lmo: 215 v8 in my Miata would be pretty cool. If I read right, you can get over 200 hp out of it. They got 185 hp with carbs back in the day, so if I could put FI on it, I should push 205+. Very cool ride.
Can they just rebirth this? As is:
http://video.ak.fbcdn.net/cfs-ak-snc6/232009/1019/1935327315229_32767.mp4?oh=d5c2ad747647ca1e8928d4de88eded7f&oe=4DF2C700&__gda__=1307756288_f5a93af4867c3b558e1ac8512b67455a
lmo: 215 v8 in my Miata would be pretty cool.
wull, yeahhh… but would it pass Canadian “smog” regs (are there any?) ?? No way if it were in California… I’m looking for a pre-'68 Cortina, or other “Ford” product, just so I don’t have to meet EPA regs… . . (cut off all the parts that are useable (including the VIN tag)) and scrap the rest… thinking “Miller-like” vehicle… 1600cc, 4 banger, cross-flow head, dual weber, dry sump… . basically a 230hp Lotus Cortina on a diet (1,500 pounds)… 
Lew: I love your idea…maybe you should move to Canada. I don’t know what the law says, but we have no regular smog testing. If I did toss a 215 in the Miata though, I would have to have FI and a cat. I feel a certain moral obligation.
I duuno about Quebec but we do in Ontario. Not sure the rules but know cars older than 20 years I think are exempt. duuno how often for newer but think it’s every 4 years or something.
R
GM to ditch the European organisations Opel and Vauxhall, again?
:
Considering sale to chinese competitors, as the european organisations
continue to amount losses.
Are they trying to scare workforce and customers away, or ar they serious
this time around?
I could have purchased an Opel Insignia OPC instead of the Audi, but I need
a partner, that is there 5 years from now, at least - probably- there.
mo-i
I’m totally confused. Lutz said he was disappointed to see Chrysler slide right back into their old ways after he left and it seems like GM is intent on destroying itself again. They should be tossed into the looney bin on suicide watch.
I’ve watched, with interest, the diverging paths taken by Volvo, Saab and Jag/LR. Jag/LR has been completely stabilized by Tata money and the head office has essentially guaranteed the company for years by signing off dev. budgets for new models. Saab, and to an extent Volvo, have been pitching around in an ocean of uncertainty: desperately looking for money, labor shortages, suppliers cutting shipments, nervous looking employees at shows. I love the new 9-5 and thought about looking for a used 9-3, but the company is so unstable. I don’t know how any company can be turned around in that condition.
Another thing with Opel…how come Ford Europe was Ford’s only profitable wing for years and GM can’t turn Opel around? They should look at their management team before cutting & running.
I’d kill for that Opel Insignia wagon. Beautiful car. Why can’t something like that come here? Look how well the A4 and A6 wagons sell. That would be a great alternative, for likely substantially less.
It must be too beautiful for American taste. Or at least that’s what some deranged executives think.
Cameron: I’m convinced there is some shady little department in the US government that doesn’t allow really incredibly well designed cars or other products into the country. Some kind of domestic stimulus program…
This is just from the top of my head, but is GM’s only wagon offering the $40k+ cts wagon? (not counting compacts/hatchbacks)
I hope they dont base the “american appetite for wagons” off of those sales which go right up against BMW/Audi wagons who have established themselves there already.
I would buy the USA version of that opel wagon, or i would at least want to buy it 
Yeah. I would definitely buy that wagon used in 3 or 4 years.
GM has been opening new storefront dealers all over Seoul this year. More than any other brand. A new one pops up every week. The advertising and PR budget alone is more than any other campaign being advertised (subway, TV, Radio, Internet and especially print). But the reality on the road tells a different story.
All the new models that are actually being purchased and driven on the streets of Seoul are Kia, BMW, and the Daewoo brand equivalent.
“Shebrolae” is how the are telling Seoulites to pronounce the brand. GM/Chevrolet is all dressed up but has nowhere to go in Seoul.
They got rid of the Daewoo brand?
Daewoo is still a middleweight on the roadways of Korea. However, I see more and more Chevrolet branded cars on the roads here in Korea everyday. Particularly the Chevy Spark vs Daewoo Matiz in the sub-compact category.
I read last night that Chevy will sell around 4-5 million cars this year. If Chevy was independent, that would put the Chevy brand as the sixth or seventh largest car make. The Cruze has been a huge success, estimates are 600k in sales for 2011. That put its it in the global top 3 (Focus, Golf, Cruze).
Also, the successful products are coming from Korea. The Cruze was largely developed in Korea and there is a new small car in the works there.
GM stuck with the Suburban Crowd ?
As I work my way through Maximum Bobs lovely new book a lot of questions pop up.
I’ll indulge in some of them later, but what got my head wandering
this night was the question: "What ever happenned to the Volt?
Well, it certainly isn’t selling all that well…
Looks like they are unable to reach even the modest sales task of 11.000 this year.
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/06/03/chevy-volt-sales-whats-going-on/
They shift tripple the number in Subarbans alone. Looks like the “leftist elite crowd”
as Lutz is calling them, just doesn’t shop at the General, snapping up Prii and Leafes
instead.
Is this a technical or psychological problem?
mo-i
I believe it’s partly due to the fact that they’re very expensive (right?) and tough to get right now (also, right?)
I don’t see many people flocking to the Leaf, though.
There are 14,000,000 (that’s million, with a big M) unemployed Americans right now … who is supposed to be buying these things? I’m guessing it isn’t the average working-class family with an average income of $40K or less, or even the average middle-class family with $60K (that’s GROSS income).
With an MSRP of $41K on the Volt, and $37K on the Leaf (which are basically makes-me-feel-good town cars) … throw in an essentially non-existent electro-car infrastructure and it isn’t too hard to understand why they aren’t being snapped up. Is it?
The Federal tax credit should be helping sales, but to be honest, I don’t think that is too honest to begin with. The Federal gubamint is already spending way too much, on way too many services, projects, bailouts, etc. to be supplementing a privately offered product that should either stand on it’s own, or fail.
mo-i: Bob was worried about this happening. The knee-jerk reaction of the average American to a good product from GM/Ford/Chrysler is “What are they hiding?”. There is a lot of built-up (and somewhat well-deserved) ill-will to the Big 3 in the US/Canada. Think of Audi in between '75 and '95. They were building better and better cars, but everyone thought they couldn’t. Finally, it all clicked one day and Audi jumped into the Mercedes/BMW conversation.
The good part about the Volt is that GM has an answer now. The next time someone challenges the GM CEO or President over the environment, they can mention the Volt. Before their answer was long and complicated talking about the small improvements they were making across a broad product line. It didn’t fit into the caption underneath the photo, therefore, no one read it. Now the newspaper can print a photo of the Volt with the caption “GM pushing ahead with super clean Volt in spite of poor demand”. Oh…the self-sacrafice! What angels!
As Lew said too, the Leaf is bombing. It’s a demographics/economics thing. When things were going well, middle class families invested in a Prius in place of a Camry or entry level Lexus. Now, those families are buying Cruzes, Focus, Elantras. They are buying the same size car, but as cheap as possible. That’s moved the game onto Fisker and Tesla. Perhaps the millionaires will be willing to take a chance on an oddball electric car at the $100k-$150k price point.