Holden may have liked the GTO, afterall it added another 35K or so units to their production line. But to the end users, GMNA and Pontiac, it was an unmitigated disaster. First, the dollar exchange rate made them raise the MSRP of the car substantially - from mid $20's to low $30's. Then a comedy of errors, (not the least of which was the attitude of Pontiac dealers), made GM revise it's sales projections down sharply for the car by 1/3. When the '04's didn't sell, GM had to put heavy incentives on them, to sell them in '05 and because everyone was then buying the '04's for a song, the '05's weren't selling and needed incentives and so on. In fact, it took 5 model years to clear 3 model years worth of cars. GMNA took the gas pipe on that car financially. I mean, just a classic clusterfark.

It would be interesting to know and compare how much profit Holden made on those GTO's and how much of a loss GMNA took on them.....

 

I think the Caprice will be a good seller in its segment, but not a "selling like hotcakes" car. I agree with the numbers of 25K-30K a year and pushing 50K+ a year with the fleet/law enforcement sales factored in. I expect law enforcement sales of the Caprice PPV to increase a lot in 2012.

I think the Caprice PPV has the potential to take the law enforcement market by storm. It has the interior space of the Crown Vic and better performance than the Charger. In this day and age of economic down turns its going to come down to pricing, and how low will the bid pricing for the Caprice PPV will be. We just got in some 2011 Crown Vics and our office paid $20,811 for them under the state contract price. The window sticker price was $29,5xx. Even though the Caprice PPV will have a similar retail price, I expect the state contract price to come in a couple of thousand more than the Crown
Vic.

2 years is a crazy long wait for the civilian Caprice to reach showrooms, considering the Caprice has already been in production in its current form for several years now. Even the Caprice PPV won't start shipping until May of 2011, which will be over a year and a half since its announcement.

The Caprice PPV is bland, its suppose to be. There are lots of Holden trim packages available for these cars. I am sure a civialian Caprice would make use of some of the more upscale trims available.

One of my personal favorites is the HSV Grange.

 

I'd say that the Caprice is downright cavernous, especially in the rear accomodations compared to the Crown Vic.

You're right of course about the various flavours of trim we could conceivably get. I think the V-Series Caprice would make a nice SS. I don't think we'll see any HSV cars coming over - there have been threads here and there about the Grange coming stateside as a SS model - too expensive to make it worthwhile trying to sell as a Chevy.

However, that version of the Grange you showed is not the current model. I quite like that one, it's much more understated than the overdone, borderline garish new model...

 

My definition of "failure" would be relative to expectations for a mass market North American sedan, not relative to the break-even point of a factory in South Australia.

You might characterize the GTO as successful, but like it or not by North American volumes it was not. More tellingly, by GM's own sales expectations it was not. Sure it may have sold okay if you compare it to a Mustang Cobra, but a) that's still irrelevant when it failed to meet GM's own targets, and b) it smacks a little of desperation in trying to finagle the statistics so finely that you narrow its competition down to one sub-brand.

I don't know what GM's targets are for the Caprice. Like I said earlier, I suspect they're just planning to throw it into the showroom with little support because it's available and hope for the best. Accordingly, I wouldn't be surprised if they're shooting for maybe 30-40k. And to me that seems like a wasted opportunity, if not an outright plan to fail. If the Charger and 300 can sell a combined 100k in 2009 (and 160k in 2008), then GM should be able to move close to 100k Caprices. And I know the Adelaide plant would be production constrained at that level, but again, that just points to GM's planning to fail rather than planning to succeed.

 

I came in here to post something like this- if the car can be made nice enough, some luxury trim, it might pick up the buyers who used to buy Old 98's and Fleetwoods, large, powerful RWD cars that could carry golf buddies and golf bags effortlessly and quietly. There will always be a market for a large comfortable nice car that can be used to drive clients or family around in nice style and comfort.

 

You're probably right.

Some things at play here.

First: GM doesn't want to lose the opportunity to take advantage the LE vacuum being created by the Crown Vic's departure. They don't want to wait for the next Caprice/Statesman which will be coming within a couple of years.

Second: GM wants to get their CAFE numbers up a bit first and repay the Feds by going public again. Getting the Volt out and getting some volume built on the Cruze.

