Well, they didn’t kill the Corvette, but GM’s iced its performance tuning division. Automotive News [sub] reports on the car-nage.
GM today disbanded High Performance Vehicle Operations, which is based at the company’s suburban Detroit technical center, and redeployed its engineers, said spokesman Vince Muniga.
“All high-performance projects are on indefinite hold,” Muniga said. “The engineers are moving into different areas of the organization, and they will work on Cadillacs, Buicks, Chevrolets and Pontiacs.”
The recently mooted GM viability plan described Cadillac as “Performance Luxury with Aspirational Appeal.” Yes, well, the CTS-V and other V-variants will now soldier on without updates until . . . they don’t. By the same token, the veep describes Pontiac as “Youthful and Sporty.” So now we know that “sporty” will not be the same as “sports.”
Also on the shelf: the not so renowned HHR SS, the critically-acclaimed Cobalt SS and the Colorado V8. (The what?) Oh, and pistonheads hoping for a Camaro SS development program can go sing.
Muniga says The General’s hi-po specialists will have their souls sucked out of their bodies and then redeploy throughout the GM empire, annoying less G-whiz-oriented engineers and CAFE-crazed product developers with stories of “the good old days.”
“the good old days”
Indeed.
Any correlation between Lutz’s upcoming retirement and this announcement? Say what you want about Lutz, but it’s nice to have a ‘car guy’ around to vouch for projects like the CTS-V. The Cobalt SS has been getting a lot of really good press too
Of course there will be a Camaro SS, if the Camaro will ever come to market. All it needs it a couple of badges and stripes> The mid-70’s all over again….
Thats a damn shame. The best products GM has right now are its performance variants, each one of the a world class car. Everything from the ZR-1 to the Cobalt SS and even the Traiblazer SS were or had gotten good press. I agree with thetopdog that this might coincide with Lutz leaving because they no longer wanted him sticking up for good product. Really a shame.
So GM wants to be more like Toyota, with nothing but dullmobiles? They might as well file for chapter 7 and disband.
Good for them, I thought it was kinda disgusting that they were taking in government money for producing more green products on one hand , and cranking out absurd cars like the Cobolt SS on the other hand.
-Laying off designers and engineers that should be developing future product.
-Attempting to sell-off valuable positions in the Chinese market.
-Killing expensively established performance brands within the future GM brands (Chevrolet and Cadillac).
-Ending every application of the best non-V8 engine that GM makes (the direct injection, turbo, 260HP, 260LB.FT Ecotec I4 in the lame duck Solstice and Sky, and allegedly lame duct Cobalt SS and HHR SS).
Any Detroit apologists still think this is different than British Leyland?
GM needs Chapter 11 while there is still anything left to save.
GM has wasted billions on ill-conceived ventures. Is it any wonder their product development suffers and they have to cut back development.
Well, there goes any chances that GM will ever again offer a car I’d be the least bit interested in.
Not that we aren’t well on the way to banning performance cars from ALL makers via CAFE.
Looks like it’s to the used car searches for me, unless the Democrats manage to get rid of those too.
The newest CTS-V is a monster of value and incredible performance. Sames goes for the Cobalt SS. Isn’t there value in having these cars around to promote the brand’s ability to produce truly competitive cars and “street cred” for whatever that is worth. Also the new CTS-V cannot possibly pay for its recent development in only its first/last/only year. Why not keep it around in its current form for a few years as America’s M5? I know I know, hand built engine and all…but there has to be a more sensible alternative to just scraping the great product. These products are so good its almost worth the bailout bucks. Almost.
Hawver: “producing more green products on one hand , and cranking out absurd cars like the Cobolt SS on the other hand”
With EPA figures of 22/30 MPG, the Cobolt SS is one of GM’s green products, at least compared to their light trucks and larger cars.
GM doing what it has done for 30 years; cut costs.
GM needs to learn to invest for there to be anything worth saving. (Not just in the $$$$ sense either).
British Leyland indeed.
