[Bongos2U]

Originally Posted by Techn9cian805

Havent seen a camaro commercial so far this super bowl. What is up with chevy's marketing?

Good question. One of the best commercials of this Super Bowl was the one that had a car chase in it...that featured a Prius !!!

[Bongos2U]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Huge long answer required if you want to go beyond Camaro. Maybe not enough space on all the servers that support Camaro5 and 6. LOL.

The question you have asked was discussed over several thousand coffees between myself and my trusted friends when I worked there.

As for customers being unwilling accomplices? No, that isn't really possible any longer. Used to be you bought whatever was introduced. Now there are just too many good choices in almost every segment that if you don't satisfy a customer with your product, they will simply go elsewhere. If you aren't great, you'll quickly be relegated to niche status.

But on a bigger level, a lot of GM's problem is deeply rooted within it's own history and some of it is simply how GM still operates to this very day.

Historically, GM was so big at one point that the government actually tried to break it up. They were that dominant that the U.S. Government considered them a monopoly. What you won't ever see written, oddly enough but it is my observation, is that when the government tried to break them up from having such great products, GM basically went the mode of just making money. The early 70s was wrought with quality problems (think Vega and Chevette among many others), but it was those wonderful 80s that was the beginning of the lonnnnggggggg slowwwwwww decline. J-cars, including a Cadillac version(Cavalier, Skyhawk, Firenza, J2000, Cimaron.....) . A-cars for everyone but Cadillac (6000, Celbrity). The Riviera and Toronado were downsized so badly you couldn't tell if it was an N-car (Grand Am, Alero). GM helped coin the term "cookie cutter cars". And much of this was done in a declining market where Americans were (justifiably) buying Japanese cars more and more. Not they those were of any real quality, but they were much better than what GM and Ford could muster. All the way to the bankruptcy GM tried to the be the mama bird feeding multiple brands with products. And in all that mess was Saturn that also got product development and product $$$$. It was a death spiral of inferior product after inferior product. GM was it's greatest when it competed with itself. GM had multiple small block and multiple big block V8s...........at the same time. Unique engines so much so that when GM actually first tried to put corporate engines in cars...........THEY GOT SUED! Look up the Chevy-mobile fiasco. I bought an Oldsmobile damn it, I want an Oldsmobile engine.

When I worked for Nissan in the early 90s, we had two types of benchmarking activities. One was for product features and performance and the other was for cost reduction. GM products were NEVER in the product focused activities, only the cost reduction ones because of how cheap the GM cars were then.

Now to the last 10 years or so, look at the products where GM did still dominate. Where GM currently has the biggest presence in the market and that is Full Size Pickups and SUVs. Yes, Ford F150 is still number 1, but all in with Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban and oh yeah, Escalade, GM has a juggernaut of vehicles that almost all sell for more than $40,000. I bet if you looked at the total numbers, Chevrolet sells more $50,000 plus vehicles than BMW, MB or Audi in the US. If not it's awful close. This success, from my point of view and what I saw and experienced, was due to the fundamental knowledge of who your customer was and who your competition is.............and the important part was knowing your customer. Yes, that was helped a lot by only having to worry about Ford, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan, a small bunch of competitors to be sure compared to compact, small and mid-size cars where you add Mazda, VW, Hyundai/Kia, among others that offer competitive if not outstanding cars.

If you study why GM went bankrupt, it was simply that when the price of gas spiked in the late 2000's GM lost so many sales of profitable truck sales that they could no longer pay their bills. HUGE bills of legacy costs of pensions and retirement benefits for over 1,000,000 people.

So as I've said many time on my career, when I started GM had mid 40% market share. When I left 4 1/2 years ago it was 16%. I still have my lapel pin with the number 29 on it. GM had drawn the line at 29% market share and would not go below it.................until the very next year.