Third: Chevrolet has a huge number of cars coming out in short order. GM wants to get the new Malibu and Impala out first. My guess is Caprice will arrive the same time as Impala.

Final note, the VF and WN cars are evolutionary redesigns and updates (don't want anyone thinking these will be all new cars).


You make the same common mistake that many people make when talking about Holden.

Holden isn't actually an independent company that GM bought cars off of. GM making a deal with Holden to ship GTOs over is like GMNA making a deal with GM Europe to bring over Opels to sell as Buick Regals.

Fact is that all money earned... all production capacity number... goes into one, single, multi-national, corperate pot.

Holden is a branch of General Motors.

Holden made money on the GTO...a lot of money considering it's investment.

Therefore, General Motors made money on the GTO.


The other point, I have to agree with. I have to really, truly, and honestly wonder what the hell Bob Butz and the rest of his numbers staff was smoking or snorting when he came up with that insane 18,000 annual GTO sales number.

The similar Ford Mustang Cobra was barely breaking 10,000 and the Boss Mustang was barely doing over 7,000 in annual sales at the time. Even Pontiac's own $32,000Firebird WS6 Trans Am was only selling around 11-12K annually the previous few years! Announcing that you would sell 18,000 GTOs per year to me was absolutely stupid since nothing in the market supported anything near that number.

Indeed, the GTO settled down to roughly a 12,000 annual rate once the early screwups and then the giveaways that first fall faded away.

As for taking 5 years to clear the GTOs....

Being that they stopped coming to the US in August 2006, and it's only November 2010, and it's been gone for just over 4 years. Last GTOs sold in 2008, 2 years after production.

If I remember correctly, the last 2002 Camaros and Firebirds if I recall were sold in 2005. 3 years afterwards.

I'd bet money you'd still be able to find unsold Pontiacs, Saturns, & Mercurys a few years from now.

Having discontinued cars still being sold off a couple of years after the last ones were made isn't all that uncommon or unusual.

In fact... GTO production was extended [color=red]beyond the discontinuation of the Holden Monaro due to continued demand. GM made them right up till they could no longer legally produce them on September 1st 2006 (new interior safety requirements).

 

I bring out a vehicle and say I will sell 100,000 of them.

I ignore the fact that every other vehicle I'm compeating with is only selling 50,000.

I wind up selling 60,000 of them.

I make money on the car.

Was....

a) I an utter moron for saying I'd sell so many in the 1st place?

b) my car successful because I outsold the competition?

c) the car successful because I made money on it?

d) the car outselling it's competition, and making money a failure simply because a coughed up an unrealistic number and the first 3 choices are an act that smacks of despiration.

e) answers a through c.

You seem stuck in the old GM (and old industry) mentality where the most important thing is Sales Volume, not Profitability. That mentality destroyed the industry.

You want to have a production facility that runs at capacity. You also want that facility to be able to weather downturns without having to lay off large amounts of people (who you still have to pay even though they are not making anything). So, expectedly, you'd prefer running at capacity rather than expanding and winding up with under capacity when theings cool.

The second issue here is something that many people don't get (so don't think you's alone or that I'm picking on you). That is profit per vehicle is what determines if a vehicle is successful and profitable. The only reason we have a Camaro today is that GM found a way to make them profitable on a per vehicle basis instead of relying on volume. That's why GTO actually did well for GM. That's why Mustangs and Camaros today can sell at numbers that would have killed them (in fact, did kill Camaro) less than a decade ago.

Point is GM doesn't need to make a hughe number of Caprices. The car is already sold in multiple countries, so it doesn't need more sales.

Meanwhile here in the US, no one (and I mean No One) is putting money into all new Full Sized sedans anymore. There is no "volume" market for them whatsoever in the US and that is only going to dwindle in the coming years.
Plus, Chevrolet has done just fine without a big car for 14 years.

Full sized cars today are relatively low volume cars that have a relatively high pricepoint that makes them profitable at low numbers.

GM sees an opportunity to utilize existing resources and assets to make some additional monet without any new investment.

So this is far away from "GM planning to fail rather than planning to succeed" as you put it.

It's GM seeing an opportunity to fill an additional market position it currently doesn't have a player in with a great product with no real investment where thwy can make quite a bit of money per vehicle.

Sounds like a great plan to me.