THIS is going to help the General? These products are developed, paid for, and now axed? Sad, this is. Whatever money is saved by this is like removing a glass of water from the Atlantic in the name of preventing floods. These cars gave GM something to crow about. Now, just crow to eat. While there are many parts of the Toyota model that are deserving of emulation, dullsville was not the part to take. How depressing.
Good for them, I thought it was kinda disgusting that they were taking in government money for producing more green products on one hand , and cranking out absurd cars like the Cobolt SS on the other hand.…
Couldn’t agree less on this. I’m way more environmentally progressive than most of the B&B but that statement makes no sense. The total number of hi po cars relative to the General’s production is so small that the difference in average fleet mileage is next to nothing. Really, what’s wrong with the Cobalt SS, at least from a performance prospective? Nothing a good interior can’t fix. Fast, Frugal, FUN.
There went the last reason for me and many others to continue to purchase GM products.
Yes, GM has lagged in many areas but affordable, fun and exciting performance has never been one of them. It’s always been one of GM’s strong suits and something they are good at. So what sense really does it make to disband the PVO team? Especially when SVT just released a refreshed Mustang GT500 and potent F150 Raptor?
Disbanding PVO isn’t going to make a big difference on GM’s bottom line. The move is more political than anything else.
PVO added some shine to GM’s mostly mediocre product portfolio. They took terrible cars like the Cobalt and turned them into something respectable and desirable. They took good cars like the CTS and made it into the machine it deserves to be.
This is just another example of GM not recognizing one good thing about their company and flushing more of their brand equity down the toilet.
With or without PVO GM is done anyway. It’s just a matter of time before the facade crumbles.
hawver, it doesn’t make sense to NOT make the products people actually want to buy from you, add desirability to your brands, and attractive positive media and consumer attention.
Especially when all of those products are already designed, engineered and paid for. PVO is a tuning group. They take existing products and make them better. The expenditure on it compared to GM’s bigger problems are peanuts and the value that is added is not debatable.
Ford produces a 540hp Mustang while also producing the hybrid Fusion, Escape and the economical Focus. Toyota also produces the gas-guzzling 380hp Tundra while selling the Prius. GM produces a load of four cylinder cars, has the Volt (whether you like it or not) and a few high performance variants. Toyota could not exist on “green” Prius sales alone and it’s small market which has been well documented here on TTAC.
Many GM fans are fans because of the high performance cars they are good at and famous for. The same with Ford. What happens to your brand when you stop producing what you are famous for and that people actually want to buy from you? You’ve just lost more customers and more reasons for existing.
The Camaro SS already exists as a product – it’s the V8 version of the 2010 model.
The rumored Z/28, on the other hand, is the one that we will need to mourn. That was likely going to be powered by the CTS-V’s supercharged LSA.
Ninja edit of the original post coming in 3… 2… 1…
@ca36gtp
You can keep your performance cars if you make your bread-and-better vehicles (your Camcords) more fuel efficient.
CAFE does, after all, stand for ‘Corporate Average Fuel Economy’.
Offset your fuel-sucker with your grossly underpowered beigemobile (hey, it works for the Japs).
@TriShield
Hasn’t it already been pointed out that the ‘halo cars’ aren’t the big sellers? Case-In-Point: Mercedes-Benz SLK. They sell more of the base model than any of the flash-and-bang models.
no_slushbox “Laying off designers and engineers that should be developing future product.
Attempting to sell-off valuable positions in the Chinese market.
Killing expensively established performance brands within the future GM brands (Chevrolet and Cadillac).
Any Detroit apologists still think this is different than British Leyland?
GM needs Chapter 11 while there is still anything left to save.”
Very well said!
I was beginning to think that I was the only one that thought that lack of forsight and helter skeltor cost cutting got GM into the uncomfortible position that it finds itself in now.Why kill the only apparent shinning light? They are apparently in a flat spin and can’t sem to regain control
@hughie522
Again, PVO took existing products and made a performance trim level for them using existing parts from the GM bin.
