http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...4/TOC01ARCHIVE

Camaro convertible in Detroit? Zeta Grand Prix coming? 1 Series competitor a go?

 

Other things that Queen mentioned...

He's not all that happy with the current SS strategy. He says future SS's should have more performance.

He also says that GM needs to get Pontiac more performance oriented.

And he's not very happy with the VZ GTO.

 

Good listen

 

can't view that link at work.. blocked.. but for the ignorant (which includes me) who is Jim Queen?

 

He is GM Vice President for global engineering.

 

cool,

so this is definately good news

 

Yep. I've been hearing more than a couple of times recently I may end up eating crow on the Grand Prix name not being made anywhere but Oshawa.

As much as it makes my skin crawl to admit this, and it does, Motor Trend may have been right about the Commodore as Grand Prix and my assumption of it being called a G8 is wrong.

However, my share of crow is miniscule next to a certain person on another site who essentially rolled me when I told him he was wrong on Pontiac not getting a RWD sedan soon.... and this was an actual insider.

I should have pretty much the whole story within the next month. If it's anything I can share, I will.

 

Yeah but he seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth. Those black suburbans must be sniffing pretty close.

 

You've noticed that too, did ya?

 

I notice all!!!

 

For some reason I'm not able to listen to podcasts. Why isn't he happy with the VZ GTO?

BTW.. Thank the jesus they're not reducing the Gran Prix name to a number and letter.

 

The podcast covers a variety of subjects.

The comment on the VZ was part of a response to another question. If I recall (I listened to it a few hours ago) he simply said they're going to do it a little different this time (a slipup?) but that that project was exciting, they learned alot and how to work together, and it set in motion alot of things "that will see the light of day shortly"..... just about his exact wording.

He did a "non-confirmation" comfirmation of a Camaro convertible, a "non-confirmation" comfirmation of Bob Lutz's comment linking the Holden Commodore as the next Grand Prix, mentioned that there's going to be a meeting soon regarding a "1 series" competitor, and that they may have word for us in a few months, and that GM is setting themselves up to deal "protect itself for 'what ifs' ".

Also, cleared up what Buick and Pontiac represent (Buick=elegance, Pontiac=performance), and that they mismanaged Pontiac the past few years and indicated what we've been saying here since I joined the website, that the SS name was also mismanaged. Seems "SS" in the future will meet minimum performance levels.

I didn't get all the breakdowns, but he also came up with a timeline as to how long it will take to do certain things at GM now, from creating a new car down to making running changes.

There isn't new revelations the way it seems to be when you give Bob Lutz a microphone and a little too much time on it, but there's a few things we already know, suspected, or discovered recently that were pretty much confirmed.

 

http://www.ls1gto.com/forums/showthr...842#post729842

ck the date of the posting and all my other posts on the subject elsewhere.

Time to eat some more crow?

Now I again will leave to let you play.

 

What rock have you been living under? Haven't seen you post in a while, hope everything is well.

 

Even if it's not there (one of the reasons I was bidding for the package) I'm sure I'll still thoroughly enjoy my NAIAS weekend as Scott's guest.