Put this story in the “Strange Bedfellows” department, but word has it that a resurrected DeLorean Motor Company is considering keeping the Pontiac Solstice alive and bringing it back to market by 2011. No, seriously. I’m not sure if this is either one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve heard for a while, or one of the daffiest; like the Titanic rescuing a drowning man.
This is a guest post by James from Car Throttle - your performance car experts!
A favorite genre of many auto fiends is the “sleeper” - a car that looks like grandma’s Mercury but goes like stink. In this day and age of flashy, showy performance - with all the standard body kits, huge spoilers and obnoxious red badging automakers seem to believe belong on performance cars, the sleeper is a dying breed. The streets used to be littered with them, too. Buick Regal T-Types with Grand National running gear and a freaking landau roof, Galant VR-4’s with turbocharged 4G63’s and 4WD stuffed into an innocuous Galant body, heck - even the Fox-body Mustang LX 5.0 was a sleeper, with the thundering fuel-injected 302ci “5.0″ (actually a 4.9L) V8 but none of the GT’s plastic trashy bodywork.
Still, for those that would rather not have any show with their go, there are still sleepers left to pick from - if you know where to look. Sometimes you have to look in the strangest of places, but you can find burly horsepower under the hood of some unassuming cars these days. Let’s take a look at the top ten.
“A Camry? Really?” I know, I know. The Camry is the equivalent of the Antichrist to anyone that actually likes cars. But that makes it the perfect sleeper, at least in SE V6 trim. You see, under the hood is a very modern 3.5L 24v V6, which makes a rather considerable 268 horsepower coupled with a 6-speed auto.
Without a doubt, the rest of the car is mind-numbingly boring - but if you’re after velvety-smooth horsepower and strong mid-range in an utterly unassuming wrapper, the Camry SE V6 has got you covered. Just remember to take a No-Doz on long trips… the Camry might’ve misunderstood what “sleeper” means, and when you’re not smoking tires with your torquey V6, it’s likely to put you to sleep. Fast enough to embarrass a V6 Mustang, and good enough for 10th place. Continue Reading…
By now, it is common knowledge that the Big Three is now the Big Two. Chrysler, ever the more anemic of the three beasts, has filed for bankruptcy, and only two are left. Ford seems to be doing okay, in fact, they sold more cars in April than Toyota did. So now it’s GM that’s close to hearing that death knell. But fear not, for here is my ten-point plan to pin the medals back on the mighty General.
Mind you, this isn’t a plan designed to save GM from a very likely bankruptcy, as that would take an angel from car heaven to flip a switch in everyone’s head so that they suddenly buy American. Rather, this is a plan designed to fix GM, and to ensure that the General’s current predicament will never happen again after GM bounces back. Also keep in mind that this is a plan only for GM North America (for I propose cutting Buick, which would alarm the reader living in, say, China).
UPDATE: Well, looks like this is strictly a plan to fix GM after recovering, as the (once) powerful General went into bankruptcy today. Strange and scary times we are living in
1) Keep Pontiac
I’m still reeling over GM’s decision to axe Pontiac. Next to Chevrolet, this is the brand that has the highest potential to make money! After all, look at all the effort GM has put into this brand. They’ve spent all that money developing the Solstice GXP Coupe, the Pontiac G8 and variants, and now they are going to just kill the whole thing off? That doesn’t make sense. What’s more, the decision to return to the four “core brands” of GMC, Chevrolet, Buick, and Cadillac does not make sense either. Chevrolet and Cadillac should be kept, of course, but GMC and Buick? Neither are making GM enough money to justify their continued existence, and neither fulfill a market that the other two (Chevy and Cadillac) can’t. Continue Reading…
So I just got off a conference call with the fine folks at the Pontiac Underground blog, and I thought I should answer a few questions that I’m sure many of you are asking yourselves regarding GM killing off Pontiac.
Needless to say, the tone of the call was somewhat bleak, but they were happy to answer all questions. I’ll go over a few questions that I’ve received regarding this, and a few other things that they mentioned on the call: Continue Reading…
GM announced today that they will be phasing out the Pontiac brand by the end of 2010. This news came right after they announced they will also be cutting 21,000 hourly jobs and reducing their dealer count by 42% within the same time frame. This, in an effort to stay out of bankruptcy, of course.
“This action will allow General Motors to devote its limited capital and other resources to GM’s four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.” So GM wants to kill off the only brand that made them look even slightly sporty and exciting, and focus on the oversized and ultimately “boring” brands. Continue Reading…
Companies come up with concept cars all the time. If consumers like it, most of the time the car maker will produce a more “pedestrian” version of the concept and push it to market. But there are some cars out there should just be left on the drawing board, no matter what. So what’s the first car on our list that shouldn’t exist?