It was not an expensive operation by any stretch of the imagination. Those sales added to each model’s bottom line and attracted people to GM, their brands, and their showrooms.
The operation isn’t going to save GM any meaningful amount of money but what it will cost GM is a lot of interest in their products. Affordable performance is the sole reason that thousands of people are GM fans and buy their products.
Morons.
Well, there goes my dream of the Pelosi 5000 GTS Turbo…err…no…wait……
It was the only thing GM had going for them. It will be interested if reshuffling these guys into other places in development will have the PVO guys enhancing run of the hill products, or if the other engineers will suck the life out of the PVO guys.
This isn’t about saving money, this is about saving face with people who know nothing about the auto industry. It looks good to say “we completely cut our performance division and models” to people who don’t know how meaningless this is in the grand scheme of things.
This just proves that now Minumum Rick finally gets it, he’s fighting for his life but has squandered all his ammunition with no replenishment in sight. So now he’s starting to lay down his guns to show how much he wants peace. Too little, too late.
After shooting off both of it’s feet, GM leaders have taken a circular saw and are going to work on the rest of the legs – they won’t stop until there are just 2 bloody stumps.
You’re doin’ a heck of a job, Ricky.
Where does it say that GM will discontinue the currently offered high performance variants?
Where does it say that they won’t develop new ones?
It says the dedicated division is going away. That’s it.
I suspect that any curtailing of high performance vehicles or variants will have more to do with soon to be mandated C02 standards than it does the lack of a dedicated division.
And thereby dies all remaining interest I had in GM’s survival.
How much will this save? Or is it applying the skills of the engineers to other products?
The returns should be handsome. The V series Cadillacs are what have made them interesting. And the Cobalt SS is a cheap pocket rocket…the heir of the old 327 powered Novas (L79?). I am not big on vastly expensive halo vehicles, but I see these more as standard-bearers than halo vehicles.
This means the G8 will not become a future Impala/Caprice.
And thus, in only one year, the 2009 CTS-V will become a modern classic, and a ledgend in its own right.
The one truly special car (an actual car, not including the ZR1, which is a damned toy) GM has put on the road in as long as I have been alive since the Buick GNX, is gone. Which, oddly enough, was a one year special as well… hmm..
Oh well, can somebody please cue the swans???
The original post left the mistake impression that GM was withdrawing its performance cars from the market. In fact, they are going to let them rot on the vine.
I have amended the text.
ajla: I won’t beleive the Camaro is going to exist until I see it on dealer lots.
All is right in the world again, as GM goes back to building cars I will never consider buying.
GM is going back to building bland oridinary cars without Toyota or Honda quality.
Well, at least Roger Smith can rest easily now knowing he is no longer GM’s worse CEO.
The original V-series cars were developed without a seperate division, as were all the performance variants of yesteryear…
This move has nothing to do with GM’s capability to produce high performance vehicles if they choose to.
Disbanding PVO isn’t going to make a big difference on GM’s bottom line. The move is more political than anything else.
This. It’s moral projection, what Americans do best. You should be driving something “green,” at or under the speed limit, and in a docile fashion. And God help them, now that our congressman have a car company to control, that’s what it’ll be producing!
If anyone thinks this is either about money or market share, that would be a mistake.
This is entirely about appeasing the liberal Democrats who are holding the purse strings for the continued survival of GM’s management.
This is just the start of letting the politicians dictate product.
But, for Wagoner and his crew, product no longer matters. The future of GM is not in selling cars. It is in using the UAW as a club to keep Congress funding GM’s continuing losses.
Selling something that might be a fun car, fun to drive, and that might sell would not help that purpose.
Democrats don’t want cars to be fun. They hate cars. Had they been around at the time, the Model T would have been banned.
GM now exists solely as a conduit of federal taxpayer money to the UAW’s members and retirees.
@car_czar – i agree, there is no need for a PVO department for these types of vehicles to be created and marketed.
and by the way – has anyone actually seen a new cts-v on any lots? i guess the detuned zr-1 version is only a one-year model run now? get ’em while you can gents.
