Sounds like GM is really on the right track. As long as all these new products dont have plastic interiors and look the same.

Hopefully Ford has its eyes open and does something similar

I would disagree with bringing the CTS up to compete with the 5 series. They need to keep the CTS small & nimble to beat the 3 series on value & quality. The STS needs to be upgraded to compete with the 5 series.

And a YES YES to the rear drive platforms…

im with rene curry on this one the CTS is a 3 series rival and the STS is a 5 series rival they should also put the purple car above which ive forgotten the name of into production. is it a holden???

I’m gonna have to agree with Rene Curry on that too. Ive always saw the CTS as a 3 series competitor, not the 5 series, leave that to the STS

It seems like GM is about to kill their best platform

A rear wheel drive G6 seems really cool, I agree with rene curry and homeboy, why move the CTS upmarket? The STS is the 5 series rival, if the CTS moves into that market where will they STS go? will it be desinged to rival the 7 series and S class?

I’m just opposed to the idea of an Alpha Saturn, leave the Alpha platform to Cadillac and Pontiac only

notice they didnt Mention Buick or Saab

This article left out the fact that the DTS and the Lucerne are both moving to zeta for the 2010/2011 model year. My 300C will be due for retirement then and if it looks as good as the Enclave and Velite show car I’ll probably give the v8 buick a look.

Looks like great things are in the future for GM!

I totally agree with moving CTS to the “modified” Zeta, it’s a much more refined platform. Killing the STS and moving the CTS upmarket seems rather silly to me though. The CTS should stay on the upper-side of midsized and compete with the A4 and 3-series. Give the STS a new generation and make that the 5-series killer.

A shame we will have to wait for the RWD G6, but when it comes it should be VERY nice! An affordable mid-sized RWD V6 car, can’t go wrong. And if they actually make a worthwhile G6 GXP on it, HELL YEA! I’m very excited about the Alpha platform. This plus the G8 makes Pontiac look like a serious performance competitor in the future, the way it SHOULD have been for years.

Saturn should NOT get the Alpha, though. GM needs to stop this idea that when they design a new car, EVERY brand needs to get a copy of it. Saturn should remain FWD while Pontiac goes RWD to cut down on brand overlap that GM suffers from greatly.

Off-topic: Homeboy…is that you? You’re acting rather adult here and in other threads…and to be frank…it’s kinda freaking me out. To answer your question though, the purple car in the pic is the Holden Torana, on the Alpha platform. If you want to know what the RWD G6 might look like, that’s probably a good car to use as reference.

Maybe they want to move the CTS up because the STS has pretty much been a colossal failure. The CTS and its reputation (better than the STS, anyways) goes upmarket, and a new, more modern car fills the void.

Kinda makes sense, I guess.

Brendino, unfortunately it seems that the new car filling the void will be the ugly, small BLS which should never have been a Cadillac anyway. Caddy might make a good profit off an upscale CTS, but they will suffer in the long run if they rely on the BLS to bring in buyers.

Some good to great moves, some not. The dilution of the CTS model into everything from a BMW 6 series competitor to a wagon? I think not. A bit of a pipe dream, but the CTS is the savior of Cadillac…Cadillac just needs to get other models up to par versus taking the CTS and wonking the piss out of it.

Picking up Frome’s comment…
Saab should be the ‘BMW fighter’, and Cadillac should focus on traditional American luxury. Let me spell it out for GM:
P-R-OD-U-C-T D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T-I-A-T-I-O-N! Not every brand needs to sell in every possible market. The last thing GM needs is a new Cadillac competing against the 9-5!

Buick will continue to be the official car of the ‘Greatest Generation’ and follow them into the sunset.

Well when Top Gear first reviewed the CTS, they compared it to the 5 series BMW, the E Class Benz, and the Audi A6.

