Some thoughts to ponder (also things to make you go hmmmmm).

*GM invested alot of money in Oshawa (#2 I believe). Purpose: to have the flexibility to make various cars. Original purpose was to make NA-Zetas (CAW contract is over, so no harm in saying this). Has the change in plans changed plant plans as well?

*Now that the idea of a Kappa based sedan is dead, what is GM going to do with the 200,000 car per year Wilimgton Deleware plant that's going to be making 35-40,000 Solstices and Skys?

*GM has just spent alot of money expanding Holden's Elizibeth City plant in preparation to ship the now stillborn 2008 Buick "Roadmaster" that was due here in a year. Now that Holden is cutting out their 3rd shift, and it seems production is going to drop, what is going to happen to that excess capacity? Is there a product coming to fill it?

*The VE is essentially a VZ with a modded CTS rear suspension with even more chassis flexibility. Holden is also engineering the RWD chassis Chevy's going to get off of Sigma. How much is going to be interchangeable between the 2, since Holden is going to spread out development costs of "Zeta"?

*The Monte Carlo had a much milder restyling than the Impala because it was due to be replaced in '08. Will the Monte Carlo continue 10 years with the same body, will GM now spend money to restyle it, will GM use a coupe version of the Belair to replace it, or will GM simply kill the thing off in favor of using a new sedan to run NASCAR?

*The Holden Commodore is going to see a healthy weight jump when the new version comes out with the new "Zeta" IRS. Can we expect the same weight gain with our Zeta cars (3900-4000#)?

More later.

 

If a Sigma IRS is the culprit for bringing the VE in at 4,000 lbs....why doesn't the CTS weigh 4,000lbs? Even the CTSv - with V8, relatively heavy trans, heavy wheel/tire combo and larger Brembo brakes...weighs in at 3,840 lbs.

What's this new IRS made of....depleted uranium?

 

VE is substantially bigger in all dimensions than the CTS. I've heard whispers that VE will be using a lot of steel in the rear suspension.. adds weight but reduces cost. Catch 22.

 

I wonder how much work they had to do to make the chassis accept the IRS. I also guess there is added weight in going from aluminum to steel in the suspension. Also, I can imagine they gained weight by developing VE to American standards (different crash tests, material durability requirements).

Seems like GM-NA added a ton of cost to Holden's VE platform by making them design it to be exported/maufactured here and demanding the complicated IRS. Then when GM-NA realized the program cost more than the Sigma-Lite Chevy has been working on for like a decade (when you consider the cost of setting up factories here to make VE) they dropped Holden's version like a hot potato leaving them with not only the bill, but also an overweight, overengineered, expensive to manufacture car.

 

I don't know.....

Holden needed VE to have a more sophisticated suspension than VZ. I think that Holden would have ended up where they are with VE -suspension wise - with or without GMNA.

Also, I'm not so sure that VE/ Zeta's IRS will be as "steel intensive" as everyone thinks.

 

Why wouldn't Holden have engineered it for IRS in the first place?

 

It would have been IRS anywasy the question is trailing arm based IRS like the current V-car has or the multi link IRS from Sigma? Turns out the Sigma one is heavier.

 

Correct.

More control arms weigh more than fewer control arms. Just like more cylinders weigh more than fewer cylinders.

I'm very weight concious...but I'll take more control arms and more cylinders.

 

Probably steel. To get a light IRS, you have to build it out of aluminum, making it much more expensive.

I hope the new Camaro has a solid axle like the Mustang does. Otherwise, with all the new safety equipment, extra rigidity, etc., that new cars seem to "need", it will probably weigh around 3800 pounds.

Heck, look at the new Jaguar XK. It's a four seat, two door V8 coupe that weighs 3600+ pounds, even with an all-aluminum body.

 

I believe we've discussed this before on this forum...

There seems to be a common misconception about the weight of a vehicle...
So cars aren't really getting heavier at all if the 67 Camaro is any guide... it's the options that add all that weight.

 

Iron works just fine, if it's in the form of nice slim ductile-iron castings or fabricated steel tubing assemblies. What I don't get is why such parts are affordable for a $20K Accord and not a $25-30K Zeta (or other relatively high-production RWD vehicle). Granted, part of this is a chicken-and-egg sort of thing that comes with efficiencies of scale. In other words, cost concerns tend to become self-fufilling prophecies.

Given that the Chrysler LX comes in at around 4,000 lbs with a fair number of steel suspension members, that's probably a fair target weight for a similarly-sized vehicle. And frankly, nipping and tucking a few inches here and there probably won't reduce the weight all that much.

Interesting tidbits there, guionM. Generally speaking, there appears to be a lot of questions about how GM can distribute future product across its rather broad NA capacity.

 

I was being sarcastic.

 

This is an interesting question...and one which I believe has not been hashed out yet.

I'm also interested to see how the new MC SS is accepted into the enthusiast community. I hope it is well accepted. I sort of have a bitter-sweet feeling towards it. On one hand I'm suedo-excited to see how it does with the LS4...on the other hand, how do I square away my feelings from years of looking down my nose at this car?

Anyway, short of a restyle....I wish Chevy would take the sportier GXP approach with the Monte Carlo SS, rather than the two door Impala approach it appears to be taking.

 

On a similar note, I've seen plenty of Impala SS commercials and ads. But I've yet to see one on the new Monte Carlo. Also, I see heaps of Impalas around, even a few SSs. Again, no new Monte Carlo sightings. At all!

BTW: the 2006 MC is the quickest & fastest MC ever, and probally ranks as one of the 2 quickest (if not THE quickest) regular production mid-sized Chevrolets... ever.

Not bad for a front driver that's had the same body for 8 years and counting.

 

Yup, pretty sobering when you think about it.