[Number 3]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Not even that, it has to draw people in that otherwise wouldn't be buying a Camaro (or Corvette or Impala or CTS or other GM vehicle).

Just to make my point clearer, I'll pull some numbers out of thin air. The Camaro sells roughly 80k units a year. A Chevelle would probably max out at half that, so 40k units. There's a good chance that half of them (20k) are poached from Camaro sales. Of the remaining 20k, quite a few would probably be coming from folks that would otherwise be buying something else in the GM lineup -lets say half of that remainder (10k).

So, in this little exercise a new Chevelle selling 40k units a year (a marginal number for a model to begin with) adds 10k sales to GMs total while bringing Camaro sales down from 80k to 60k and a variety of other models take a slight hit as well. Not worth the investment on their end. Even changing the numbers around a bit and it still gets hard to see more than 20k added sales per year.

About the only 'muscle car' that would have a chance at being brought back would be a Grand National/GNX because it wouldn't have any immediate competition from its own brand but even that would poach quite a few sales directly from the ATS & CTS as well as the Camaro.





GM ditched Pontiac and Saturn largely because those brands caused too much internal competition. Even now there's still quite a bit. Its one thing to fill a niche with a trim package or import an already built car from overseas. But to spend a billion and a half developing an all new model for a handful of sales would be a gigantic waste of money.

Pretty much this right here.

Coupes don't sell ladies and gentlemen. Why do you think the Cruze is a Sedan only? Cobalt Sedan died from poor sales.

Back in the day GM needed 2 plants to build F-bodies (Van Nuyes - now building Teslas I think and Norwood - now a shopping mall). They built 400,000 F-bodies. And yes, in the late 70's the number 1 selling car was the Olds Cutlass.

Those days are gone and not likely to return. And on top of that you don't put 2 similar vehicles in the same showroom at the same price point. They would simply compete with each other.

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Thats likely why it was cancelled when it was, but very few people bought them before it was cancelled & therefore its deemed a failure.

Was actually a decent car. I got to drive one of the CTFs. But it had 2 things against it. 1 it was a coupe and 2 it didn't have retro styling. Retro styling didn't mean anything to me with this car but it got such bad rap for that.

Also there was a replacement in the works that never had a chance due to GM financials.

Originally Posted by Spartan01

The BNX was a monster, and (for the time) a marvel of engineering.
It was also a V6 turbo.

Build it to compete with the new turbo cars coming out.

My point about the GTO is that the original GTO's were ICONIC, and trendsetting for their looks and power.
They brought it back with no looks whatsoever, yet badged it with the moniker of a legend. At that time there was no Camaro in production. had they done it right and really mad a sweet retro restyling it would have been way more successful.

GNX was a very low volume car retrofitted by McClaren (or some outside shop). I'd be happy with a GN. It will likely be a sedan though. Not sure how you carve out a high performance Buick coupe or sedan when you have Cadillac.

Originally Posted by arkentect

I myself am hoping for a Mid-Engine Corvette to compete with the Ford GT. Lol I know i'll never be able to afford one but at least Chevy will have something I can start to drool over again.

FYI, from what we know GM is ahead of Ford in this part of the arms race. Ford let us see a show car that won't be out until at least the end of next year. GM has already had a mid engine Mule car spy shots. Ford is desperate and showed a lot of their future hand at the NAIAS. GM is holding pretty tight and is being more Japanese OEM like right now on showing future products.

Originally Posted by rocket403

That is the main reason that I stepped away from GM they ruined the Cutlass and came out with a FWD Cutlass killed all the good Olds cars like the 98, 88, Cutlass. They did such a bad job of Olds that they killed off the whole division.

GM piled a ton of $$$$ into the Intrigue and Aurora. Both were really good cars if you ever drove them. I had the chance to enjoy both on many occasions. The problem became cost. If you took an Intrigue and added the outstanding uplevel suspension and a pretty decent OHC V6 you had a car that went over $30,000.............back in the 90s. So if you had a really great Oldsmobile for $30,000 or would you pick a BMW 3 Series or a MB to put in your driveway? Same thing with the Aurora. It went over $40,000 with the V8. GM really did try here. Got crucified for it. And in the end died well before the bankruptcy. The only car that sold was the full size 88 and that was generally the bench seat model for the older folks that wanted a big Oldsmobile.

If you look at the history, they did not do a bad job at all. It's jus the historic problem GM has had for the past 30 years. Price a good car up to the point where you can have a German or Japanese Luxury brand in the driveway and GM loses that transaction. It's the reason why a really and truly great ATS and CTS aren't selling. GM went toe to toe with BMW on content and pricing and as of today.......................they are slowing the plant down because both cars are selling poorly.