The CTS wagon variant is great news. I like the post-SRX strategy a lot. There’s a lot of Volvo/Audi/BMW owner conquer potential there.

the BLS is just a saab 9-3 in drag

“I’m just opposed to the idea of an Alpha Saturn, leave the Alpha platform to Cadillac and Pontiac only” - Comment by George Bush, posted on May7 at 9:07 am
Agreed wholeheartedly : FWD is more economical for GM and tends to be better suited for buyers more interested in feature content and safety as opposed to performance engineering. Unfortunately, as a matter of saving costs, Saturn will likely continue to follow the plan of being the American Opel. This is something of a dual-edged razor blade for GM: on the one hand, Saturn is tied into Opel to save GM money and boost Saturn’s image which in turn is aimed at boosting sales. This type of badge engineering is not only OK, but desired since the USA clearly wants Opel’s cars but can’t get them any other way. On the other hand, Opel and Saturn are designed for different consumer targets, so compromises like an Alpha-based Saturn are inevitable. I imagine GM will attempt to temper this by softening the Saturn Alphas with a more luxury-oriented packaging strategy while saving the performance tuning for the likes of Cadillac and Pontiac.
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I can’t say how pleased I am about this latest news. I know it’s taking time for GM’s next golden age, but it took Volvo and Mazda 5+ years for Ford to turn them around too. There are no words to express the pride I feel when I keep reading about how GM is stepping up to the plate. I can’t wait to be reading this stuff about Ford too. The competition is world-class now, and has been for a number of years. All I have to say to the Americans right now is “Welcome back to the party.. we missed you.” I really love the idea of the next-gen G6 being based off the Holden Torena; it feels like GM has really woken up to the concept of building what people want. I’ve been wanting a V8 RWD Sedan with a manual tranny that can keep up with BMW without having to break the bank for years, and now there’s a G8 GT in the future with my name on it. Talk about love at first sight.

I hear ya, Kapt. I started following the G8 the moment Motor Trend started talking about the Commodore being rebadged and made some chops. I drooled over the Commodore SS for months, and then when the G8 was finally released, it was even BETTER than I had hoped! It may not be right away, but I WILL own that car! I’ll take mine in GT trim with a 6-speed, thank you very much! And the next day, I’ll be placing my order for the GenTT twin turbo kit they sell in Australia for the Monaro and Commodore.

Can’t want but I’ll keep eying the VOLT for my next day car, but a BLS-V (likely a turbo six rather than a V8) sounds utterly cool for my next toy.

FORD! GET IN THE GAME ALREADY!!!!

Wait…Ford is still in business?

Apparently not so much in the car biz anymore in the US. Every time GM comes out with a piece of Car news FORD counters with two pieces of truck news. It’s really frustrating sometimes.

It’s a sad realization that the only Ford car in 10 years that’s excited me has been a Lincoln (the MKR).

Sounds like a great plan to me.
Redesigned rwd BLS = 3-series fighter
Updated CTS sedan = 5-series fighter
CTS coupe = 6-series fighter
RWD Zeta DTS = 7-series fighter
CTS wagon = X3 or possibly X6 fighter
BRX = X5 fighter
Should be an easy win for Cadillac since they have great style and design and German cars are soul-less.
I just can’t wait for a rwd BLS-V coupe with a 430hp LS3 V8 that gets 30mpg like the new corvette.

I forgot to add that they need a Z4/SLK competitor. That would be awesome!

This is interesting information.. but I’m not sure I understand the “post-SRX strategy”.. why eliminate this vehicle in favor of a CTS wagon and smaller FWD crossover? The SRX is very competitive with the X5 and M-class, a FWD BRX would not compete in the same class, nor would a CTS wagon, which would be aimed more at the Saab 9-5 and BMW 3-wagons.

Everything I’d hoped for. Bring it on, GM.

Even more good news from GM.

“Everything I’d hoped for. Bring it on, GM.” - Comment by Hyperion, posted on May7 at 7:13 pm
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Amen.
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“I hear ya, Kapt. I started following the G8 the moment Motor Trend started talking about the Commodore being rebadged and made some chops. I drooled over the Commodore SS for months, and then when the G8 was finally released, it was even BETTER than I had hoped! It may not be right away, but I WILL own that car! I’ll take mine in GT trim with a 6-speed, thank you very much! And the next day, I’ll be placing my order for the GenTT twin turbo kit they sell in Australia for the Monaro and Commodore.” - Comment by PrimeGTP, posted on May7 at 3:11 pm
You and me both. You describe very much how I myself feel about this car - particularly when you say it was better than you had hoped. That hit me too.. with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the head. I remember saying to myself: “Wow.. I couldn’t have imagined. It’s about damned time the sleeping giant woke up.” Finding myself impressed wasn’t where I put my chips down after the launches of what strikes me as a lackluster G6 (sans the GXP: at least that version has spunk) and a Solstice that doesn’t quite go far enough. And these are cars built for Pontiac, a nameplate which has long since taken one wrong turn after the other from the “We Build Driving Excitement” expressway of it’s heyday. Seriously, fire and deport the asswipe that begged for the Torrent - he’s likely the very same coked-out loser that annoyed us with the Montana minvan, and freaked us out with that ‘tarded circus clown-infested ****box. We dare not speak it’s guilt-ridden name, but survivors occasionally refer to it as the Aztek.

