Vehicle Event Detected

You hear the one about the Hennessey CTS-V that pulled so hard off the line that OnStar thought it was in an accident?

Apparently .99g is enough to get a helpful and concerned OnStar operator to give you a ring. I wonder if the airbags could be tricked in the same manner...

A rear-drive V8 Chevy sedan? Yes, please!

Ah, crap:

The good news: GM has announced that it will bring the Australian-built Zeta sedan platform back to the U.S.

The bad news: It's fleet-only. Specifically, it's a police cruiser.

Autoblog has the details and press release. Play nice, kids.

GM Facts And Fiction

GM has launched a website at http://gmfactsandfiction.com/ that seeks to dispel the myth that a collapse of the U.S. auto industry would only affect Michigan and other mid-west states. The site is well-constructed and is a useful resource for both those looking for more information about the impact an auto industry collapse could have on the entire U.S. economy, as well as those looking to try to help in some way.

The site includes a video that is heavy on numbers, although most of them are so large that they may be difficult to absorb. The message is clear: a collapse of the U.S. auto industry would be a significant blow to the health of the economy as a whole, although as the site and video are clearly commissioned by GM it may be difficult to sell the data as unbiased and accurate.

Common opinions regarding the actual effect of the possible demise of the U.S. auto industry, as well as the popularity of the various bailout plans circulating Washington span a wide range, and accurate information is difficult to come by. This site represents an attempt by an auto manufacturer to speak directly to the general public in an attempt to inform us about the severity of the situation as seen by GM. It will be interesting to see if Ford or Chrysler follow with similar efforts, and even more interesting to see if they have any effect.

Pontiac Spy Hunter Ad is Badass

Pontiac has a new ad for their new car, the G8, that is a must-watch. Click here to check it out on Jalopnik.com. There's a story about Pontiac's ad agency trying to force the video to go viral, but the real meat is the ad itself. It is a positively genius play on the classic game Spy Hunter, proof that all is not lost in the realm of automotive advertising.

With No Star To Guide Them

GM has just announced the cancellation of its plans for an advanced DOHC V8. The premium engine was the presumed replacement for the Northstar V8, which ceases production in 2010. Rumors and speculation abound, but the consensus seems to be that Cadillac will soon find itself without a V8. Two years ago that idea would have been preposterous, but the success of the direct injection 3.6 liter V6, along with the looming demands of CAFE legislation suggest that this might be just what the General ordered.
The current 3.6 liter engine produces 304 hp, which places it above the Deville's Northstar, and just 16 hp shy if the STS's V8 powerplant. Sales have shown that this is sufficient to attract STS buyers, and is clearly on par with engines in midsized offerings from BMW and Mercedes. But one must wonder what has happened to GM's plans for offering a large luxury sedan to compete with the S Class Mercedes and Seven Series BMWs. Just a few short years ago, GM officials were dropping hints about a 7/8 scale version of the V16 concept car, powered by a DOHC V12. With Cadillac's recent success in the market it seems that now is the time to carry out that plan and re-establish Cadillac as one of the world's premier luxury marques. Yet it seems that GM is heading in the opposite direction. Have they lost their way, or is this all part of clever plan? We'll see.

Who needs race cars...

Racing improves the breed... Sometimes it to the point of irony. Ever since GM decided to take the fifth-gen Corvette racing, fans have been treated to a stunning series of victories. Most notably, the Corvette C5R and C6R won in class at Le Mans five times in six years. A stunning success by any measure.
So, if racing truly does better the breed, then one might be expecting some significant results by now. Well the results are in and it appears that something is working right with the Corvette engineering team. Whether it's the racing effort, the market demand, or just a little rivalry with the Dodge's Viper, something has inspired the engineers to let loose with a high performance Corvette variant that puts the C6R race car in it's place. You read that right. The new Corvette ZR1 actually boasts higher power output than it's racing sibling. Chevrolet Racing claims the C6R produces approximately 590 HP when they take it racing in ALMS. The new ZR1 promises "at least 620 HP" thanks to a new 6.2 liter supercharged V8. How can it be that the race car is out powered by the street-going little brother? We can thank regulations in ALMS and other race series which specify the maximum inlet diameter on each car's engine. The C6R is forced to breath through two inlets that are each about the size of a half dollar. The ZR1 on the other hand can use whatever size inlets the engineers specify. And of course there's that supercharger. As one would expect, engine is just part of the story. The ZR1 has more go-fast, stop-fast, and turn-right-freakin-now equipment than you can shake a stick at. All of this is allegedly going to cost about $100,000 - or about 2/5 the price of a Ferrari 599 GTB.
So there you have it. The question of the day is this: If 590 HP is enough to win Le Mans, what are all those Corvette driver's with 620 HP going to do?

