Originally Posted by Jackalope

Well there goes the Camaro SS.

Originally Posted by Rodimus_Prime

Way to go GM, your high performance vehicles are the only ones worth buying. Keep making worthless cars like the HHR, Impala, the entire Buick and Pontiac line, SUVs that people no longer want, and most of all a 40,000 dollar electric car that nobody can afford that your selling at a loss. See if those bail you out.

Building completely uninspired cars aimed at balancing a checkbook rather than building a customer base, sounds awfully like Chrysler. If this company even lasts another 5 years they won't have anything even worth buying just like Chrysler is now.

Originally Posted by TheCaptain

Source: Automotive News special email alert

Jamie LaReau - Automotive News - February 18, 2009 - 5:05 pm ET

DETROIT -- General Motors, focusing on mainstream products in a battle to survive, has scrapped a unit that produced high-performance vehicles.

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 unit created low-volume vehicles for GM's divisions designed to appeal to enthusiasts and bolster the company's image. Products included V-series Cadillacs and the Chevrolet Cobalt SS, HHR SS and a V-8 version of the Colorado.

Muniga said there are no plans for high-performance versions of upcoming cars.

The move is in the spirit of GM's viability plan delivered to the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday. In the plan, GM said its future-product focus is on fuel- efficient cars and crossovers. It also pledged to increase its current offering of six hybrids to 14 by 2012 and to 26 by 2014. GM also boosted its request for federal aid by as much as $16.6 billion.

The High Performance Vehicle Operations unit could be reinstated once GM regains its financial health, GM's Muniga said.

"These guys are pretty good at what they do," Muniga said, "They are moving into different areas to work on core products."

http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f...sbanded-75664/


****THIS IS FOR UPCOMING VEHICLES, not ones already in production.****

Originally Posted by Force

To all the people still fear mongering about current models, what's so hard to understand?

It's a relatively simple concept: ALREADY DEVELOPED CARS ARE SAFE. Period. They've spent time and resources developing platforms and models, and they're damn well going to last out the lives of their respective models. As per the article I posted above, Corvettes have their own engineering team (NOT HVPO). The Camaro is also fully developed, so the SS is thereby safe.

Originally Posted by Force

Originally Posted by averagewhiteboy

Aw man.. No Aveo SS.. lol

Originally Posted by dragonslayer27

So what does this say for the redline and GXP vehicles? I'm guessing they too will be put on hold too.

Originally Posted by adrian3938

I am not the only one that feels this way

"Chevy has ruined a lot of names and titles in it’s day, but none so brutally as the ‘SS’ nameplate. Once upon a time, SS meant V8 powered, rear wheel drive, tire melting fun. Nowadays, the 2007 Chevrolet Impala is the closest we get. Chevy did decide to throw a V8 under the hood ( after the embarrassment that was the supercharged V6 Impala SS of recent years ). Unfortunately, Chevy still decides to throw the power at the wrong set of wheels. There is never a time when V8 goes with FWD. Never, ever. V8 = RWD, or V8 = AWD/ 4WD ; there never need to be any exceptions.

As if the whole FWD thing wasn’t bad enough, there’s the fantastically bland styling of the Impala SS. There isn’t really a whole lot to say about the styling, because there just isn’t much going on there. Nothing about the car says Supersport. Nothing at all. I look at it, I want to fall asleep. That’s all I have to say about that. Does the performance make up for the strikes against the 2007 Impala SS? "

Originally Posted by budman128

umm remember the mid 70's nova ss

Nova SS hatchbacks and notchbacks could have either a 100-horsepower six-cylinder engine or a 350-cubic-inch V-8 of 145 or 185 horsepower. Steel-belted radial tires became available for the first time. Ordering the 185-horsepower V-8 brought a Muncie four-speed floor-shift with improved linkage. WOW Performance

Originally Posted by jacobmprater

my mom works for gm. GM i sellin pontiac and buick...

Originally Posted by DeftonesFan867

NO

THEY

ARE

NOT!!!!

Originally Posted by TVS_SS

I heard from my friend who works at GM that they are going to sell Cadillac cause nobody can afford expensive cars anymore

Originally Posted by jacobmprater

nah dude. for real, there talkin about selling hummer, pontiac, buick and one othere make but i cant think of it right now. and yes there keeping cadillac. m mom works at the dealership and thee still makin sales jump not as many.

Originally Posted by SS4EVER

Only SAAB and Hummer are up for sale. That's been in the news. That's confirmed and that's fact.

As for everything else it's merely speculation.

Out of all the brands Saturn will be the first to get the axe from what all the news sources are saying. Pontiac is going to get downsized. Meaning they are going to only be selling a few performance oriented models. The Kappa's are history as of next year, just wait for the news of that to come and when it does you know who said it first.

Buick, who knows they are selling like hot cakes in China so GM won't axe Buick. Also GMC/Pontiac/Buick are almost fully completed in the process of being fully merged in the same dealer networks, so who knows what will be happening with them.

GMC still has a strong presence in the commercial/construction industry so don't forget that.

Aside from the statement of SAAB and Hummer being up for sale, the rest of what I said are just my educated guesses, but the fate of the Kappa's is what I heard from my source, and my sources haven't proved me wrong yet...

Originally Posted by emiller

The replacement Kappa 2 was canceled. I'm not sure about the Kappa but those cars were expensive to make so it would make sense too I guess.

Originally Posted by SS4EVER

Exactly. Unfortunately GM spent so much on R&D and having a dedicated plant, (Wilmington De) that from what I understand that GM actually loses $ on everyone they sell.

It just wasn't a hot seller. I mean the Solstice was for a while and beat Miata sales, but it's just not a viable car. And you can see evidence of this becuase the base Solstice Coupe, costs 26k... WTF? esp when the base of the roadster was around 21-23k.... And it's still pretty much 30k (MSRP 28,xxx) for the GXP, but you can see how GM had to adjust the price.

So whoever wants a Solstice Coupe buy it by the end of this year, that's all I have to say.

Originally Posted by emiller

My coworker has a the GXP and its a nice car but totally impractical. With the top down you would be lucky to fit a 12 pack in there and you would probably have to take the cans out and lay them end to end. Never been in a Miata so I don't know how they stack up as far as practical space.