Anyway, when I saw the cover on Motor Trend detailing the machine what was fated to be the ying to the Grad Prix’s yang — as was the case with the G6 replacing the Grand Am — I was intrigued, but couldn’t help thinking that once again, GM insults our intelligence with styling *and* engineering that, to say it’s watered-down, would be something of a “misunderestimation”. So as you can tell, I wasn’t exactly what you would call “thrilled” by the rendering, but I’d never heard of Holden before and instinctively began to wonder if GM was about to pull another Opel/Saturn deal out of it’s collective hat. At the very least, that cover story was enough to introduce me to Holden and start doing some homework on them. What I learned over the next few weeks prompted me to endlessly think: “Somebody tell me again: exactly WHY can’t we have vehicles of this caliber in the in the USA from the Americans…?” It was insulting. Indeed, it felt very much like the patronizing notion I get when I think about the sexy Ford Mondeo. (OK, so FWD, but whatever.) The more I learned about Holden, the more I became a silent advocate for bringing them here with Pontiac’s touch.

Enter the teaser I saw of the G8 when Rick Wagoner pulled off a little bit of cover for ABC news. To say I was drooling at the potential of this car would be something of an understatement; no one from GM need meet me to know they really hit this one out of the park. After being held prisoner (in a manner of speaking) to FWD for my entire life, this ignited my passion for driving not seen since I was a kid watching Knight Rider. Picking up a 2009 G8 GT configured my specs will be the best thing to happen to me on the road since earning my license. Granted, I’m 26 so I’ve been driving only a decade, but I’ve driven V8 RWD machines before and there’s simply no comparison once you’ve been behind the wheel of a beast like the Mustang Shelby GT500. It’d be like choosing auto over stick - I’m a control freak so this manumatic approximation junk and paddle shifting crap just isn’t for me. Currently, I drive a Mazda3 (in that cool Winning Blue color) and very much appreciate a driver’s car that doesn’t stop me from taking vacations of the road-trip variety. I’ve been on Mazda for years because they build the closest thing I can get to my kind of car - I selected the 3 to tide me (and my wallet) over while I waited for the Aura to be out on the market for a couple of years. My first car was a 1997 Saturn SC1, and I have very much wanted to go back to GM.. great experience all-around for me, but not since then has GM built a car worthy of my business. When I found out stick wasn’t available on any trim of the Aura, I was subsequently crushed. Well, not really, but entirely disappointed all the same.

Then the clouds parted and the sun shined graceful: LLN featured the near-production ready concept of the G8 GT in all it’s glory, and I was beyond floored; I was star-struck and have been ever since. So much so that I called my best friend on the spot and spent the better part of the next two hours discussing GM, it’s history, and now it’s future in our respective garages. It’s as though GM stopped me on the street and asked me to fire off deal-breakers for my fantasy dream car. A four-door sedan with a muscular V8, RWD, 6-Speed Stick (with precision shift action by Tremec, no less) Fully Independent Gran Turismo-style Suspension, Vented Discs front & rear, VSC, and NAV system — with GM’s name to back it up — and all for notably less than 35K?

Sign me up yesterday.

i bet not a lot of its true, i wish it was though

yes homeboy its the Holden Torana tt36 concept from the 2004 Sydney motorshow

Once again Aussie cars RULE!

————>hey i was watchin “Autoline Detroit” this morning, and how about i found out something new about Bob Lutz: he doesn’t know how to pronounce Camaro!!lol I got a good laugh off of that one, he didn’t say Camaro, he pronounced it “Com-R-oww”, sort of like “tommorrow”…..lol it was soo funny 2 me…..

——>and then again i did forget he is from switzerland….

So that’s the scoop. Cool.

Lots of Movement happening at GM. Sounds good, but in the end I’m sure I’ll be dissapointed with what actually happens

Let’s hope not…