i've always felt pontiacs are bmws for white people

 

Other than the one commercial for the Grand Prix or something where they have Samuel L. Jackson calling its red brake calipers a "pair of shiny red shoes," I'd say that by and large Pontiac's marketing is hardly ethnocentric.

Anyway, GM sucks with badge engineering crap like this. If someone would smack them upside the head and have them put out actual good product and stop flooding dealers with way too much inventory that can only be sold with heavy incentives, then maybe they might turn a profit.

It's not like American workers can't build decent cars, seeing as plenty of overseas-based companies are able to get people on our soil to screw together their vehicles just fine. Hell, they even have Americans design vehicles for them which look nice too. Why are the American companies not hiring these people?

Everyone talks about Bob Lutz and how he's going to be GM's savior because he's a car guy. Aside from the turnaround at Cadillac, and a couple of mildly interesting Pontiacs like the Solstice and GTO, what has GM achieved under his reign? A half step up in build quality so that its interiors don't look quite as chintzy when compared to import companies?

Hell, I won't even blame it on the unions because the Germans have unions which are probably even harder bargainers than the ones over here, and yet they manage to turn out a reasonably appealing product.

Something is up with the American car companies and even though there are plenty of people outside of the business who can point out these really simple flaws, they keep screwing it up.

Not to mention that the American companies' impression of the tastes of their own home market are overly pessimistic. In England, Ford is praised for its across-the-board nailing of vehicle dynamics! Opel/Vauxhall turns out some pretty nice cars too! If only the American companies would take some of the knowhow of their passenger car divisions in other parts of the world and apply it to their passenger car lineup here, instead of churning out the latest and greatest Avis special, they might even be competitive!

 

headlamps = eagle

 

But, but! Avis is their #1 customer! They can't just drop that relationship!
:chuckles:

 

No offense, but that's a pretty ignorant assumption

 

How about this assumption then? Is it any less ignorant??

 

i do remember automobile magazine saying in a little blurb about the new 6 series, something like "pontiac designers get their shot at a BMW"

 

FWIW I don't know about the demographics of the German companies, but a couple of the big differences between an American screwing together an "American" car and an American screwing together a "Japanese" car are that the American car guy is older (higher health care costs - maybe not an issue in Canada where a lot of "American" cars come from) and is carrying a couple of retirees on his/her back.

 

I think GM is still too consumed with their focus group studies and trying to make every car in their entire corporation appeal to every human being on earth to make anything unique, attractive, and appealing outside of Cadillac. And the GTO don't count.

Chevy is about as bread and butter as it gets. With the absence of the Camaro, they have nothing other than the Corvette to get people's attention.

Hell, as much as it pains me to say (and you all know by now Ford has been on my s--t list forever), Ford took the Mustang from the 1970's to the 21st century in one year. And they didn't even have to, since they pretty much own that segment of the market now. And guess what, it's still affordable for your average Joe..... something the GTO isn't anyway.

 

Agree! Don't blame the union. Go talk to most screen writers and directors from Hollywood and most likely they would say the same thing. I would expect the same from the major Hollywood of car would do similar things.

It's like a battle between designers/engineers with the marketing department. The marketing guys only care about how many percent of their focus groups like this particular aspect and therefore they should put it on a car (like how directors would take and add scenes depending on how the test viewer react to the scenes).

Heck, even every american car commercials sound and feel the same (SUV running in wet and rough roads while kids watching DVD at the back seat and parents in front looking at each other like dorks).