Though generally assembled by people who’d rather complain about anything than correctly assemble the power steering motors on a Pontiac G5, American cars are interesting and dynamic addition to the world automotive market. By “interesting and dynamic,” I mean nearly all insanely boring and usually pretty poor (Exception: most modern Fords. Especially: everything Chrysler, save the Viper).
Archive for the ‘Domestics’ Category
The Gravest Of Mistakes
Back in August, before I took my ridiculously long hiatus from blogging on this site (due to academia), I wrote an article about why I wanted GM to survive. Unfortunately, due to some news late last night, it looks like it’s going to be much harder for my favorite three brands, not to mention the entirety of GM and the other two of the Big Three, to survive. It saddens me, too: just last Friday I was walking the floor of the New England International Auto Show in Boston, looking at the newest of what every automaker had to offer. All I could think while walking through Cadillac, Pontiac, and Saturn (among other American brands) was “there’s too much potential for them to go down.” Due to a certain UAW (that’s United Auto Workers union), the age of the American automaker may be coming to an end as we know it. Why am I so ready to point a finger at the UAW? Read on.
Raw And Certainly Uncut
I had the opportunity to drive a 2008 Pontiac G8 GT last week. Equipped with Holden’s L76 6.0L V8, the G8 GT is Pontiac’s long-awaited replacement for the flagship GTO that ended production in 2006. Before the drive, I had read a couple reviews that openly compared the G8 to German competitors such as the BMW 550i. Oh-ho… wow. No, no, no. It’s solid. It gets that for a start, for sure, because it is. It’s a very solid performance car without a doubt. But for certain people (me included), 361 horsepower doesn’t cut it if the vehicle is seriously lacking in other areas…
Three Reasons Why The American Car Industry Should Survive
With all the recent announcements of how American car companies are in danger of bankruptcy in coming years, I’ve been thinking more about what the automotive world will lose if that occurs. Specifically, I’ve been considering the cars, and more specifically than that, the cars GM is currently (or will soon be) giving us. At the beginning of July, there was a particularly drastic piece of news concerning GM and the project cost estimates of keeping the automotive giant alive.
My first thought was, “good, finally Buick and Hummer will get what they deserve,” but then I remembered things like these…