Let’s see what the ex-PVO team can do with the Aveo. 30 seconds minimum off ‘Ring lap times.
Just found on napkin in coffee house!!!
1. Build bland, unexciting, and typically poor quality cars.
2. Really focus on #1.
…
5. Profit!
Democrats don’t want cars to be fun. They hate cars. Had they been around at the time, the Model T would have been banned.
…
Ha, that is a statement that is lacking in accuracy (how’s that for avoiding the flame police). That’s as accurate as saying all Conservatives are narrow minded selfish pigs. I am decidedly left of center and I love fun performance cars. Most Democrats would just like to see effective mass transit as well. And making bread and butter cars reasonably efficient wouldn’t hurt either. America needs to get over its “bigger is always better” mentality. Anybody who really derives pleasure from a fine driving machine knows that the ultimate enemy of performance is not Pelosi but weight
Packard has it mostly right, I think. Most of the American government, left and right, dislikes performance cars. This is an appeasement move.
If you take the government’s money, you have to build government-approved cars.
Still, the current CTS-V is fast enough and it, like the ZR1, may simply never be surpassed in history.
Hello irrelevance.
Seth L :
I live in Ontario Canada , 20mins from Oshawa and I have seen more than 1 camaro driving the streets, and also seen them on autohaul rigs being shipped.
GM has no soul anymore.
Despite the nashing of teeth about the damned gubmit taking away red blooded americans right to own a sports car, this situation is simple. GM cannot afford to make unprofitable boutique products. If PVO does not make money, kill it. If the money and effort can be better spent on improving the company’s bread and butter products, kill it. It is not like it cannot be revived later (if GM survives).
-Laying off designers and engineers that should be developing future product.
According to Autoblog’s coverage of this, the PVO engineers have been redistributed to other projects within GM. It sucks that the dedicated performance division is gone for now, but if it means that GMs best engineers are now working on high-volume products then we may have to concede that this was a good idea beyond political posturing.
I’d like to think that maybe something good could come from this. Perhaps the distribution of these performance oriented engineers will add some competition among the brands. Perhaps this could lead to the day when a Buick engine is significantly better/worse/different than a Chevy engine because of different engineering. Much as I wish for this I think the cold reality of it is that GM is just caving to the whims of the liberal, American car hating teet that’s currently feeding them. What better way to get bailout money from your new eunuch overlords than neutering yourself? Perhaps this is the “pussification of America” that George Carlin was talking about. I’m just glad I purchased my Impala SS while I (still legally) could.
I can understand everybody’s disdain with the demise of one of the few reason’s to consider GM car; but to lay all of this at the feet of the Democrats is nothing short of being reactionary, narrow-minded, and exceptionally simp
Which group, exactly, was in congressional power the last 12 years, and were in lockstep with their fearless leader, Dumbass One for the past 8? Oh, that’s right, Republicans. I guess their brand of, “Kiss my ass, Middle Class,” economics had nothing to do with this? Right, and I have been living in the same hole right wingers have been living in.
Their is also the small fact that nobody put a gun to GM’s head and said build the GTM platforms, invest as much as they did on trucks instead of actual cars, build the Caterra, let the F-body stagnate, build the Aztec, let the Japanese own the Hybrid market like it was their bitch, ditch build quality for a cheap buck, allow the Japanese to own the V-6 market, “This is our Country,” marketing, and generally style their cars to appeal to only the most discriminating of redneck tastes. Way to alienate anybody who gives a shit about cars, GM (the same goes for the other 1.8, or is it 1.5 now?)
And some how the one nice car GM builds in 22 years is getting shut down and it is all Barak’s fault? Quaint.