Now for today, GM still has 4 brands to feed. I say 4 but as of today it still has a unique brand in China (forget the name), Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden. We see a Holden product here (SS) but there are a lot of Opel/Vauxhall products we either don't see or that get badged Buicks for the U.S. and China. Verano is one of those, Regal another. And of course there is a Regal Wagon and Hatchback that don't even come here that many claim they would love to have. But in the US, 4 is more than anyone else. Ford has Ford and Lincoln. Toyota, with the demise of Scion, now has Toyota and Lexus. Honda has Honda and Acura. So how do you make your very best cars when you need to have space for 4 brands.

So a shout out to the fallen brothers in the past 10 years: Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer.

As I outlined before, putting the 2.0t in the Cruze fights against the Verano that does get the 2.0t as it's option. The Traxx? You can't get leather seats. You need to move up the Buick Encore if you want those. Same thing with the engine. The Encore now gets a larger turbo engine than the Traxx. Want the good chassis in the Impala? Nope, you have to move up to the Lacrosse where it's optional or the XTS where it's standard. Want AWD in a Malibu? Nope have to get the Buick Regal for that. Don't mind that the Fusion does have AWD. On and on and on. GM still has the problem of competing with itself, but no longer in the good way it was in the 50s and 60s. GMC? Yes, it gives the Buick dealer a truck to sell, but it is, with the exception of Denali, the same truck you can get at the Chevy dealer. And now not only do you have the Chevy dealer having to compete with an offer from Ford or Dodge, he or she has to compete with the GMC dealer up the road selling the same product. But Buick needs to exist if nothing more than to have China Buicks. And we will get the first Chinese made Buick imported soon along with the CT6 hybrid.

And by the way the above is a very shortened version. Very.

So how do you fix this? Much harder to answer that than what is wrong. First, GM is a very poor global company. Yes, China sales are robust and now exceed even the U.S. but for the most part, it's tough to sell a Chevy anywhere but the U.S. And if you took truck sales of the total, Chevrolet cars is a small player in the Global Market. Why? Tough question, but in Europe, it frankly has been a car good enough to compete with VW or even Opel. But Europe is a tough nut to crack. Toyota and Lexus for example don't do particularly well there either.

But the answer is to try and follow the truck model. GM still owns this segment and it does so with vehicles that define the market or at the very least are hugely competitive across the entire competitive set.

When is the last time GM had Chevrolet mid-size car that defined the segment? A small car? A full size car? I can't recall one. Yes, there were COTY awards, but sales never followed.

As Lutz used to always say, the answer is in great products. But GM is somewhat stuck here with Buick as the tweener. What happens when Cadillac needs a smaller SUV than the new XT5? BMW has the X1, Audi has the Q3 and threatening with a Q1. Lexus has the new NX. All of these are starting in the mid $30,000 range. About what a well appointed Equinox and Terrain go for. And with the new Buick Envision coming next year. It will only get worse for GM to try and have unique products that don't just compete, but set the bar. Cadillac has to go down market to maintain sales and profitability with the other luxury brands. Chevy has to be able to be better still and not limited by the space Buick needs.

I mean seriously, if you could get AWD and the hiper strut/linked h-arm suspension in and Impala would there be any need for a Lacrosse and development and tooling money that car requires? I don't think so. And that money could go to a broader Cadillac lineup. Have you ever compared Cadillacs line up of cars and SUVs to MB? Audi? BMW? Far fewer choices.

Now in the next year, we'll have a good idea of where Chevrolet stands. Within a years time, Chevrolet will have introduced a new Camaro, Volt, Cruze, Malibu and Spark. 5 brand new cars on the showroom floor. I don't know of any other brand that will have that. Not refreshes, but ALL NEW models.

