Okay...just from a pricing prospective, how would a 19-35k Firebird overlap or compete against a 35+ limited productin GTO? For the most part, it won't. They're both rwd v8 coupes, but one has a production limited to 18k units (atleast for now) and costs well into the 30k's.

I don't even see the cheap firebirds competing against the solistics (sp??) either since both are radically different.

If you make them all different enough, there's a potential business case for the firebird. I for one would like to see it come back. Of the 2 f-bods, the firebird was always a personal favorite of mine.

 

Thats exactly what I'm saying.

 

You know...that's an interesting thought. Until the GTO came on scene...this was going to be Pontiac's halo car and Pontiac was serious about fully developing it to be a world class performer, complete with lots of power, lots of handling and lots of attitude. Before the Holden GTO was approved...I had the distinct impression that this car could potentially end up being a "modern" GTO. A GM rep once indicated to me that M3 performance could be the benchmark.

This could also tie into Darth's idea about AWD.

Any thoughts on that?

 

The more I think about it...the better it sounds....Plus it give the Firebird enough differention from the GTO not to overlap.

The problem heres is everyone is a car person..and not a business person. Put yourself in a GM execs place. How do you go to GM's board...one full of bean counters and Bob Lutz....and convince them to make a new Firebird? Keep in mind through out the last 20 odd years...they have always sold half as many Firebirds as Camaros...yet the Firebird had higher tooling costs (for two front ends), and more models (Firebird, Formula, Trans Am, Trans Am WS6, and Firehawk)? Think of it this way. If GM were to bring the Firebird back with the Camaro there are a few things to consider. First off Pontiac wouldn't invest nearly as much money in making the car look different from the Camaro (not with G6, Solstice, and GTO on the scene)...and thier certainly wouldn't be as many trim levels. So basically it wouldn;t be a Firebird that anyone here wants. Plus if the Camaro is slated to sell 100,000 units...a Firebird will just cannibalize that. If the end outcome is 70K Camaro's sold a year and 40,000 (very ambitious) Firebirds sold a year, once you consider the investment in making two lines...it is just better to make only the Camaro and sell 100,000 units.

Brand overlap is sometimes good....like GM has it with thier mid sized SUV's because those are the products that sell and make money. You can get a way with little model differention because buys seem not as picky about SUV's. In the coupe market style is everything. Automakers have to spend more money making coupes with the same architecture look and perform different than other cars they are based off of. Look at the new Solara and Accord V6....they look very little like the cars they are based off of. Gm will have enough work making the Camaro not look like the Sedan it is based off of, or the GTO. Throw a Firebird in...you have alot of entries into a really small market you need to differentiate. So in short, GM must spend more money than they would with SUV's to make the cars look different...yet they make much less money per unit then and SUV and sell less units...talk about catch 22.

As for Saturn....much as I hate it, it does get alot of buyers who would not have bought any other GM car.

I remember a few months back everyone was belittling Ford for Planning to make the Futura, FiveHundred, and Taurus all at the same time...yet is is fine for Pontiac to make 5 coupes at the same time (Sunfire, Solstice, G6, Firebird, and GTO)? Ford sold more Tauruses than Pontiac sold cars last year.

Some other what ifs in closing...

Say that GM stops making the Sunfire coupe in 06...then they could call the Solstice Sunfire...

That frees up Firebird for the G6 coupe.

 

It was pretty cool to have the Firebird along all those years but now I don't think it would be so good to bring it back. I'm pretty tired of the "same car, different look and brand" thing and the Firebird can now maybe be what it was intended to be from the begining and not a modified Camaro. Although I don't think the name would do good on another car unless they marketed it as what it was originally wanted to be. Maybe it would be better to just leave the name alone and not use it.

 

Well, if numbers are going to be such an issue, then maybe GM should consider just building the Firebird and not the Camaro. I mean, those who were going to buy Camaros would just buy a Firebird instead. Right? That's what some of you are saying, right?

Honestly, I'd rather see the Firebird name die than be put on a car not worthy of the name. The Solstice and the G6 will probably be great cars. But they are NOT Firebirds!!

And I don't consider the G6 coupe a real coupe. It will have those stupid rear suicide door-lets.

And Branden, there were only two front ends:
1) Firebird, Formula, Formula Firehawk
2) Trans Am, WS6, T/A Firehawk
and 3 hoods:
1) Firebird, Formula, T/A
2) WS6 (an ASC unit)
3) Firehawk (an SLP unit)


How's this for a compromise. We've had many discussions about whether or not the F5 should be a hatch or trunk. Why not make the Camaro with a hatch and the Firebird with a trunk. Enough differentiation between the two to make sales viable.

 

You camaro guys have turned on the firebird pretty quick considering the camaro would have died in the 70's if it were not for the firebird. GM has always treated pontiac like a bastard child. GM banned pontiac from developing performance parts for their engines, but they did anyways. Check out his link.

http://www.pontiacheaven.org/about%2...c%20heaven.htm

 

For the last 20 odd years the Camaro has outsold the Firebird..in the 4th Gen it was two to one. That is why you are seeing eth camaro come back...and not the Firebird. Even in the 70's when the Firebird sold well, the Camaro outsold it or posted respectable numbers. But what happened in 1979 don;t amount to a hill of beans today business wise. The sop selling segment in 1979 was the personal luxury coupe...a segment that does not exist today. I am a Firebird guy at heart...but even my 1979 which was built in the Firebird's glory days was older than me.


I am sure a few people will feel this way...but alot more will embrace a Firebird named Solstice or G6 coupe.


Well i think the architechture that they are using will denote trunks across the line. However again..the GTO will have a trunk...and will cost about the same as a Firebird you propose...so then you have Firebird competing in its own lineup.

