GM's turnaround hoe-down– complete with disastrous May sales numbers– is less than 24 hours away. Ahead of that blessed event, the General's generals are busy shoring-up the company's defenses. Today's preemptive announcement: Chevy's getting a new small car! The General's spinmeisters chose Automotive News [AN, sub] as the PR vehicle of choice: "General Motors will unveil a Chevrolet compact car at an auto show this fall, with production slated to begin early next year, say sources familiar with GM's product program." Whoa! Yes, this pint-sized Hail Mary will be a Delta [platform] queen built in Lordstown, Ohio. The "we don't know if it'll replace the Cobalt" compact car will use GM's new turbocharged 1.4-liter four cylinder global engine– shared amongst Chevrolet, Pontiac, Saturn, Opel and Daewoo. Ever the unquestioning GM shill optimist, AN predicts that "the Lordstown plant could build cars for export." Meanwhile, GM's considering bringing the Beat minicar stateside. Pysch! No really. "It isn't definitively on there as a go product," says AM's editors source, "but there is a lot of inside chatter and it's on the consideration list."
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I’ve got my fingers crossed for a rebadged G3 personally. Chevy would sell a ton of those.
Yes, replace the Cobalt.
Please.
I’m confused. How would this not be the Cobalt replacement? It’s not going to be a 20-25k premium compact with a 1.4T. The only reason not to cut the Cobalt is having to prematurely kill the SS Turbo, which just came out.
1.4T … sweet!
tulsa_97sr5 :
“I’ve got my fingers crossed for a rebadged G3 personally. Chevy would sell a ton of those.”
I lol’d hard at this. The concept of recursive badge-engineering is a mind boggler :)
Thanks Tulsa!
The Geo Metro is back!
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
It’d be interesting to see what this new compact is all about…especially if GM beats Ford at the turbocharging game.
Let’s play this out; here’s the Canadian Chevy showroom:
Aveo (hatch, sedan)
Optra (hatch, sedan, wagon)
Cobalt (coupe, sedan)
HHR (ok, Cobalt wagon)
That’s not even counting the Pontiac Wave (hatch, sedan), Pursuit/G5 (coupe, sedan) and Vibe.
Seven models–wait, I forgot the Astra, that’s eight–and not even combined do they outsell the Civic (sedan. period. full stop). And–you can bet on it–not all, if any, of these will be out of production. With this many models, is it any wonder that none of them get decent marketing support, let along competitive engineering?
Can I get a job at GM product planning? I, too, for six figures a year, can throw stuff at a wall to see if it sticks.
Lordstown, Ohio – hey isn’t that where GM made the Vega???
It seems they were kicking the idea of the “Beat” around for well over a year — starting back in March of 2007, when the price of gas was really causing some concerns!
http://www.thecarconnection.com/Car_Shows_and_Concept_Cars/Concept_Cars/GM_Makes_Trax_-_and_Groove_Beat_-_for_NY.S283.A12134.html
“I, too, for six figures a year, can throw stuff at a wall to see if it sticks.”
knee-slapper!
I’ve never understood this, either. It’s beyond cannibalism and into a whole new ballpark(that wouldn’t be very PC to announce on such a public forum).
Instead of making one GOOD car, let’s throw together a crappy platform and throw 4-5 crappy cars on top.
1 car. Hatch, Coupe, Sedan. Maybe a few different trim levels. Done.
I understand that a few imports have excess small-car experience (for reasons that are a debate in itself), but is it really THAT hard to develop an affordable, efficient, reliable, safe, small car?
Hopefully this is a replacement for the Aveo. Yeah, the Aveo’s sales are competitive with the Yaris, but the Cobalt gets similar enough mileage to compete with the Aveo while being a larger, faster, better looking car.
You know, Buick doesn’t have a small car yet, so maybe Chevy will get this new compact, and GM will turn the Cobalt into a Buick… or Cadillac. Yeah… a new Cimarron… that’ll be a good idea….
If the car isn’t as good as a Honda Civic, everyone involved should be fired.
GM needs accountability.
truthbetold37:
That’s been the case for the past 15 or 20 years. Same for Ford and Chrysler.
If the car isn’t as good as a Honda Civic, everyone involved should be fired.
Yes but likely GM’s guiding market-segmentation philosophy will be “Anyone who makes more than minimum wage should be buying an Impala — let’s make sure they’d never want to be caught dead in this thing”.
Hence the crap-by-design theme that gave us the Aveo.
“General Motors will unveil a Chevrolet compact car at an auto show this fall, with production slated to begin early next year…”
Excuse my ignorance but how is this even possible?
Even if this is in production somewhere else in the world how can it be done so quickly? Announcement to production in less than a year?
But if the decision was made a long time ago why wasn’t it announced before?
Someone please enlighten me … it seems like things don’t add up. Is it just BS baffling brains or are they just changing the badge on the grill?
Oh, great. The Cobalt gets a facelift with new sheet metal and a new name.