Great point.

Even though I dislike the current Bonneville SE, I will say that if GM does decide to drop the name in favor for a more genaric one, it will be GM's loss. There are people who do feel very pasionate about the name.

 

I agree totally . But , GM has tarnished alot of those great names by placing them on subpar cars . So they need to go above and beyond to return a good perception to the name by way of a head of the class product .

 

Hey if you don't like bonnevilles go here----> www.officialdeadpool.com/bonnaville

It's another great forum....just started a couple weeks ago

 

to the whole name deal...if pontiac wants everyone to want their product beacuase it's american....then why put bonneville....a french word on their names?

 

Zombie Thread!

 

GM might be dumb, but they ain't stupid. If they're dumping longstanding brandnames, it's because consumer surveys show a high negative value associated with those names.

How? To the extent that "Bonneville" has any significant consumer recognition outside of Pontiac loyalists at all, it's as a marginal rental car.

 

Last time I looked Bonneville was in Utah a little west of France.

 

Cadillac was an old man's brand. Cars you saw when you visited your grandparents in Florida. Now they're definitely back. What GM realized with Cadillac, and should also with its other brand names, is that any brand recognition, even bad, is better than none. A name is something on which you can hang your hat.

Lets put it in another way. Look at the ads for the G6. By dropping the Grand Am name, Pontiac doubled the amount of work their ads needed to do. First, they needed to get people to know what the hell a G6 was. Then, once people know what it is, they still have to dispell the old stereotypes about the Grand Am - people aren't that stupid you see - they know that a new name doesn't erase 10 years of **** poor quality and crappy design. All this, Pontiac has to accomplish in a 30 second spot. Better to have kept the Grand Am name, and then have 30 seconds to say how good it is as opposed to 15.

 

What GM realized was that Deville, Seville, etc were liabilities so they dropped them.

The Cadillac brandname itself has exceptional recognition, which GM realized was more important than the individual historical model names. Alphanumeric names like CTS, DTS, etc put more emphsis on "Cadillac" and less on the medicore recent history of their model lineup.

Plus, out of GM's hundreds of brandnames, "Cadillac" is one of the strongest, and "Bonneville" is by far one of the weakest. Not comparable situations.

That I will agree with. If they are going build another "Grand Am", they might as well just call it a Grand Am. Don't waste the new names until you can back it up. Wouldn't surprise me if they spend millions rebranding this thing again when it gets revised in 2011 or whenever.

The key task for GM is to stop producing "Grand Ams" and "Bonnevilles" and start producing product that people want to buy.

 

I know some people have touched on this but, rental companies are more interested in milage and low buy in price..ie; cheap rides.
If they can still order them with hubcaps and 14 inch tires, they will. The larger wheel/tire combo's will improve handling drastically!..
Just like Camaro's, you can't judge the whole line up by one, base, model. Some people will still buy cheap, base models, just to have a Bonneville interior and exterior styling, disregarding the performance.
As far as the motor, I think it needed a V8 option, SC-standard and be hard to get with a base NA 3800. That would go more with the "Excitment" branding. Tranny's performance rely's alot of final drive ratio, especially causing "hunting" in O/D if the gear's too tall. I noticed a similar problem in the New Mustang rental I recently used.
I haven't driven a new rental Bonneville but I still like the looks of the ones I've seen and sat in at dealers.

 

I rented a Grand Prix GT, a 2004 and was impressed!
Good quality, huge inside, and that thing could MOOOVE, not to mention comfortable too. But the visibility sucked. And it ate gas. But I still liked it and would consider one would it not be for fuel effiency and the largeness of the car.

 

It seriously ate gas? I average 22.5 in my GTP and I drive the car like I stole it.

 

but is that highway or city? I drive city in my Corolla and it's like 20.5 mpg. You might think "ha-ha that Corolla sucks on gas!" but it's the way people in Vancouver drive. Nobody gets good mileage somehow.

 

Someone been walking in the topic graveyard I see.

My dislike with the Bonne was that it handled far worse than the same level Grand Prix, a base Malibu, and a LS Impala... something unworthy for a car that looks as good as Bonne does from a division that calls itself "The Excitement Division".

Recaping, there were many many small buttons, small guage graphics, a sporty exterior, and a "Star Trek" interior. The car would seemingly appeal to younger to mid age people who wanted a sporty or above average family car, but the car rode and handled like a stereotype Buick. Even though it rode like an old person's car, I don't see any elderly finding the guages or multitude of buttons easy with less than perfect eyesight.

The car appeals to no age group, was on the expensive side, and after wondering why the cars weren't selling, after driving one myself, I no longer had a single question why.

Using an easy to understand term, the car "blew".

 

Bonnevilles have always had a more Buick ride with slightly better handling, a lluxury sports sedan. I wouldn't expect it to handle like a GTP or Z28...but that's just me. Malibu is much lighter and the LS has a better suspension per weight ratio. And knowing how they're kinda like Burger King offerings," you can have one your way", they're probably a miriad of combinations of suspension/tire/wheel/trim levels or options. But I don't think any of them are made to handle at speed....?
I'd go more with price causing the slow sales myself. I was in the market for one when I bought the Park Ave, which was more car, for about the same money. A coworker of mine has a New SSEi, and man that car is a gorgeous Black, chrome wheeled, performance oriented sedan. He's always driving it like it's stolen, and it looks pretty impressive in action.
But you're entitled to you opinion, like we are.