Z-06? ZR-1? C6RS!

Anyone holding their breath for the much-anticipated Corvette ZR-1 can exhale.

For a small fee of $225,000, Pratt & Miller and Chevrolet will wrap a carbon fiber shell around you and a 500 cubic inch aluminum small block V8, giving you control over 600 hp and 600 lb-ft of torque. ALMS fans will recognize Pratt & Miller as the company responsible for preparing the Le Mans-winning Corvette C6.R race cars, and their experience doing so carries directly over to the C6RS. P&M have set up a dedicated website for the car, and AutoWeek covers more details in their November 5 article, but the bottom line is 0 - 60 in 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 202, center-lug wheels, interior upgrades, brake and suspension enhancements, and a whole lotta badass.

Cadillac Drivers' Log

GM has expanded their foray into the blogosphere with the addition of the Cadillac Drivers' Log, written by two members of the CTS development team. Lead Development Engineer Rob Kotorak and Assistant Chief Engineer Liz Philibosian relate stories from their time testing the CTS in various climates and conditions, most recently the frigid cold of Kinross, MI.
The blog provides a unique, albeit sparse, look into the testing process and if nothing else is a source of some entertaining pictures of CTSs at, and past, their handling limits.

Pontiac: We Build Seduction?

Pontiac, once the builders of excitement itself, are in the process of adjusting its image. First with the new GTO, then the Solstice, and bolstered by the incredibly-accessible G6 hardtop convertible, Pontiac is now decidedly sexy. Rather than baiting customers with promises of adrenaline, Pontiac's current lineup seduces potential customers with curvaceous bodies, powerful engines, and guaranteed attention.
As mentioned by AdRants, Pontiac recently launched two television commercials to bolster their campaign with the Hispanic market: One is called Grab and features the Solstice and a frisky girlfriend. The other is called Traffic Stop, which shows that flashing lights aren't always a bad thing. Both commercials are in Spanish, but are excellent regardless of what language you speak.

Being right is better than being first.

GM has unveiled their new fuel savings plan. GM unveiled the first 6 cylinder engine with cylinder deactivation. It will be a 3.9L engine which will exist in the new Impala to start off with. This is supposed to increase gas mileage by 5%. The new Green Line Vue will save 20% gas on average and only be a $2000 option. If you spent $2000 on gas a year, you could recoup your spending in 5 years time. With Gas prices rising the time to recoup costs would decrease significantly. The Chevy Tahoe will soon have a new hybrid system developed with BMW. "It's fun to be first in an early-stage technology. It's more important to be right, and I think we have a well-thought out approach," he said. "I think (the Vue and the Tahoe) will show people that we can play with anybody on technology. We'll see how the market plays out."

Truth In Advertising

One of Toyota's latest campaigns calls attention to their huge number of U.S. employees, and together with their pending participation in the NASCAR Nextel Cup works to portray Toyota as America's Car Company. Some people have taken exception to this claim, including The Level Field Institute.
The LFI is running TV and print ads that look at the numbers from a different perspective: According to them, Ford and GM both each employ more Americans than all foreign auto manufacturers combined, and together with Daimler Chrysler account for 8 out of 10 U.S. autoworker jobs. The Level Field Institute's website has several graphs and charts detailing the specific differences between the domestic and foreign manufacturers.
It is worth noting that the LFI was founded by retirees of The Big Three, shedding some light on their motivation. The numbers they present are nonetheless powerful, and as stated by them they should be taken into account when shopping for a new vehicle.