And for the Camaro? All I wanted was a truly great coupe that exceeded every possible comparator against any comer. Yes, we got a truly outstanding car, but take the SS off the table. V6 only. GM could have made the car in ways that nothing competed with it. Price honestly isn't bad for a V6. But for usability, the car gave up many things for the sake of styling. They could have even added AWD, a huge advantage over the Mustang, but chose not too even though Alpha enables it. And that IMO, makes it less appealing to a broader audience than it could have been. GM should have tried to make the best coupe ever, not the best Camaro ever. A car that would have even fewer tradeoffs than the Gen5. A car that at $50,000 stood up against anything. But today, the car wins BIG TIME if you bring the SS back in and let performance be the decision maker. I'm sure the SS will in the upcoming M4 comparison handle itself quite well. I don't think it wins, but it will get big points for what it does for $30,000 LESS.

So to my point, GM could stand a Camaro with a smaller trunk, less rear seat room and better visibility IF they had another choice. But that other choice is counter to everything I've been saying. GM no longer has the sales volumes to have multiple coupes. Everyone wants a GN or GNX from Buick. But all that would do is cannibalize Camaro sales. GM just can't afford that business model anymore.

But to be clear, the Gen6 Camaro is a really great Camaro. I hope they sell a $hit ton of them. But for me it is a screaming example of the old GM, not a forward thinking visionary company that defines automobiles. As I said, GM only does that in trucks. It seems to me that GM is now simply accepting that after the bankruptcy, being profitable on lower volumes is just fine. Being the world leader that defines the technology of personal transportation just doesn't seem to be there anymore. And as 3rd generation GM guy (my grandfather worked in Flint during the sit down strike that lead the UAW) that is what hurts the most. And that is why I'm pickier than most on GM's products. I know the people that are there and I know what they are capable of doing. And being the best in the world is still well within their grasp. And THAT is what I hope for. THAT is what I want to see.

I am probably one of the biggest GM fans on this website. Not just because of the fact I have a pension riding on it, but because it's a huge part of who I am, who my friends are, where I grew up, even where I went to school (GMI with an Automotive Engineering Cognate, btw). And I already posted years ago what Camaro means to me and why even though I don't own one, it remains important to me and my passion for cars. I want the same things for the company that I did when I was there, to regain dominance and define the market in every segment they compete in.

Thank you for your insight. I remember that during "Carmageddon" in 2008-2009, the Obama Auto Task Force wanted to trim GM down to only Chevrolet and Cadillac. The GM top brass at the time convinced them to also keep GMC and Buick.

[v6sonoma]

Nice uptick for the Camaro. I'm sure once the weather starts to break it'll just keep growing. The car is clearly a performance success and although some people aren't happy with the exterior design I think most like it or will grow to over time. Everyone I've met or talked to seems to love the inside. Looking forward to see if they unveil a ZL1 or something. Might be tempted to upgrade... maybe...

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by Number 3

This is the concern GM and Ford have right now. Pricing against the known luxury brands and the cache of that brand.

I can remember one of my two favorite cars GM every made in the late 90's. The Oldsmobile Intrigue and Aurora. The Intrigue was a great case in pricing. By the time you ordered the suspension upgrade, the overhead cam V6 and all the goodies, that car topped out over $30,000. Similarly, the Aurora topped out over $40,000. At that time, the Intrigue was knocking on the door of a decently equipped 3 Series. So unless you are hung up on size of the car (really an American thing) you would buy the BMW. And that, IMO, is hat lead to the death of Oldsmobile. They started making some really nice cars, but by the time you loaded them up? Priced to the level of a BMW. And no one at that time was picking a an Olds over a BMW.

I could tell you of the dozens and dozens of clinic results where GM showed a car to the public and they went Ape $hit over it. Then they branded it and it fall to the BOTTOM. Not to the middle or down a couple of slots, to the BOTTOM.

I could tell you the story when Mrs. Number 3 (Corvette Marketing Manager at the time)went to the Cadillac XLR clinic as it was a year ahead of the Corvette. She LOVED the car. Couldn't wait to buy one. Gushed over the car. When told it was a Cadillac, she immediately decided her Mom might want one, but she certainly would never own one.

