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I'm not saying it's good or bad, either way, but all of the people demanding huge weight cuts on this car are also screaming there's too much plastic, the paint is too thin, the body dents too easy, etc. You can't expect to have your cake and eat it, too. Life is full of compromise; so is engineering and manufacturing.
It's coming whether we like it or not. I'm glad I've got mine. I hope for good things to come for the rest of you. If you only car about weight and performance, start removing components that don't figure into that equation. Making the chassis thinner just leaves you with a noodle, at some point. |
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So good job GM CEO lets make our american muscle cars more like the foreign versions by using lighter less durable materials. I personally love the weight of our cars. Then again i've been in a few accidents where my heavier american car practically made an audi dissapear in a shower of less durable materials. So everyone has their opinions i spose. Why is it that everyone thinks weights the issue that we're slower honestly i think it's the way our ECM's are programmed to limit the torque output.
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Well.. The 2013 mustang 5.0 weighs in at 3675 auto tranny. 2013 camaro SS is 3900 lbs. big difference there. No ones asking GM to produce a tin can camaro. But it's not rocket science to cut 300 lbs off of a car that can still withstand a bit more HP or is it?
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It's been holding back very competent and competitive cars for years now. While it's true that at the time some of these overweight programs were in development, GM didn't have the cash, time, or resources to tackle the problem, they do now. |
And besides, the 5th gen is built on a full size sedan's platform. That didn't help with weight at all.
Alpha was built with weight reduction and performance applications in mind. The 6th gen will be lighter and perform much better than the 5th gen. |
I'm extremely surprised by the reactions in this thread. I would have figured that the people of C5 would have been out dancing in the streets from this news with all the complaining I read about on here, on a daily basis about weight.
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:word: It is useless to fight the inevitable. |
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It's just an observation I've noticed. Anything new or changed is met with a good deal of resistance here. The only thing I can conclude from that is people simply don't want their 5th gens to become yesterday's news.
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We saw this much worse right after the concept Camaro came out. Some 4th-gen die-hard absolutely hated the concept of a new Camaro as it developed........now, many of those folks are driving one. ;) ...though, not all. You can't please everyone. |
All I'm saying is the 5th gen's done its job, and it has done its job very well. It was saddled with a weight issue from the start (and if any of you remember, I was one of the people who hated it when people brought up and complained about the weight constantly), but GM managed to make the most of the car despite its shortcomings.
Now we're moving on to a brand new platform that promises to be lighter and perform much better than the 5th gen. I really fail to see the problem with this. As someone said earlier, I'm surprised at all the negative responses to what can only be a positive thing for the nameplate. One of the primary complaints about the 5th gen has always been the weight of the Zeta platform, and GM is addressing that. Somehow that's now a bad thing. If people are worried that GM will simply cut corners to reduce weight, they're worrying about nothing as demonstrated by the ATS. The 6th gen will be just as durable, just as planted as the 5th gen. Furthermore, note that Akerson's talking about weight reduction across the board. The Epsilon II platform is ridiculously overweight. In all honesty, every GM platform could stand to lose a couple pounds. It's not just Camaro we're talking about here. |
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I would like a lighter muscle car, too. But I can already buy a lighter car if I wanted to. I want a muscle car first. |
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And you can change that last number and be happy as well. ;) |
The only thing I see from this announcement is prices on new cars going up. I love the idea of weight reduction, but same with CAFE regulations I think they need to have REALISTIC time frames.... giving a deadline of 2016 seems too fast to do and that's what worries me... short deadlines means expensive measures.
That said - Dan Akerson is a beast and I love listening to him talk. |
There is no doubt that moving to higher strength steel , carbon fiber type composites , aluminum , etc can help shed weight, but odds are they will add to the overall cost of manufacturing the vehicles. Will people be willing to pay more? Time will tell.
i work for a company that tests automotive components and entire vehicles for all the manufacturers, and we were just commenting the other day just how much a simple control arm has changed over the years. In the OLD days, they "seemed" to be stamped out of 1/4" plate steel and weighed a ton. Nowadays with all the solid modeling tools they have, the same control arm has morphed into a sleek hollow aluminum casting with much more strength, and only a fraction of the weight. We have come a long way over the years. |
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Remember when we had CAFE and the car companies figured out that SUVs could skirt the laws by virtue of being classified as trucks? They were much bigger and less efficient than the cars were at the time and what actually happened was that people who wanted a large safe vehicle to protect their passengers and themselves practically jumped over the econoboxes to get their hands on an SUV. I believe if one brave automaker would build a car that people want and sell it at the actual cost (sans the hidden fees imposed to modify buyers choices) they would have a massive hit on their hands. Quote:
The same weight savings that you get by switching out some piece of aluminum for magnesium (at 50% higher cost) could be accomplished by getting rid of mandates that have porked up our cars to this point. It will lower the cost of the car in the process too. For example: You can save 10 pounds and $300 by NOT being forced to buy a car with backup sensors and cameras that are required by "law". You can save 1 or 2 pounds and $50 by deleting the CHMSL as well. How much does a craptalytic converter weigh and what does it cost? Cars would be lighter AND less expensive by having less mandatory content. Let people decide which items they buy, instead of mandating them. |
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We don't need 5MPH bumpers. Learn to drive instead. We don't need Backup sensors and cameras, learn to drive instead. Which is more useful? a) A backup camera. b) A spare tire and jack. Yet, one is required and the other is not. |
...if NASCAR reduced the Gen 6 Cup car by 150 pounds, it's not very hard for GM to go on a leaner meaner plan as well, it makes sense, and it's easily doable.
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