Quote:
Originally Posted by metros11
It still boggles my mind that people would think this is a small car. It's almost as long and wide as my wife's 3-row SUV.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rayfield
Same here..my SS is substantially longer and somewhat wider than the Japanese sports car that it replaced. I had to spend a day reorganizing my garage to get it to fit in there.
|
What GM has been notorious for over the years is having big cars on the outside with a small car on the inside. Even the SUVs seem to fall victim to this. Sit in the back seat of the previous generation Cruze next to a Hyundai Alantra. Same size car on the outside, but on the inside? Huge difference.
I know folks on the architecture side of the business at GM and it isn't from a lack of trying, it's just the result of packaging from the outside in rather than the inside out, or at least having a good balance.
A slammed roof and high belt line, like a Chip Foose sketch, result in cars that look bad a$$, but don't result in cars that feel roomy. In some cases the dimensions can be the same, but the "feeling" of roominess is destroyed.
Ed Welburn did some nice stuff while leading GM Design, but he was way too big on the BIG wheels, slammed roof and high belt look. It shows in the ATS and it's part of the reason that car has sold like crap since day 1. An awesome chassis in a car that under delivers and what a compact luxury car should. Try the coupe version which had to have a-pillars moved rearward and another roof drop only for styling. Wonderful looking little car...............but not very convenient to use. Worst (Best) example was the previous generation CTS coupe. Beautiful car................they made the roof so low you couldn't get a sunroof, only a glass vent panel. Rear seat? LOL.....if you are 9 years old.
I will never forget seeing the BMW 3 Series that GM turned into an ATS on the inside very early in the Alpha development. Yikes!
All a result of believing that people only buy you cars for styling. It results in beautiful cars to look at. And the Gen6 Camaro is all that and then some.
Keep in mind too, Alpha is a compact car architecture. Not much bigger than a Cruze. The ATS montra was be better than the 3 Series for weight and handling performance, and they did that. Very well too. Everything in that program was focused on the 3 Series. Everything. The Camaro benefits from all that hard work on the weight and chassis performance. Part of the reason the Camaro is so outstanding in performance is the basic work done on the ATS.
But the CTS is a compromise off of that same architecture, part of the reason the CTS is selling poorly as well. But frankly it's light years away from an E-class MB or a 5 Series BMW right now and regardless of the compromises from bringing it off a small vehicle architecture, it simply isn't competitive. It will be interesting to see when the A2xx comes out next year. I expect it to be a truly mid size car with no compromises. And that may be the bones for the Gen7 Camaro.