long Compost article about banality and stupidity of GM

TV's James C. Reeves wrote:
> "MC Pee Pants" > wrote in message
> ...
>> TV's Nate Nagel wrote:
>>
>>> From all I've heard the GTO is a very nice car indeed. It just has
>>> typical Pontiac tack-on-some-plastic-****e styling and is about 10K more
>>> expensive than the Mustang; which I imagine is the real problem.
>>> Doesn't hurt that the new Mustang is actually quite stunning; on looks
>>> alone, it kicks the GTO's ass, never mind that it's less expensive too.
>>
>> The new Mustang's front end is butt-ugly. The beady-looking headlights
>> and the wrap-around park lights ruin the entire car for me.
>
> I strongly disagree. The front end is nearly perfect in design...it
> screams
> "I'm a Mustang". It is unmistakeable in it's heritage by the design they
> used.

Those park lights scream "1970's import" to me. And the headlights are way
too tiny. The upcoming Shelby Cobra version of the Mustang is much better
looking, although it has the ugly park lights.

A perfect front end design is found on the '65-6 Mustangs.

>>> Personally, I actually *like* the GTO - since it looks like a tarted-up
>>> Grand Prix it's practically invisible on the road, despite all its
>>> plastic geehaws. IMHO that's a Good Thing but some people would rather
>>> be noticed. But I'm not going to buy one because it's way out of my
>>> price range; I probably could afford a new Mustang though if I decided I
>>> needed a new car.
>>
>> The sleeper factor is one of the big plusses for the GTO.
>
> Hardly. If it were, it would at least outsell the Aztek (and it is not
> doing so).

That is a part of the appeal. You don't see GTO's everywhere you look.

> As a former 1967 GTO owner...there are few plusses to the
> current GTO...except perhaps it's performance numbers.

It has better handling, more power, better ride, better traction...while I
love the original GTO, the new car is a different animal, a modern
interpretation of the 60's muscle car.

> I'd buy the current
> Mustang over the current GTO in a heartbeat...even IF the GTO was the same
> price. Heck, I'd take the new Dodge Charger over the GTO...and I don't
> think the Charger is particularly a thing of beauty either.

I wouldn't buy a four-door car at all, unless I had a family. I would
consider the Chrysler 300 SRT-8, because it isn't styled to attempt to look
like a 4 door coupe, like the Charger is. It looks like a formal, elegant
touring sedan, not a four-door trying to look like a 2 door.

--

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
- Maynard James Keenan

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, MC Pee Pants wrote:

> The new Mustang's front end is butt-ugly. The beady-looking headlights
> and the wrap-around park lights ruin the entire car for me.

The headlamps are very evocative of early Mustang designs. The turn
signals ought to be where the frog lights are, however, and the
sidemarkers should be separate. You're right, the horizontal wraparound
front park/turn lamps jest don't fit in with the overall design.

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Alex Rodriguez wrote:

> >Taking apart existing cars is a backward-looking exercise; it doesn't
> >tell you what's going to sell four or five years down the road. So
> >while GM was staring in its rearview mirror, its competitors were
> >zipping ahead.

> What a stupid statement! If GM was clueless as to what made the good
> cars so good, they aren't going to find it by blindly forging ahead.
> I'm sure that GM learned a lot by taking apart the cars. What do you
> think the japanese did when they first started to make cars?

Analysis of competing products is necessary but not sufficient.

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:

> You have to look at all the holdings of all the foreign and
> multinational competitors and figure out which parts have more or less
> full-ride socialized healthcare systems (most of the First World ones
> beyond the US, for sure), and which offer next to nothing except on a
> fee-for-service basis to the wealthy, and which are somewhere in
> between; and what if anything the competitor does to supplement this in
> each case. Then to be fair you have to

....set up treaties like NAFTA and then sue countries with universal
healthcare, claiming such constitutes an "unfair trade advantage" and
demanding it be dragged down to the US "don't get sick" level of
healthuncare.

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Nate Nagel wrote:

> From all I've heard the GTO is a very nice car indeed

....except for the typical-of-GM halfassed Federalization job they did on
it, which left it with enough trunk space to carry, perhaps, a quart of
milk and a Snickers bar.

wrote:
> archived forever. the sclerosis and stupidity of a corporation that has
> lost its way and deserves to go under.

Quite right, but I don't see the Post going under _that_ soon.

TV's Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, MC Pee Pants wrote:
>
>> The new Mustang's front end is butt-ugly. The beady-looking headlights
>> and the wrap-around park lights ruin the entire car for me.
>
> The headlamps are very evocative of early Mustang designs.

....If the headlights were about 30% larger, they would look OK.

> The turn
> signals ought to be where the frog lights are, however, and the
> sidemarkers should be separate. You're right, the horizontal wraparound
> front park/turn lamps jest don't fit in with the overall design.

The park lights remind me of the later Type 3 VW's, although they looked
good on that car, and look silly on the Mustang.

--

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
- Maynard James Keenan

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, MC Pee Pants wrote:

> > The headlamps are very evocative of early Mustang designs.

> ...If the headlights were about 30% larger, they would look OK.

The round reflectors are nearly identical in diameter to the 7" round
lamps on the original Mustang.

MC Pee Pants wrote:
> TV's wrote:
>
>> What ails GM today is much the same as what ailed it then -- and it's
>> not just a matter of big pension plans, health care costs for workers
>> or undervalued Asian currencies. The problem is that GM has forgotten
>> how to make cars that people want to buy.
>
>
> What an exaggeration. They manage to sell over 8 million cars a year.
>
>> It's hard to pinpoint when GM lost its touch.
>
>
> The 1970's, when all US automakers lost their touch. When the
> government basically crippled the cars by adopting safety and emission
> standards that were beyond the technology available at a reasonable
> price at the time.

So how come it didn't criple the foreign auto makers who sold in the US?



John

--


Von Herzen, moge es wieder zu Herzen gehen. --Beethoven

I wish she would have dealt with one thing about GM--how they were able
to turn the Caddy division around so well. You would think that might
in fact be the toughest and least-nimble division to change. I
remember, not long ago, when Caddies were synonymous with white-haired
men in polyster, playing golf at the retirement community while
listening to Doris Day and Glenn Miller. Now all the youngish guys
where I work who have ponytails and goatees drive Escalades--it's the
epitomy of cool. That's quite the turnaround.

If it can be done with Caddy, the ultimate grandpa car, it can be done
with GM's other vehicles. How, I have no idea, but it's doable.



John

--


Von Herzen, moge es wieder zu Herzen gehen. --Beethoven