that the Impala is gathering alot of the fleet sales that Ford is turning down. I see Impala rentals everywhere.

It is interesting to see the two entirely different philosophies out there right now. GM is after market share.......... market share.......... market share. Profit........... we don't need no stinkin profit. Ford has decided that market share doesn't mean anything without profit. Thus, they are willing to sacrifice market share for profit. When you look at the first quarter profit results between the two............. so far............. it is looking like Ford has the better plan.

 

Ford is definately after profit over market share, as they've said many times. But thery are also going to reap in a better reputation in the process.

Look how genaric and low rent the Taurus' reputation is, even though it's actually a pretty good car.