So when someone walks into a Chevy dealer to look at a Camaro, and you aren't Chevy or Camaro loyalist like EVERYONE on this site, it's a different ball game.

These people aren't buying a Chevrolet or a Camaro, they are spending $45,000 to $50,000 on the "top end" car. And if they can get a BMW 3/4 Series for close to that, which one are they going to buy?

Another case in point. Please go load up a Ford Fusion (big seller) and a Chevrolet Malibu (hopefully a big seller with the redesign). Either one loaded comes in at right around $36,000 (eyes pop out of sockets!!!!!) You can get a bottom end Audi, BMW and Mercedes for that price. Don't mind that you can still load those up more. So for $36,000 you can have a Chevy or Ford, but for $40,000 you can have nice 3 Series sedan (starts at $33,000) a MB CLA (starts at $32,000) or an Audi A3 (starts at $30,000) or an Audi A4 (starts at $37,000). If you aren't a loyalist and don't car about the 2 remaining US car manufacturers, are you going for the luxury brand with a 4 year warranty or the Chevy or Ford with a 3 year warranty?????

This is the one thing (and don't get excited, it's a compliment) you guys don't understand. Most of you on this site are SO loyal you can't grasp why someone would buy a Mustang over a Camaro. You get horribly defensive when I even suggest visibility is a problem in the Camaro as if I just said you kid was ugly. You guys aren't the ones GM is worried about. You are so passionate you come to this website every day to talk about how great the Camaro is and jump on anyone who even hints there might be a flaw.

Put yourself in the position of the girl who's father is taking her out to buy a car. He might be leaning to the Chevrolet. But once she hears BMW???? All bets are off. This is GM's battle and Fords too.

You guys know that more than half of all cars purchased in the good old USA are foreign brands right? GM and Ford combined are barely 30% market share. FCA is no longer in the equation as they are owned lock stock and barrel by Fiat.

This simple transaction has hit square on the point I've been trying to get you guys to see since December of 2008. GM needs to make more better cars. Don't misunderstand, GM is improving leaps and bounds. Problem is...............so is everyone else.

Ahhh the Oldsmobile Aurora. My dad had one of those, it was a fantastic car. I loved that car.

Originally Posted by hotlapZL1

A 2LT convertible would have compared nicely to that 228i convertible and might have won the sales if it were available. I do not believe that father was seriously considered a 2SS for his daughter.

I keep see the same type of comparisons being made. Highly loaded Chevys compared to low level, upscale models. The dollars overlap but the content and performance are far apart.


Exactly. GM needs to reestablish the brand. Cadillac and Buick were once more asperational than BMW, Audi or Mercedes. What's the other option? Build low cost crap again.

That is what Number 3 is saying. When the costs overlap, you get the average shopper who is going to get swayed by perception or image. I think what people here sometimes forget is its average buyers that make up majority of car sales and for lack of a better word, the average buyer is stupid.

Originally Posted by hotlapZL1

I like Chevy V8 cars but am not a loyalist. GM lost me as a loyal customer in the late 90s and all of my none performance car purchases have been other since. The new GM however has me interested again.

I searched local inventory of the MB CLA and Fusion. I found one base CLA at $36,400 and others over $40k. Only one Fusion near the base CLA was a Titanium trim level. Is that a good comparison when 90% of Fusions are under $23k?

If the cost overlaps with a 3 series then the buyer needs to decide what they want from a car because they offer very different experiences.

Yes the majority of Fusion and midsize car sales are the lower variants, but those higher trims do present some odd cross shopping. A good friend of mine, has an 04 Cobra. When he got himself a good paying job and could have a nice car as a DD to keep miles off the Cobra. He looked at fusions, but once he started checking option boxes, he noticed he could get a BMW for the same money. Did it have the same features, no but it was a BMW. That was all it took. People will get swayed by perception/image. Just the perception of having a BMW as a DD over a nicely equipped Ford was enough to sway my buddy into a BMW. This is how the average buyer thinks, people hear Ford/Chevy they think oh those are nice cars, they hear BMW/Audi they think luxury even if the features aren't as a nice or the equipment is not the same.

