I thought the Lambda crossovers were the replacements for the minivans? GM should not do this, their minivan track record is very poor.

Yay, more badge engineering.

The Enclave, Outlook and Acadia look to be GMs most promising vehicles in years. I can’t wait to see them at the LA auto show in December

What are Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna Sales Figures?
The Ford S-Max is getting people in Europe who would never buy Fords or Minivans to buy Ford Minivans

Another FWD vehicle for GMC.. bad idea! Especially since its a minivan!

“The company — which made a name for itself creating “professional grade” products for heavy-duty use — has never sold a minivan in the past”

Is the GMC Safari not a minivan? I always thought it was.

Wow, there are some very uninformed posters here. GM building their new minivans on the Lambda platform is a pretty good idea. Use one platform but have many different vehicles, much like Toyota. And this will not be a “rebadge”, rebadges are clearly identical vehicles with different badges. Outlook, Enclave, and Acadia clearly aren’t rebadges.

And to the person who said “Another FWD vehicle for GMC..”, yes it’s true GMC will be getting more FWD vehicles, I agree that I dont like it. But GM will be bringing Zeta(RWD) in MY 2009, and they’ll have a variety of platforms.

Ugh! Another FWD vehicle that I will not step into. And to think that GMC is making the Acadia FWD…just ugh!

To Mike-

Yea I thought of that too, but they consider it a Passenger/Fullsize Van, not a Minivan.

I believe they made the Safari back in the 90’s, but maybe that’s considered a fullsize van rather than a minivan. Yeah this is just going to be another badge engineered piece of ****.

GM won’t be around by 2009 anyway so who cares.

The Acadia, just looks like a rebadged Pontiac Torrent really, and Minivan’s are for losers!

Long live the Aerostar!

I’d say the previous 2 comments in this string are from loser’s…….

GMC DID sell a minivan, the Safari, twin to the Chevy Astro.

hmm… a rear-drive, v8 minivan like the good ol safari would be nice…

“GMC launched its first-ever crossover — also on the Lambda platform — in July. The 2007 GMC Acadia comes equipped with a 267 horsepower V6 engine mated to a six-speed automatic transmission and front- or all-wheel-drive.”

So did GMC start selling the Acadia without any announcements or commercials?….the whole “launched” thing…

yeah Manny, unluckily it will be FWD. It would be wise of them to make it also AWD, which would be a wise move to compete with other AWD minivans (what other Minivans that are still in production are AWD?). Are they trying to fill in the gap where the Aerostar was? Because if so, I don’t think it would be a wise move. I believe minivan sales are falling (tell me if I’m wrong I’m going to do a search in a few minutes but in the mean time if I am wrong then just say so), so why would they make another minivan?

ok then nvm I did not see JW’s post… I guess it will be AWD possibly

i dont think a GMC minivan is a good idea

I do not think anyone will confuse the Safari RWD van with any FWD minivan out there.

Question is will the GMC stable mates also have vans? I doubt Buick or Pontiac will be getting minvans soon. this puts a minivan in those dealerships.

Rumor is that the Lamdas will be getting V8’s AND will be available as AWD.

“launched” in this case is announcement to long lead press such as magazines. They are not able to talk specifics about what they saw until a date near the release to the public.

GM knows their past minivans sucked. The Lambdas are supposed to be a pretty darn good architecture. Guess we will have to wait until they are out to really know.

chris2: Buick and Pontiac both have minivans. On the market.

Lambda better be good because i feel badly for anyone who got suckered into buying one after they “redesigned” the vans (i.e. gave them new, ugly front ends and – gasp! – changed the taillamps. GM needs to take their vehicles seriously or just make less of them.

All those years selling us the idea that their trucks were professional grade and now this… ugh.

GMC… minivan…

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

GM never misses an opportunity to shoot itself in the foot.

GMC? Gotta Mechanic Coming.

Ahh…. just what I’ve been waiting for.

..

^^ LOLOLOL

I don’t think they make the Safari (and the Astro) anymore. I thought I remember reading about them being discontinued a couple years ago. I know that minivans aren’t very glamourous, but there is a need for them. SUVs and some crossovers are too tall for young kids to climb into. Also, the sliding doors make it a lot easier to get stuff and kids in and out of the back.

That being said, this minivan won’t work. GM has never made a good minivan. Most of the vans GM has sold are to people who only buy from GM. They should focus on crossovers and trying to make them more kid friendly, then maybe they could win over some minivan owners into crossovers.

didnt they give a speech about making all the GM brands more defined…i give up on GM. they say they want to turn the ship around yet go and do the same exact thing they have been doing that got them in trouble to start with! maybe its a stratagy to go into chap. 11 so when it happens they can say. “Well we tried really hard and it just didnt work out.”

Why is GMC even still here. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR PRODUCTS are also found in the Chevy line (with exception of the Acadia which Buick and Saturn have a “version”). Why don’t they just DUMP GMC. Their products aren’t any better than the “Originals” so why keep them there. Also, Trucks and SUVs are the markets that are shrinking right now. Why is GM still pouring money into a DEAD BRAND? If people want a truck they can go to a Chevy dealer.

GM should make Saturn OPEL exclusive and have Saturn’s line ONLY OPEL and no other “copies” (Outlook and Sky). Make it totally European. Don’t decontent the models for Saturn. Let Saturn take a near-premium approach to the market with striking styling.

Make Pontiac 100% RWD with midsize and full size RWD sedans and coupes. Boost the Solstice and GTO and round out the lineup.

Make Buick the “Cheap Luxury” brand with silky smooth suspension and keep up the quality control. Make it a poor man’s Lexus or Mercedes.

Sell SAAB to the person who buys Jaguar.

Keep Hummer the way it is with maybe an H4 BUT NO SMALLER. Don’t barf out a Compass like Jeep did.

Chevy and Caddy: Keep beefing up your product lines!

FWIW, Pontiacs passenger cars and GMC light and medium-duty trucks are all products of the Pontiac/GMC Division of General Motors.

No Nick, they no longer make the Astro or Safari. They discontinued it because the car at a 40 mph crash would buckle (the structure failed and buckled) and they decided it would not be worth redesigning it.
aznstuart, they should not kill GMC. What they should do is allow Chevrolet to sell their SUV, get rid of the SUVS in the other GM brands, and make it so GM is the one selling work grade vehicles. If it shares products with other GM brands, why would somebody go for GM for that product? So make it cater to trucks and large SUVS.
Chevy should cater to a mix of sedans and SUVs
Pontiac should cater to performance sedans
Saturn should cater to fuel conscious sedans and CUVs
Saab should cater to sub-luxury and high performance sedans fastbacks etc…
Cadillac should cater luxury
Buick should slot under Cadillac.

But anyways I would think with dropping van sales across the board then why would they create a new one? To fill in for the Ford Freestar? That’s just my 2 cents.

*go to GMC for that product?

hey heres a picture of the minivan on CarSpyPics.com

http://carspypics.com/?p=6

Thank you, Chris. It seems that GMC is getting a new minivan because Saturn and Buick are losing theirs. The Pontiac/GMC Division shifts the nameplate on its minivan from Pontiac to GMC. This is much more logical than it appeared to be at first blush.

I thought Lambda was a car produced by Lancia from 1922-1931 (which it is).