What's Wrong With This Picture: All Things to All Attention Deficit Disorders Edition

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: August 11th, 2009

GM’s orgy of PR hype rolls relentlessly on with this video about America’s own volkswagen, the Bare Necessities Concept. After all, nationalized firms have to at least pretend to take on challenges other than getting folks into $40k EREVs and competing with BMW’s 3-Series . . . like competing with the Tata Nano. And for once the YouTube commentators get it right. “I already own this,” writes jeffseelig. “It’s called a 1978 Honda Accord.”

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Fincar1 on Aug 12, 2009

Accords : "22″ wheels give a vehicle a bigger stance, albiet on paper." Well, maybe, but there's a reason the first Mini and the first small Civics came with the little wheels they did: the bigger the wheels, the more interior room is sacrificed to make room for the wheels. Especially in front, where there needs to be room for them to turn, right in the same place where drivers like to put their feet.

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Tosh on Aug 12, 2009

Wearing a scarf around the office means you're hiding either a turkey neck or a hickey. Maybe she meant "lesser" parts. Anyhow, since when does the art department decide on how many parts something gets? Isn't this for engineers? And a half-decent engineer doesn't focus on the number of parts; he primarily focuses on the thing working reliably. Counting parts is for bean counters, so the whole message is actually saying "Our bean counters are still running the company."

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John Williams on Aug 12, 2009
"Honda and Toyota, ntm that dirtbox company in the corner Hyun/Kia actually make a decent compact like the Minivan thats-now-canned. Why cant GM make one. Simple. Cause their dollar signs in their heads only light up with they sell versions of the GMT800/900 frame." GM would rather do two things: make "Hail Mary" plays a la Camaro, and sell what they think are proper examples of an American car, which in this case is an SUV. Come to think of it, these SUVs are said to ride and handle very much like the Cadillacs of yore. Not that I would believe it -- my sister's Dodge Durango rode like an ox cart over railroad ties. But the things are big, said to be comfortable, and command presence thanks largely to their sheer bulk. And their classification means they get to skirt a lot of CAFE regs and only comply with rather lax ones for their class. Put the CAFE hammer down by demanding at least 20mpg from these trucks, and watch the champaign come out their noses. Meanwhile, GM has finally found what they figure to be an infinite source of green for the foreseeable future. All they have to do is suck up to Uncle Sam every so often and he'll keep doling out the money to keep GM afloat, and more importantly, the executives handsomely paid. The Volt is a suckup job. So are these concepts. The Aveo is mandated filler. And GM still finds it beneath them to build something as insulting as a "compact". If the execs could go back in time and strangle Robert MacNamara to death before he developed the Ford Falcon, they would. "What continues to get my goat is that GM has these kinds of vehicles for sale TODAY in Europe and other parts of the world. Why do they continue to feel the need to reinvent themselves???" Not Invented Here syndrome. Compounded by dealers and sales networks that don't want to actually sale the things, because they won't make as much money as they would pushing Impalas and Lucernes with landau tops out the door.

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Accs on Aug 12, 2009

All I have to say is.. There is a customer out there.. who is only motivated by the firesales, cheap gas discounts, going out of business Gm dealer sales and basically any out-of-the-way-red-tag-sale that GM can generate. The vehicles.. no matter how big or fast, expensive or new, really don't sell themselves. There are hundreds of thousands of millions of fuckers out there.. who only buy domestic.. cause its the cheapest most gutless gutbuster there is on the road. Its green quality... Its regular quality.. Its interior quality.. Its power to weight ratio.. Its ability to dominate market segments.. Its overall design prowess.. Its ability to seat 6-7.. Doesnt mean a fuckin thing.. just as long as there is cash on the hood. Im also sick and tired of good cars coming to market.. like the GTO, Astra, and G8.. and the cars failing because of a hundred million other reasons. Point is.. GM cant design good cars for the market that arent 5-6 passenger 4wd vehicles. They cant even design enough compact sedans in a decent price range.. to be worth a shit. Oh.. But they can turn out SUVS / CUVS / Lambdas (and claim how much better they are..

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