Another way to think of it is this, say you are looking a tvs. The choices are an off brand 60" Smart LED TV, or 60" Samsung LCD TV ( Most people say LED is the way to go now so that is what this example is based off, so in this example the off brand has more features) for the same price. The average buyer that is not up to snuff on Audio/Visual (the general car buyer) is going to pick the Samsung based on the name alone.

[90503]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Huge long answer required if you want to go beyond Camaro. Maybe not enough space on all the servers that support Camaro5 and 6. LOL.

The question you have asked was discussed over several thousand coffees between myself and my trusted friends when I worked there.

As for customers being unwilling accomplices? No, that isn't really possible any longer. Used to be you bought whatever was introduced. Now there are just too many good choices in almost every segment that if you don't satisfy a customer with your product, they will simply go elsewhere. If you aren't great, you'll quickly be relegated to niche status.

But on a bigger level, a lot of GM's problem is deeply rooted within it's own history and some of it is simply how GM still operates to this very day.

Historically, GM was so big at one point that the government actually tried to break it up. They were that dominant that the U.S. Government considered them a monopoly. What you won't ever see written, oddly enough but it is my observation, is that when the government tried to break them up from having such great products, GM basically went the mode of just making money. The early 70s was wrought with quality problems (think Vega and Chevette among many others), but it was those wonderful 80s that was the beginning of the lonnnnggggggg slowwwwwww decline. J-cars, including a Cadillac version(Cavalier, Skyhawk, Firenza, J2000, Cimaron.....) . A-cars for everyone but Cadillac (6000, Celbrity). The Riviera and Toronado were downsized so badly you couldn't tell if it was an N-car (Grand Am, Alero). GM helped coin the term "cookie cutter cars". And much of this was done in a declining market where Americans were (justifiably) buying Japanese cars more and more. Not they those were of any real quality, but they were much better than what GM and Ford could muster. All the way to the bankruptcy GM tried to the be the mama bird feeding multiple brands with products. And in all that mess was Saturn that also got product development and product $$$$. It was a death spiral of inferior product after inferior product. GM was it's greatest when it competed with itself. GM had multiple small block and multiple big block V8s...........at the same time. Unique engines so much so that when GM actually first tried to put corporate engines in cars...........THEY GOT SUED! Look up the Chevy-mobile fiasco. I bought an Oldsmobile damn it, I want an Oldsmobile engine.

When I worked for Nissan in the early 90s, we had two types of benchmarking activities. One was for product features and performance and the other was for cost reduction. GM products were NEVER in the product focused activities, only the cost reduction ones because of how cheap the GM cars were then.

Now to the last 10 years or so, look at the products where GM did still dominate. Where GM currently has the biggest presence in the market and that is Full Size Pickups and SUVs. Yes, Ford F150 is still number 1, but all in with Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban and oh yeah, Escalade, GM has a juggernaut of vehicles that almost all sell for more than $40,000. I bet if you looked at the total numbers, Chevrolet sells more $50,000 plus vehicles than BMW, MB or Audi in the US. If not it's awful close. This success, from my point of view and what I saw and experienced, was due to the fundamental knowledge of who your customer was and who your competition is.............and the important part was knowing your customer. Yes, that was helped a lot by only having to worry about Ford, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan, a small bunch of competitors to be sure compared to compact, small and mid-size cars where you add Mazda, VW, Hyundai/Kia, among others that offer competitive if not outstanding cars.

If you study why GM went bankrupt, it was simply that when the price of gas spiked in the late 2000's GM lost so many sales of profitable truck sales that they could no longer pay their bills. HUGE bills of legacy costs of pensions and retirement benefits for over 1,000,000 people.

