No Trans Am will be made

[LETZRIDE]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

so now what camaro vs. firebird guys? HUH?

who's better now?

X3 ... but I dont know if its such a good idea that there bringin the camaro back anymore...We're set up for disaster...those laws that are taking effect by 2012 are going to kill us off again, or make us into some sort of hybrid or 4 banger type vehicle...which I feel will completly kill off and destroy this kind of car...god help us all, the muscle car age that was almost at an end...is closing off real fast...

[3.4 slow to go]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

X3 ... but I dont know if its such a good idea that there bringin the camaro back anymore...We're set up for disaster...those laws that are taking effect by 2012 are going to kill us off again, or make us into some sort of hybrid or 4 banger type vehicle...which I feel will completly kill off and destroy this kind of car...god help us all, the muscle car age that was almost at an end...is closing off real fast...

the muscle car age died off in 1976, the last yr Pontiac rolled out a vehicle w/a "big block" 455 Some say it eneded w/the advent of teh catilytic convetor. F-bods did come w/4bangers before, and if teh eceotec can be modified to put out over 1k horsies, what's teh big fuss?

besides, how much would teh liscencing cost now to use the Trans Am name now? It used to be $5 a car back when it was first used.

[Mike88]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

X3 ... but I dont know if its such a good idea that there bringin the camaro back anymore...We're set up for disaster...those laws that are taking effect by 2012 are going to kill us off again, or make us into some sort of hybrid or 4 banger type vehicle...which I feel will completly kill off and destroy this kind of car...god help us all, the muscle car age that was almost at an end...is closing off real fast...

if you're talking about the CAFE regulations, they don't come into effect untill 2020.

[LETZRIDE]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

if you're talking about the CAFE regulations, they don't come into effect untill 2020.

I mean the law that says cars have to meet a standard of geting something like 30 something mpg...which is why there is most likely going to be little to no rwd vehicles being made in 2012...there not fuel efficient apparently.

[Mike88]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

yep, but you got the year and mpgs wrong...its 2020 and the entire fleet of the manufacturer must avg. 35mpg. GM is haulting the RWD movement in preparation for 2020.

[LETZRIDE]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

hmmm....I read 2012 somewhere...oh well the later the better

[Mike88]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

GM's move south a blow to Ontario
Rear-wheel-drive cars scrapped or moved to Michigan; company blames new fuel economy rules
GREG KEENAN

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

January 24, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST

General Motors Corp. [GM-N] has scrapped plans to build some rear-wheel-drive cars at its giant operations in Oshawa, Ont., a move that could threaten the long-term future of the largest vehicle assembly plant in Canada and thousands of jobs.

The auto maker has scuttled the rear-wheel-drive version of the Chevrolet Impala, which was scheduled to represent half the output of a leading-edge flexible assembly plant now under construction in Oshawa, industry sources said.

Production of rear-wheel-drive Cadillac and Buick sedans originally slated for Oshawa will be shifted instead to Lansing, Mich., the sources added.

GM will begin producing the reborn Chevrolet Camaro as a rear-wheel-drive muscle car in Oshawa later this year.

The move comes as GM prepares for crucial contract talks with the Canadian Auto Workers union this summer and seeks government financial help for an investment in St. Catharines, Ont., on top of $435-million Ottawa and Ontario have already agreed to give the company as part of a $2.5-billion plan to upgrade its Canadian operations.

Much of the $2.5-billion will be spent consolidating two Oshawa car plants into one flexible plant that will turn out the Camaro.

The two plants assembled 470,016 cars last year.

The next-generation Impala was designed to be heavier and larger than the existing front-wheel-drive version and would have been based on the same platform or basic underbody as the Camaro – GM's Zeta program.

The new plant would have cranked out a combined 500,000 Camaro, Impala, Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS cars.

The heavier Impala has been doomed by new U.S. fuel economy rules requiring auto makers to reach an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, industry and union sources said.

The new rules mean “some of those [vehicles] have been stricken from the future product program,” GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz acknowledged in Detroit last week when asked how the regulations would affect the Zeta cars. Mr. Lutz did not elaborate on which models were cancelled.

General Motors of Canada Ltd. spokesman Stew Low said yesterday that no vehicle beyond Camaro was ever approved, “so you can't cancel something that wasn't there.”