We can always hope that the PVO guys sprinkled around the rest of GM will imbue their lower trim-line products with more dynamic confidence. GM’s always had noteworthy top-of-the-line products but even those were hamstrung by the thorough crappiness of the cheaper siblings. The Cobalt SS would be far more successful if it didn’t have to fight against the bottom feeder reputation of the typical LT. If people thought well enough of the LT to buy it on its own merits then the SS would pay for itself. The halo car idea doesn’t work well with the savvy customer and those are the people who end up paying more to buy regular Civics and Corollas.
Make the regular models as surprisingly good as the SS and a performance version would pay for itself. Catering to the undiscriminating buyer on one end and the particular enthusiast on the other just leaves a huge Mazda3-sized hole in the middle.
According to Autoblog’s coverage of this, the PVO engineers have been redistributed to other projects within GM.
If I had to guess, most of these engineers will be gainfully employed with other automakers within a year.
@Packard, @Jack Baruth:
Not much driving excitement on this list: January 2009 top 10 sellers. Americans have voted with their wallets for trucks and appliances, nary a corner carver on the list.
Ford F-Series: 25,237
Chevy Silverado: 23,987
Toyota Camry: 20,782
Toyota Corolla: 19,238
Honda Accord: 16,581
Honda Civic: 14,198
Nissan Altima: 14,135
Honda CR-V: 13,143
Dodge Ram: 12,853
Chevy Malibu: 9,312
This sounds like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
Why put your best engineers on the execrable Aveo?
Oh, wait a minute, the Aveo was engineered in Korea. I guess that is their problem.
I was initially a little outraged by this but I might agree with the change in the end. They’re still going to be selling the CTS-V, Cobalt SS, etc… for the immediate future, and that’s fine for a few years so long as they can swing a few minor interior changes. I think they’re in a relatively good position to milk these products for a bit considering their performance relative to respective classes.
In the meantime I hope GM will (hopefully) excercise those employees in the right way, giving them active participation in product assesment and development wherever they are.
If new cars come to market succesfully (such as the Cruze, Beat, whatever) then I certainly hope GM has the good sense to bring everyone back for full-time performance tuning once again instead of just slapping stripes and gills on economy cars.
Maybe I missed something, but I think this only matters to cars in development. They didn’t say anything about stopping selling the performance cars they’ve already engineered and have in production. Regardless, I’m not too happy about this development.
actually, I’m not actually that optimistic. They just broke up a team of talented people and will doubtlessly scatter them about in various subordinate positions. A far better course would have been delegating this same team greater responsibility within the company, possibly making redundant, but hopefully training, those that they outperform.
Richard Chen: Not much driving excitement on this list: January 2009 top 10 sellers. Americans have voted with their wallets for trucks and appliances, nary a corner carver on the list.
The benefit isn’t necessarily in huge sales figures. A strong performance version – done properly, of course – burnishes the image of the rest of the line. The Civic, for example, gets an image boost from Si variants. The Si versions prevent the Civic LXs and EXs from being looked at as boring and stodgy…like the Corolla.
Even during the 1960s, relatively few performance cars were sold. The reason that Hemi Mopars are worth so much TODAY is because very few people could afford them when they were brand new. If people had wanted 25,000 Hemi-equipped 1968 Plymouth Road Runners, Chrysler would have found a way to build them. But even in the 1960s, the Hemi had an awesome reputation, and sold many lesser Plymouths and Dodges.
The Pontiac GTO sold relatively well, but its sales were always dwarfed by the sales of the garden-variety LeMans and Tempest. The difference is that the GTO made those regular Pontiac intermediates seem much sportier and more glamorous.
The original Mustang was largely sold with inline sixes and mild V-8s…it’s only within the last 15-20 years that we have come to view it as a “muscle car.” And even today, it’s the V-6 versions that make the car viable for Ford.
The bottom line for GM is that it has preferred to focus on the “fun stuff” while treating the mass market models as red-headed stepchildren. That’s partially how it got into this mess in the first place, and with the government keeping the lights on, it has every right to ask the company whether this is the wisest use of development dollars.
When GM profitably produces a regular Cobalt as good as a Civic, and an Equinox as good as a RAV-4, then it can focus on the fun stuff.