Ford will beat them to market simply because GM only put their cars up for show 2 years ago and didn’t really plan or do any work on bringing them to market in the US. Which is why I have no sympathy for GM because I liked all three concepts that were previewed.

How true.

Ford could beat you to it and introduce the new Fiesta AND Focus before you get your s*** together and get the new Cruze/Trax/Beat on the market in NA.

Aveo, Groove, Trax, Beat, Cruze…along with Gamma, Delta, Epsilon…and conflicting news stories about all of them in the last few months. Way confusing. I’m guessing it’s GMs attempt at marketing to try to create buzz.

We never hear about “platforms” from other makers, and consumers likely couldn’t care less. Just give us great small cars with brands and names that have longevity and identity. GM, Ford and Chrysler have a bad habit of bringing in imported models that come and go–Colt, Fiesta, Aveo, Optra, Epica, Catera, Merkur.

Other companies have single models that have continued for years (Civic, Corolla, Accord, Camry, etc). Pick something, make it great, and stick with it.

I live in Canada and bought one of GM’s Daewoo imports, a Chevy Epica (aka Suzuki Verona), which I actually like a lot, and it was my first GM vehicle (after a long series of Hondas and Toyotas). Alas it is no longer sold in NA but overseas only; I would have bought another one.

The Cruze/Trax/Beat/whatever might show up in a couple years–maybe not. More likely the Cobalt will get a minor refresh. Instead, I’ve been eyeing the ‘09 Fit or Versa.

However sad it may seem, I think many return customers would rather not be reminded of their last GM small car experience.

Well, I don’t plan to forget my GM small can experience – I expect to nurture it, and remind myself why I will NOT purchase another GM “hmmm – sorta close enough to something” vehicle.

Bruce

However sad it may seem, I think many return customers would rather not be reminded of their last GM small car experience.

Establishing a brand takes years and millions of dollars. Then GM throws it away and starts all over again.

Excellent point. And while I hate to defend GM execs here, there is a certain logic to their ‘muddling’. These are not dumb people running GM. They’ve known they’ve been boxed in by unionized plants, pensions costs, too-many dealers / state franchise laws, their own (misguided) loyalty to (too many) worthless underlings in management, myopic political loyalty to Blue States, etc..

If GM had been easy to fix over the past 10 years, wouldn’t someone have put together the $10-50B necessary to take it over? Nope. No one wanted to manage the mess. And the current management team will get paid very well regardless of the outcome.

Everything they do, from their on-again-off-again-on-again product announcements to executives who contradict each other on an almost-daily basis, shows they have no real direction in anything they do. But then again, maybe that is their business plan. They keep shotgunning ideas and products and on the rare occasion they do manage to hit somewhere near the target, they declare success, then spend the next three years patting themselves on the back until they have to muddle through the next self-inflicted crisis.

But I think it is really important for GM to kill the Cobalt and the Aveo as soon as replacements can be found. Just because they sell at $9,999 doesn’t mean they should be sold.