GM doesn't know what vehicles will be assembled in Oshawa beyond Camaro, Mr. Low said, in part because no one knows yet how the GM fleet will have to adjust to meet the new fuel economy requirements.

“Impala and the Buick will stay for the time being,” he said.

Scrapping of the proposed rear-wheel-drive Impala reduces the planned output of cars in Oshawa by 250,000 a year, industry and union sources said.

Separately, GM promised the United Auto Workers union during contract negotiations last fall that it would build two Zeta cars in Lansing, where it already assembles rear-wheel-drive vehicles for its luxury Cadillac division.

Shifting production of the Buick and Cadillac models subtracts another 100,000 vehicles from the planned output of 500,000, so the Oshawa plant could be producing as few as 150,000 Camaros unless GM finds another vehicle to build there.

Producing that number of vehicles would mean considerably fewer jobs than the approximately 3,000 positions that exist at the car plants now and likely would prevent GM from meeting job commitments it made to Ottawa and Ontario when they originally agreed to provide the $435-million.

Whether GM will find other vehicles to build in Oshawa or continue with a front-wheel-drive version of the Impala beyond next year likely hinges on the talks with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union on a new contract, industry sources said.

“It all depends on what happens in these discussions come September,” one source said.

CAW president Buzz Hargrove rejected the notion that GM will tie future products for Oshawa to bargaining on the new contract.

“It would be impossible to imagine” that GM would be unable to find other vehicles for the plant after the huge investment it will make to build the flexible plant, Mr. Hargrove said.

Canadian Auto Workers members in Oshawa have already agreed to outsource janitorial jobs and to more flexible work rules in order to win the investment for the new Camaro and other products, said Chris Buckley, president of CAW Local 222, which represents workers at the plant.

“If the decision gets made based on the number of trophies on the shelf, Oshawa wins the prize,” Mr. Buckley said, pointing to numerous quality and efficiency awards the plant has won in recent years.

Fuel rules guide GM in decision on cars for Ont. plant

GREG KEENAN
AUTO INDUSTRY REPORTER
January 15, 2008

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. is still studying which cars to build in Oshawa, Ont., alongside the new Camaro because the U.S. debate on fuel economy means it's difficult to assess the market for rear-wheel-drive cars, company chairman Rick Wagoner says.

"The issue we're looking at in the U.S. is just with the CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Requirements] - how big those segments are going to be," Mr. Wagoner told a small group of reporters yesterday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

"It really is the $64,000 question."

He said GM has not concluded how sales of rear-wheel-drive vehicles will be affected by the U.S. government move to require fleets to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. Front-wheel-drive vehicles provide better fuel economy.
"We've had a range of ideas," he said.

"In the latest developments on fuel economy some seem more feasible than others and others that were pretty good a while ago don't seem as logical now."

But he pointed out that there's likely to be high demand for a six-cylinder version of the Camaro and GM will offer a version.

That's another example of how the North American market is changing amid high gas prices because muscle cars typically have V8 engines with plenty of power.

GM is undertaking a massive redevelopment of its Oshawa car plants as part of the $2.5-billion Beacon Project, which received more than $400-million in financial assistance from the federal and Ontario governments.

One of the two car plants will be closed and the company will construct a leading-edge flexible plant that will allow it to assemble cars off more than one platform or basic underbody.

Sources said the original plan called for GM to manufacture as many as 500,000 rear-wheel-drive vehicles including the Camaro once the plant was running at full tilt by 2010.

Mr. Wagoner would say little about the negotiations this year between GM and the Canadian Auto Workers union.

"I think it's going to be a robust set of negotiations," he said.

CAW president Buzz Hargrove and his leadership are well informed about the issues to be discussed, Mr. Wagoner said.

MotorTrend Blogs
Toyota wants to get to CAFE-mandated 35 mpg before 2020
Posted January 22 2008 12:48 PM by Zach Gale

In an announcement that seemingly speaks more to Toyota's feeling threatened by General Motors' recent "green car" push than anything else, Toyota CEO Katsuaki Watanabe has gone on record to say, "We will not wait until the deadline to comply" with the CAFE-mandated 35-mpg average by 2020.