So as I've said many time on my career, when I started GM had mid 40% market share. When I left 4 1/2 years ago it was 16%. I still have my lapel pin with the number 29 on it. GM had drawn the line at 29% market share and would not go below it.................until the very next year.

Now for today, GM still has 4 brands to feed. I say 4 but as of today it still has a unique brand in China (forget the name), Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden. We see a Holden product here (SS) but there are a lot of Opel/Vauxhall products we either don't see or that get badged Buicks for the U.S. and China. Verano is one of those, Regal another. And of course there is a Regal Wagon and Hatchback that don't even come here that many claim they would love to have. But in the US, 4 is more than anyone else. Ford has Ford and Lincoln. Toyota, with the demise of Scion, now has Toyota and Lexus. Honda has Honda and Acura. So how do you make your very best cars when you need to have space for 4 brands.

So a shout out to the fallen brothers in the past 10 years: Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer.

As I outlined before, putting the 2.0t in the Cruze fights against the Verano that does get the 2.0t as it's option. The Traxx? You can't get leather seats. You need to move up the Buick Encore if you want those. Same thing with the engine. The Encore now gets a larger turbo engine than the Traxx. Want the good chassis in the Impala? Nope, you have to move up to the Lacrosse where it's optional or the XTS where it's standard. Want AWD in a Malibu? Nope have to get the Buick Regal for that. Don't mind that the Fusion does have AWD. On and on and on. GM still has the problem of competing with itself, but no longer in the good way it was in the 50s and 60s. GMC? Yes, it gives the Buick dealer a truck to sell, but it is, with the exception of Denali, the same truck you can get at the Chevy dealer. And now not only do you have the Chevy dealer having to compete with an offer from Ford or Dodge, he or she has to compete with the GMC dealer up the road selling the same product. But Buick needs to exist if nothing more than to have China Buicks. And we will get the first Chinese made Buick imported soon along with the CT6 hybrid.

And by the way the above is a very shortened version. Very.

So how do you fix this? Much harder to answer that than what is wrong. First, GM is a very poor global company. Yes, China sales are robust and now exceed even the U.S. but for the most part, it's tough to sell a Chevy anywhere but the U.S. And if you took truck sales of the total, Chevrolet cars is a small player in the Global Market. Why? Tough question, but in Europe, it frankly has been a car good enough to compete with VW or even Opel. But Europe is a tough nut to crack. Toyota and Lexus for example don't do particularly well there either.

But the answer is to try and follow the truck model. GM still owns this segment and it does so with vehicles that define the market or at the very least are hugely competitive across the entire competitive set.

When is the last time GM had Chevrolet mid-size car that defined the segment? A small car? A full size car? I can't recall one. Yes, there were COTY awards, but sales never followed.

As Lutz used to always say, the answer is in great products. But GM is somewhat stuck here with Buick as the tweener. What happens when Cadillac needs a smaller SUV than the new XT5? BMW has the X1, Audi has the Q3 and threatening with a Q1. Lexus has the new NX. All of these are starting in the mid $30,000 range. About what a well appointed Equinox and Terrain go for. And with the new Buick Envision coming next year. It will only get worse for GM to try and have unique products that don't just compete, but set the bar. Cadillac has to go down market to maintain sales and profitability with the other luxury brands. Chevy has to be able to be better still and not limited by the space Buick needs.

I mean seriously, if you could get AWD and the hiper strut/linked h-arm suspension in and Impala would there be any need for a Lacrosse and development and tooling money that car requires? I don't think so. And that money could go to a broader Cadillac lineup. Have you ever compared Cadillacs line up of cars and SUVs to MB? Audi? BMW? Far fewer choices.

Now in the next year, we'll have a good idea of where Chevrolet stands. Within a years time, Chevrolet will have introduced a new Camaro, Volt, Cruze, Malibu and Spark. 5 brand new cars on the showroom floor. I don't know of any other brand that will have that. Not refreshes, but ALL NEW models.

