Quote:
|
Originally Posted by pauljs75
1. It replaced the wrong car. Yep. The Grand Am ...
2. Bland styling. The car it replaced at least was recognizable. The last generation Grand Am had a look to it...
3. It's sized wrong. Bigger is nice. But it's also more expensive. And if people want bigger, then why not get a Gran Prix? ...
4. Performance is improved. But with gas prices these days, does it hold up on economy as well? ...
5. Oprah... What? Yeah, Oprah. No, nothing's wrong with her. She's cool and successful in her own regard. Some may have considered the car givaway a brilliant marketing ploy, but I think they dropped the ball with this one. Why? She didn't sell any of those cars. She gave them away...
6. The name. I mean what exactly does G6 evoke? ...
|
Here's my rebuttal in Pontiac's defense, and of my personal opinion:
Re: 1. and 2. ) The grand am had always been fairly close to eachother in looks and styling... in fact, you had to really know the car to be able to tell them apart when you weren't looking at the front end. IMO, the grand am was just getting too close to the grand prix towards the end.
You seem to have the impression that the G6 is this oversized overpowered gas guzzling freak of nature.. when in actuality, its base price is fairly close to what a Grand am was, with a base MSRP of $17,060-$17,825... and the base price for the 2004 Grand Am SE Sedan was $17,070. In 2005 they botched the grand am up, according to Carpoint's data collection, because they didn't offer anything starting under MSRP of $22,500, as they only offered coupes. That was probably a huge mistake for that year.
Also, in rebuttal to your #1 point, they had the G6 in 2005, at MSRP starting at $20,675. That tells me they weren't really replacing the grand am, they probably found it would be too hard to recover from their Coupe-only Grand AM screw-up that year, so they decided to kill it off perhaps... Also, in 2006, it became apparent they were trying to recover from the grand-am screwup of 2005, with all the huge amounts of lower-end models available for the G6 now. They came out with a model even retailing at $16,365!
As long as we're looking at specs... I'll respond to #4 and #3 respectively:
2004 Pontiac Grand Am specs (SE Sedan - 2.2L 140 hp I4)
Fuel Economy : 24mpg city / 34mpg hwy
Length : 186.30in / Width : 70.40in / Height : 55.10in / Weight : 3066lbs.
2005 Pontiac Grand Am specs (coupe only - 3.4L 175 hp V6)
Fuel Economy : 20mpg city / 29mpg hwy
Length : 186.30in / Width : 70.40in / Height : 55.10in / Weight : 3091lbs.
2007 Pontiac G6 specs (1SV Sedan - 2.4L 169 hp I4)
Fuel Economy : 23 mpg city / 33 mpg hwy
Length : 189.00in / Width : 70.60in / Height : 57.10in / Weight : 3305lbs.
I hardly think that 1 mpg less, 240 pounds, and 3 inches longer, 2 inches taller would make a car a complete failiure.
When you get into a G6 and drive, it feels distinctly better and sporty than any old family sedan, yet has the quiet ride and space on the interior that kept people liking the grand am... It could still make for a decent family sedan, while not being something boring either.
I tend to think that you keep hearing about the G6 whenever you hear talk of GM's profit margin decreases, because everyone is expecting the G6 to help pull them out of the rut some. If they could improve every vehicle they make to the G6 quality, I think they'd be going somewhere.
RE: #5.) -Oprah- ... As far as I know, Oprah had some sort of arrangement to buy the vehicles from pontiac first... No one gets a vehicle for free, someone's paying for it somewhere along the lines... whether it be the readers of O! magazine, the viewers of her show, or the television station she gave the boosts in ratings to by airing her episodes... even from her own personal fund perhaps, who knows.
RE: #6.) Pontiac is redoing their whole line up. GM IMO has been plagued with a problem of rebradging vehicles and charging high prices for practically nothing in the past, and that's practically one of the reasons that killed Oldsmobile, and gave GM such a poor profit margin... Take the Oldsmobile Cutlass in 1998 or so... it was a chevy malibu, with brake light covers. Who's gonna buy that? i've only seen about 5 on the road since oldsmobile went kaput. Alero was a nice car, but you can't keep a brand going just from one car. Then you got your Camaro and Trans Am rebadge... GMC and Chevrolet Trucks didn't have satisfactory differences for my tastes to be considered worth buying one over the other, I mean... it's all over the place. Even in the 80's... you had stuff like the buick lesabre, the chevy caprice, the cadillac something or other, the oldsmobile cutlass, Pontiac bonneville... ALL of which, I believe, were based off the similar body style of an 85 or so caprice was... That kinda junk shouldn't be done, IMO. No single car is the reason why GM is in a slump... Poor quality, poor decisions, and lack of vehicular hardware innovation are the reasons I stay away from GM. They're getting better though, at least. Perhaps if I noticed higher quality stuff like the G6 produced more often by them, I would consider adding a GM product to my garage.