With all the back and forth between GM and Toyota about which U.S. automotive company is the furthest along in green vehicle research (funded in part by cash-cow SUVs and half-ton trucks), it might be easy to forget that Honda could get to the CAFE mandate quicker than both of them due in part to far less heavy SUV and truck baggage.

Nevertheless, Toyota has made a number of pledges. The company wants to sell one million hybrid vehicles globally by 2011 or 2012 and plans to show dedicated Toyota and Lexus hybrid models at the 2009 Detroit auto show. A greater investment will also be made in cellulosic ethanol that is derived from wood waste, and best of all, Watanabe wants his engineers to have a lithium-ion plug-in hybrid that can be mass-produced "not at the end of 2010 but earlier than that."

With Toyota doing research and development in-house and General Motors using outside companies, the race is on to get bragging rights to the first mass-produced lithium-ion plug-in hybrid.

We would just like to ask the question: Is it more important to be the first to sell a lithium-ion plug-in hybrid or be the first manufacturer to reach the CAFE-mandated 35-mpg average?

They all say 2020

[vanbibber]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

i dont know why this is such a shock to everyone. we've known since 02' that the bird wasnt coming back. fine by me, firebirds 20 years from now will be a rarity (nice ones, not beat up peices of shyts) i dont plan on getting rid of mine anytime soon. hell ill go buy a few more in the next few years and store them and keep them nice and pretty, then sell them for **** loads down the road when they get as rare as a first gen.

[Blacmaro96]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

Im sure someone out there will come out witha conversion kit. Camaro's and Firebirds have always shared common body shapes, so Im sure liek that one person that made a tacky looking Chevelle front end for the GTO, someone , with the right skill and design, could make a limited production Firebird-style Camaro for the ultimate Firebird fan. Personally, I feel these standards are rediculous, and trhe only onbringing for this is not because we consume fuel so much here, but the fact that U.A.E actually holds back the amount we take from them. Think abotu it, if say over a 20 year period, we buy all of their oil they have and have no more, they have no more product to sell, thus ending their reign on oil, and they dont make anymore money, but say they sell only a percentage, which could be strung out to 50-60 years, and raise the price, well that my friends is called a strangle hold, where the majority of our oil comes from countries filled with greed, they dictate what we get. 35mpg is a little outragious, I mean some Honda's dont even get that. GM is struggling becausethey continue to push teh SUV and large truck market, and when they see around them that Toyota and Honda are driving right pastthem in sales, and they wonder why. Honda sells one truck, if oyu want it, get it, if you dont, well then dont. Toyota has two trucks,the Tacoma, adn the Tundra, want a small truck ,Tacoma, want a large powerful truck, get the Tundra, if not get a car. IDK why Chevrolet has 6 cars and 5 trucks and 1 minivan. Then theres GMC, and Hummer, and nobody wants them. My Camaro gets a little over 400 miles to the tank ( highway use) and from a full tank to 3/4 tank I can get 230 mile (highway use) after taht tho it goes away faster, but to get 400 to 16.6 gallons = 24 mpg, thats astounding for what people call gas guzzling musclecars. Yes its a V6, but peopel I know arent far off that average with their V8's if they drive apropriatly. Ask anyone you know that owns a SUV or a truck ,or especially a HUmmer, and ask what they get MPG, youll laugh. I have a guy that I work with that owns a 2006 GMC truck ,and blows $20 in fuel just one way ( he lives and hour away) and fills up a few times a week, and wonders why he has no money to spend. Enough of these all steel body and all these unecessary options they come with like heated 24 way seats, thats stupid weight, adn im sure your back will be jsut fine. We live in an age where composite materials are nothing new, and should be looked into. The Charger is goign to be 4160 LBS. ....... Thats insane for a sedan of that size, why, they use all steel, and is loaded with stupid stuff. They will come out witha stripped down model for racing purposes I heard, and they took off 800LBS. in the end, thats as heavy as a V6 Fbody....that 800LBS is stupid and no needed. We need to stop looking into luxury and dead weight, and look into sleek, and light cars and trucks. Im dont ranting, I could go on, but if anybody really finishes what I said, go havea cookie, you deserve it. This world has the answers right in front of them, but we chose not to listen to them.

[vanbibber]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

jesus christ run on sentence from hell.

[Blacmaro96]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

I do what I can ;)

[Taheen]

Re: No Trans Am will be made

I do what I can ;)

That line just made my day. :)