C6R Dominance

This past Friday night, the two C6Rs of Corvette Racing faced a formidable challenge in the ALMS Lone Star Grand Prix. Held on a temporary (and incredibly bumpy) "street" circuit, the race actually snaked its way through the sprawling parking lots surrounding Reliant Park in Houston, Texas, and was difficult just to get around at speed. Making things even more interesting was the presence of a pair of DBR9s fielded by Aston Martin racing, winners of the 2005 24 Hours of Sebring, and fastest qualifiers of the same 2006 race. The DBR9s are prepared by Prodrive, legendary for their WRC Subaru WRXs and LeMans-winning 550 Maranello, and recently notable for announcing their entry into the 2008 Formula 1 World Championship.
As if that weren't enough of a challenge, the dominant Corvette C6Rs were saddled with a 176lb weight disadvantage to the Aston Martins. Actually a 66lb addition to the Vettes and a 110lb weight reduction to the DBR9s, the adjustment was intended to bring parity to the GT1 class, long dominated by the Corvettes.
In classic Corvette Racing fashion, the two C6Rs led every lap and finished 1 and 2 in class, 2 and 3 overall. Nothing short of a monumental achievement for GM, the Corvettes held off the fiercely-competitive Aston Martins, and were bettered only by Audi's R8, arguably the greatest car in sports car racing history. This is nothing but bad news for the rest of the GT1 competitors, as it clearly shows that nothing short of an unlikely mechanical failure will keep the Corvette Racing C6Rs off of the top step of the podium.

Penske to GM? Miller Says Maybe

During this past Sunday's edition of Speed Channel's Wind Tunnel, Robin Miller relayed that one of his "inside sources" had strongly suggested that GM was looking to hire on Roger Penske, yes that Roger Penske, to lead GM out of its troubled mire. What at first seems unlikely may in fact have some basis in reality, as it was Penske who once pulled Hertz out of its own slump. He also successfully runs a massive network of GM dealerships, giving him a solid perspective of the sales and consumer side of the business at a minimum.
GM's continued trouble is bad for everyone except Toyota, but someone like Roger Penske may just be able to bring the fresh strategy and outlook that is needed to turn things around.

GTO Giveaway

Flowmaster's Kevin McClelland built up a 2004 Pontiac GTO, which was featured on the 2005 Hot Rod Power Tour and in Hot Rod Magazine, and now they're giving it away. Unfortunately stripped of the heavily-modded motor, the GTO nonetheless comes tantalizingly-equipped with a complete headers-to-tailpipes Flowmaster exhaust system, plus new tires and brakes, a new suspension system from Hotchkis, and other modifications. Check out Flowmaster's contest page for rules and entry details.

Speaking of Heritage

With GM's latest television commercial, they remind us of their successful past and rich heritage while simultaneously reinforcing their mission to recapture that success.

The ad connects the glory days of GM with their current offerings, effectively delivering the message that GM is once again capable of producing innovative, desirable cars and trucks. Clever editing and a catchy, relevant song should help plant the ad firmly in the mind of anyone who sees it. It is interesting to note that missing entirely from the commercial is any mention, reference, or image of anything from the 80's.

Born From Jets

Saab has rolled out a new ad campaign playing on the company's aircraft manufacturing heritage. On paper, "Born From Jets" sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, the cars currently rolling off Saab assembly lines do little to make the connection.

While no one expects radar-guided missiles or afterburners, Saab could use many existing technologies to reinforce their jet heritage: The ubiquitous turbo engine is an obvious starting point, and may be the only actual link between the cars and aircraft. Heads-up displays have been available in GM cars for a decade, and Cadillac's night vision could find a home here as well. Radar- or laser-guided cruise control would mesh with the theme, and external cues such as a large rear wing or prominent front air intakes would add a visual tie-in. A markedly driver-centric dashboard could produce a cockpit feel, complete with a plethora of analog gauges reporting all manner of information. Up-level models could even feature five-point-harness-friendly seats. Redundant buttons on the gear shift lever for radio (or perhaps turn-signal) controls would add to the image.

The production of warplanes is considerably more exciting than the production of farm equipment, for example, and Saab has an excellent opportunity to develop a powerful connection to their past. However, simply mentioning that past is not enough, and neither is the one-off Aero-X Concept, canopy and all. The cars they produce must carry their image to the consumer in tangible ways, or it will simply be lost in the fog of other mindless marketing drivel.

Hold your horses! Or Goats in this case.

Over the last few weeks everyone on the internet has been crying out about Pontiac's shutdown of building the GTO. Nobody mentions that they only planned 3 years production of 18,000 to 15,000 units per year to begin with. That is pretty miniscule in comparison to GM's overall sales of 9mil cars a year. I'm surprised a car which gets as much bad press as it does (despite a remarkable first drive review by C&D) would be of everyone's concern now. Bob Lutz, like an embattled football coach or war general, reminded everyone that they are planning a 2009 GTO.