And for the Camaro? All I wanted was a truly great coupe that exceeded every possible comparator against any comer. Yes, we got a truly outstanding car, but take the SS off the table. V6 only. GM could have made the car in ways that nothing competed with it. Price honestly isn't bad for a V6. But for usability, the car gave up many things for the sake of styling. They could have even added AWD, a huge advantage over the Mustang, but chose not too even though Alpha enables it. And that IMO, makes it less appealing to a broader audience than it could have been. GM should have tried to make the best coupe ever, not the best Camaro ever. A car that would have even fewer tradeoffs than the Gen5. A car that at $50,000 stood up against anything. But today, the car wins BIG TIME if you bring the SS back in and let performance be the decision maker. I'm sure the SS will in the upcoming M4 comparison handle itself quite well. I don't think it wins, but it will get big points for what it does for $30,000 LESS.

So to my point, GM could stand a Camaro with a smaller trunk, less rear seat room and better visibility IF they had another choice. But that other choice is counter to everything I've been saying. GM no longer has the sales volumes to have multiple coupes. Everyone wants a GN or GNX from Buick. But all that would do is cannibalize Camaro sales. GM just can't afford that business model anymore.

But to be clear, the Gen6 Camaro is a really great Camaro. I hope they sell a $hit ton of them. But for me it is a screaming example of the old GM, not a forward thinking visionary company that defines automobiles. As I said, GM only does that in trucks. It seems to me that GM is now simply accepting that after the bankruptcy, being profitable on lower volumes is just fine. Being the world leader that defines the technology of personal transportation just doesn't seem to be there anymore. And as 3rd generation GM guy (my grandfather worked in Flint during the sit down strike that lead the UAW) that is what hurts the most. And that is why I'm pickier than most on GM's products. I know the people that are there and I know what they are capable of doing. And being the best in the world is still well within their grasp. And THAT is what I hope for. THAT is what I want to see.

I am probably one of the biggest GM fans on this website. Not just because of the fact I have a pension riding on it, but because it's a huge part of who I am, who my friends are, where I grew up, even where I went to school (GMI with an Automotive Engineering Cognate, btw). And I already posted years ago what Camaro means to me and why even though I don't own one, it remains important to me and my passion for cars. I want the same things for the company that I did when I was there, to regain dominance and define the market in every segment they compete in.

That's a nice review of GM's past, I suppose....

I think it's unfair though to put all that baggage on the 6thGen Camaro and it's customers as if their decision to purchase or not purchase, will somehow produce a miracle that redirects the course of history.

In your opinion the Camaro may not now be the greatest coupe available in the history of automaking, but I think the folks buying it are entitled to think so. They can't control the decisions of management, nor crusade to right the wrongs you think have occurred.

[RenegadeXR]

Originally Posted by Number 3

And for the Camaro? ... They could have even added AWD, a huge advantage over the Mustang, but chose not too even though Alpha enables it.

I think that's kind of an interesting point. While it's great an all that they bumped the horsepower and aerodynamics of the 6th gen, it would have been incredibly cool to have an AWD muscle car. I wonder how much that would affect the final price point and overall weight, though?

I'd really be happy with any car that resembles a 67-69 Camaro, has great handling, and was around 400 HP to the crank. It doesn't need to try so ridiculously hard to chase numbers like the current 6th gen tries to. An american coupe with a good mix of practicality, design, power, and handling would be great.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Camaro was, is, and always should be a RWD vehicle. That is a staple to its identity. If they want to do an AWD vehicle for some reason...call it something else.

[RenegadeXR]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wyndham

Camaro was, is, and always should be a RWD vehicle. That is a staple to its identity. If they want to do an AWD vehicle for some reason...call it something else.

I think the 5th gen ticked that box pretty well, and there are plenty to chose from on the used market. Time for something fun and a bit more affordable. They can call it whatever the heck they want, I just want muscle car styling rather than a european econobox clone with a facelift. Who says you can't create a new muscle car nameplate from scratch with zero heritage involved?