 

I 100% totally disagree with you here!

Think about it... a lot of people HATE the new GTO just because it doesn't have the "GTO look"... how can you even begin to think that "alot more will embrace a Firebird named Solstice or G6 coupe"?!?!?

I think you are waaaaaaaay off the mark here. Not only would those cars not have the Firebird look, but they wouldn't even follow the Firebird formula which GTO cleary does in it's reincarnation, but doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people.

 

You're right on the sales of Camaro compared to Firebird. But has any Pontiac ever ousold it's Chevy stable-mate? Probably not. Why? Because Chevy is positioned as GM's value leader. Not because their cars are better. They are, in fact, the same.

Your theory is that because the 2 F-bodies were so interchangeable, so much the same, that people who would buy a Firebird would buy a Camaro if a Firebird wasn't available.
If your theory was/is true, then why wouldn't someone who wanted a Camaro buy a Firebird if the Camaro wasn't available?

 

Let me clarify that....people who never would have considered a Firebird would embrace the car. The GTO is a bit of a unique case because you have a groupe of old school GTO owners complaining about the car...yet few of them would likely buy a new GTO anyway. Also the GTO may have been complained abouta lot...but in its current 2004 state no one doubts that they could not sell double what they are going to make. I am going to say at $33,000 it is the best coupe you can buy today in terms of build quality, comfort and performance. The Cobra may outaccelerate it it...but in terms of the total package...GTO is #1 in the ~$35,000 group.

In short, Firebird enthusiasts may hate it.....but GM may gain a much larger audience by changing directions with the car. After all if the Firebird was a success in it's current form we wouldn't be having such an argument.

 

If this is indeed the case, then we have come full circle... why use the Firebird name on a car that is trying to go into a new audience?

It makes much more sense to use a new name... such as Solstice or G6, whatever the case may be.

 

That seems to be an off-key remark. The Camaro didn't seem to sell too well either now did it? Yeah it outsold the Firebird, but it didn't sell too well either. The Camaro was not that big of a success either then.

Now most of us here know all the many different reasons why the F-body was canceled. But, now obviously I can't be sure, but if the F-body's were advertised and dealers actually gave a damn about them I bet they would have sold alot more. And if that happened, both Camaro and Firebird probably would have put up respectable sales numbers and we wouldn't have this debate. Everyone of my friends, relatives etc. that have ridden in my car have liked or loved it. Obviously, the F-body's aren't perfect, but what you get is a solid performance car and with a little bit of exposure would have sold well.

 

Before anyone starts getting a complex...the GM racing ban of 1963 affected ALL of GM...not just Pontiac. Chevy was able to hide alot of it's heavy duty parts in there truck catalog though.

Where Pontiac Super Duty parts pretty much disappeared afew years after the ban.....Chevy was able to continue producing and selling forged pistons, 4 bolt blocks, HD rods and forged cranks....because, as Chevy argued...they were needed for the heavy duty environment trucks live in.

 

Lots of intresting input here. Very good points brought up:

*Firebird was created by Pontiac as a 2 seat car with a DOHC 6 & Chevy squashed the car (they had that kind of power back then).

*Firebird kept Camaro alive! GM initially planned to kill Camaro in the mid 70s, but at the very last minute decided it wouldn't cost anything to keep it going an extra year.... then 2.... then simply keep it.

*Firebird basically became a Camaro with a different body in '83.

*It really makes no sense continuing 2 nearly identical carlines in a market where coupes don't sell in massive quanities anymore.

Now, consider that Pontiac is moving upscale, and away from previous "Firebird" type cars to more sophisticated vehicles (The American BMW). This comes from Pontiac's own people & I'm pretty sure knowing GM, it has been "market-surveyed" to death, so in theory, they should have something. Meanwhile, Chevrolet which is being marketed more as a value oriented, sporty, working person division can easily fit in a car like the Camaro. On the flip side, it wouldn't be able to fit in a luxury GT car like the GTO.

Now, the Firebird which was selling like gangbusters & was THE car to have when I was a teen (in Trans Am T/A 6.6 form), is now a Corvette lookalike outside, a Camaro clone in everything else, is being outsold by low production cars like the Corvette, and even the restricted GTO will sell more on a limited basis than the Trans Am managed unrestricted since 1987 (and all V8 birds combined since 1991, except for the '95 model year).

http://www.thepontiactransampage.com/production.html

A case can be made for Camaro's sales drop due to a stale design & no advertizing. However, though I feel everyone here should appriciate Firebird's history and the role it played in saving Camaro's hide, trying to convince any financially accountable board member to make the next Firebird a Camaro clone once again is probally alot like trying to convince them Michael Jackson should be in charge of the daycare center. It ain't gonna happen. Next case.

Solstice is the car Pontiac always wanted and Chevrolet always managed to squash. It was the original concept behind the Firebird (but NOT 'Trans Am' mind you) is exactly what Solstice is. If the situation was reversed, and it was "Camaro" that was going to be on Solstice's flanks, you would also have to consider that it was Firebird that was outselling Camaro by massive margins. In that case, Firebird would have earned the right to continue as is, and like it or not, Camaro would have to be reinvented. How? By going back to what Camaro was originally envisioned, even if it's as a small sporty car.

Agree or disagree, like or hate, it's all makes alot of sense. Sure, the "Solstice" name is good, but if anyone needs any additional perspective as to the likelihood of "Solstice" being called "Firebird", which do you think contributes to enhancing the "Excitement Division". The name "Solstice" or the name "Firebird"..... I think you know the answer to this one.

You may begin to vent your frustrations now.