 

Point being that GMNA lost more on each GTO than Holden made producing each of them. Holden profit - GMNA loss = GM overall loss.

 

Not with this sitting across the street for sale...



At least, I don't know anyone in their right mind that would pass up the new Charger for the bland-o Holdrolet Capricadore.

 

We just received a Buick "Regal GS" with a 255hp slug and no AWD as opposed to 325hp and AWD... Do you think GM will seriously not skimp on the small bits of trim that take the Caprice from "dull as hell" to "remotely attractive"

The G8 was awesome from the performance side, but design-wise, it was a complete snooze until the GXP version came out. And even then, MUCH MUCH more could've been done to make it a "wow factor" car.

 

Come on there Future, don't you read the internet? People are waiting 10 deep to buy anything Holden imports here. /sarcasm

 

In all fairness - that's not really the Charger you can buy across the street from the Chevy store - that's a concept car whose neat bits you may or may not be able to get at some point. Mind you the Charger is a pretty mean, aggressive looking piece right out of the box and I'm not saying I don't like it. It's cool, the Chrysler team did a good job.

But, if you want to go over the top with the Caprice and had the means you could do that as soon as the cars shows up - import HSV bits for a little extra garish-ness and performance to set you apart from the more sedate Holden styling.

Overall I like the Audi-esque lines of the GM car a little bit more than the in-your-face Charger.

Buyers, 10 deep for the Caprice? Not likely, but I don't think they'll be 10-deep for the Charger either. Which raises another point, why is it GM misfires so badly at importing and then selling these cars right? It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but they always manage to miscue - how can one company be so unlucky and/or always 10 minutes too late to the party? GTO and G8 should have done much better than they ultimately did. New GM or old, they are still managing to muck up this stuff - up to 2 years for a civilian Caprice, Regal GS tardy and missing some bits many thought it would have....

 

True...

But I'm willing to bet that the car pictured is a pretty good indication of what the SRT-8 will be. And the Holdrolet is supposedly going to be a high priced "SS Sedan" competitor to it. That's why I chose this picture for the comparison.

They're just too conservative and unwilling to take chances. What's so great about having a car guy in charge is that decisions get made because they 'feel right'. GM hasn't truly had a car guy in charge for many, many years. Therefore, they micro analyze EVERYTHING to death and then water down and under deliver when it finally gets here. As much as I respect Bob Lutz, I believe that not even he had a lasting impact on GM (And I think that's why he basically quit) because he was never completely in charge.

The Chrysler to GM comparison right now is killing me. Chrysler is killing GM right now on product with half of the resources and a quarter of the planning.

I can imagine a meeting in the board room going something like this simplified cat and mouse game:

Mark Reuss/Bob Lutz (hell, insert any car guy name you want there): "I think it'd be a GREAT idea to sell the OPC Insignia here. We have the capacity, we have the buyer interest and we finally have a brand to market it through."

GM Leadership: "We'll see, let us run the numbers"

2 months later

GM Leadership: "We ran preliminary numbers and decided to sell the OPC Insignia here. But we have to finalize the numbers"

Car Guy: "What is there to think about? It's a sure fire success."

2 months later

GM Leadership: "We're selling the OPC Insignia here, but we can't justify all of the goodies."

Car Guy: *sigh* "Whatever... At least we're getting the car."

 

Not sure how or even where you remotely come to that conclusion.

Mind explaining.


I would.

While the Charger looks aggressive, the WM looks classy and stylish. You do notice them. They do look great.

Most everyone here knows that I tend to favor Chrysler's big sedans over everyone elses, so maybe that will tell you how great I think the Holden WM sedans look..



Again, I've noticed that those who call it bland have never seen a regular Statesman or Caprice on the streets in real life.

Unfortunately, a trip to Australia, New Zealand or the Middle East to see real civilian trim versions on the street aren't exactly in everyone's budget (unless you're in the military), so until GM actually gets one on the streets here, lousy pictures and stripped bare police sedans are going to be the images it's distractors focus on.

 

Yeah, and I bet that Opel Omega looked a lot more interesting that the Cadillac Catera too, right?

The G8 was, by far, the most attractive (non-HSV) Holden of recent memory. There is NO WAY anything out of Oz could "blow us away" with a smiley Chevy grille bolted on instead.