“The reason we said it was canceled is because that way our people would put their pencils down, in GM if you say something is deferred, then people keep working on it. We really needed to get that message through to everybody. It was my fault that it got out of control in the first place, it was going to be the world’s greatest car and apparently cost nothing to make. So we’ve started over now. The program is back on and it’s going full tilt.”

I think the whole exercise is a good example of how many people actually like the GTO despite their thrashings of it. Bring on more Australian engineering combined with American engineering and drop 500-600 hp engines on this zeta platform with large tires in the 300 mm width range please. I don't care what they call it or who they piss off when they do.

Oppealing

GM unveils the Opel GT at the Geneva autoshow. It looks oddly similar to the Solstice and Sky vehicles. However, the Opel GT is much faster.

"Thanks to its powerful 2.0-liter, 260 hp ECOTEC turbo engine with gasoline direct injection the Opel GT accelerates from zero to 100 km/h in less than six seconds, and reaches a top speed of more than 230 km/h."

Hopefully if any of the parts are compatible American Solstice owners can take advantage of upgrades straight from GM.

Price Gap More Like Price Chasm

It is known that Toyota vehicles sell for about $1500 more than GM products. Of course, GM sells more high price vehicles where Toyota sells more low priced smaller vehicles. This makes it hard to just go to the dealers and calculate yourself. There are three factors for this $1500 price gap: resale value and market perception. The first factor is a concrete fact where a consumer can actually see the benefit of buying a Toyota (of course I would tell the person trying to make money reselling a car to invest in mutual funds). The second factor is more abstract: It is a result of good marketing by Toyota and a vengeful market place. For example: "I bought a Ford Escort in 1980 and it really sucked, so I'm not going to buy any more American cars". The third factor is the perception that Toyota's cars have more quality and reliability, which has yet to be proven by J.D. Powers. Consumer Reports doesn't count because it's based on public opinion (refer to second factor above). So now that we see there is a $1500 price gap you would hope that GM could produce their cars at a $1500 discount. Unfortunately this is not true. Because GM is paying for 5 retirees per every 2 workers on an assembly line their costs are high. GM says in 2004 that its health care costs were $1,528 per vehicle and their pension costs were $695 per vehicle. This comes up to $2,223. Toyota's comparable costs are about $201 for healthcare and $50 for matching 401k, for a total of $251. This means that Toyota on a playing field is going to have a $3500 advantage. At best if GM works out a plan with U.A.W., they may be able to drop their costs to $1100 per car. This still leaves a gap of $2400 per car. Don't expect GM to start walking all over Toyota just because it has its labor prices under control. The only way that everyone is going to benefit (and when i say benefit I mean the US consumer, GM workers, GM retirees, and investors) is if GM can make headway in the original $1500 perception gap. This doesn't mean GM needs to go convincing every Camry owner to switch to an Impala. What it does mean is that when a GM customer goes into a dealership, they would think, "Wow I'm getting a great deal, and this is a nice car!" GM can then sell the car for more which would help resale value as well. If you take a look at other technology segments such as the Apple iPod and Google, my best guess on how GM would be to able to "WOW" the customers is to seduce them with engineering and features. Combine that with some top notch marketing and things could come around.

Giving them away!

In a recent NASCAR promotion, Chevy is giving away a Tahoe. This is not a normal Tahoe: This is a Tahoe actually built by Tony Stewart himself. "Chevrolet is America's brand and there is nothing more American than building Chevy trucks in Texas,” said Stewart. “It was a lot of fun building the all-new Tahoe, but somebody is going to have a lot more fun driving it.” This is advertised on a special web site where you can win a bunch of different prizes, including this truck.
Another championship-caliber celebritiy giving away cars is Tiger Woods. On Buick's home page you can sign up to win one of several special editon Buick Lucernes:

The Lucerne CXS ... features a black exterior and cashmere leather interior, a standard 275 horsepower 4.6L Northstar V-8 engine, a wood steering wheel and shift knob, 18-inch chrome wheels with a 10-spoke design, heated washer fluid, heated and cooled seats, Magnetic Ride Control, six standard air bags, a unique exhaust tip, spoiler and more. Tiger is autographing a plaque for the vehicle's interior.

For every tournament that tiger wins someone is going to win his car. Not a bad deal for Tiger either, since he'll be getting a new car to lug his golf bag in. Maybe if you win you'll get some left-over grass that fell out of his cleats in the carpet.
Seems like some good marketing. The American public generally listens to winners regardless of how blatent the advertsing. Tony Stewert does actually use chevy products to win his races though.