[detltu]

It's all about the price. Number 3 brings up a good point on the BMW argument. Most people (not just young drivers) will jump at the chance to own a status symbol brand. BMW, M-B, etc. In a similar fashion, a lot of people might prefer a sports car over the usual appliance cars (camry, accord, etc.). It works both ways. It's all about the customer's price point and what they value. Most consumers will support their views with the positive aspects of their preference while discounting the negative aspects. There are very few people out there who go car shopping without some form of bias affecting their view.

[hotlap]

Originally Posted by detltu

It's all about the price. Number 3 brings up a good point on the BMW argument. Most people (not just young drivers) will jump at the chance to own a status symbol brand. BMW, M-B, etc. In a similar fashion, a lot of people might prefer a sports car over the usual appliance cars (camry, accord, etc.). It works both ways. It's all about the customer's price point and what they value. Most consumers will support their views with the positive aspects of their preference while discounting the negative aspects. There are very few people out there who go car shopping without some form of bias affecting their view.

Exactly. When spending $45,000 for a car you have a lot of choices but the experience is not similar. Three examples I just looked up

• BMW 340i Sedan 3.0L, 320 HP V6 $45,800
• Camaro 2SS 6.2L 455 HP, Auto $42,795
• Silverado LZT double cab 6.0L 322 hp $43,815

You can own a 3 series sedan with a 3.0L but its not giving you what a 2SS Camaro is. Its not an "M" so, IMO, compares as closely as a nice Silverado.

The Camaro, Mustang and Challenger offer a unique experience and the Chevy does so exceptionally well (and its style is part of it).

[ssrs396]

Number 3........ I am curious about your opinion of the Buick Avista coupe. I think it is possible that it could have been the Gen6 Camaro , to me it is a winning design.

[motorhead]

I highly doubt many are cross shopping Camaros and BMWs regardless of price. They are two completely different animals. If that line of thinking made sense, then why would anyone buy a $100,000+ Z06 when they could buy a $40,000 BMW? After all, it's just a Chevy. Right? The gen 6 car has a very different enviroment to deal with than the gen5 did. Pent up demand moved the gen5, the Mustang had already been out for four years and the challenger had only one expensive car at first that the base ss camaro would beat out of the box which made the RT kind of insignificant to many people when it came along on 2010. It had it all going for it. Now we have the gen6. It has to compete against used gen5s, used mustangs like Gt500s and used Challengers, an all new mustang that keeps getting better, a challenger that has gotten better with many different package options and improved interiors along with the pent up demand being gone. Also, the cost of performance is going up which has made this car cost more. I see this all coming to and end for the average person. Not to drag politics into it, but governments want it that way. It won't be long til performance will be reserved for the rich unless you stick with used.

[BlueSteel07]

[QUOTE=shaffe;8889793]Ahhh the Oldsmobile Aurora. My dad had one of those, it was a fantastic car. I loved that car.

I have a 99 Olds Aurora as a daily driver (4.0 V8). It's a piece of junk. It leaks oil something fierce and gets bad gas mileage (20 mpg) while having a measly 250 HP. Whoever paid $40k for one back in the 90's seriously got ripped off. Every Aurora will start to leak oil sometime in its lifetime. It's a matter of when not if.

[motorhead]

[QUOTE=BlueSteel07;8890402]

Originally Posted by shaffe

Ahhh the Oldsmobile Aurora. My dad had one of those, it was a fantastic car. I loved that car.

I have a 99 Olds Aurora as a daily driver (4.0 V8). It's a piece of junk. It leaks oil something fierce and gets bad gas mileage (20 mpg) while having a measly 250 HP. Whoever paid $40k for one back in the 90's seriously got ripped off. Every Aurora will start to leak oil sometime in its lifetime. It's a matter of when not if.

You do realize that it's a 17 year old car?