GMT 900, a 70% bet

As Americans we love cars, and as Americans bigger is better right? So it was no supprize that durring the mid to late 1990's SUV's took over the market. Ford and General Motors enjoyed huge sales and the looming UAW contracts seemed not to be a problem. Like all good things, this was to come to an end very soon, and in 2001 America suffered a lot. Even now, almost five years later, gas prices are still high and buyers are once again going toward more affordable family cars and away from the gas gussling trucks. This is bad news for GM and Ford who now have 70% or more of their total sales from their turck based paltforms. Ford has totally redisigned the F-150 the best selling truck of all time, but has yet to redsign the rest of its truck fleet. GM on the other hand is not as stupid as it looks, and started to redesign from the ground up its next generation of trucks. called the GMT (General Motors Truck) 900 (as in ninth generation) this is by far one of the best built trucks out on the market.

GM was facing a small problem... keep selling cars at below cost prices just to move the old iron and keep sales figures high in order to look good, or stay in busness. They solved the problem by putting more but not quite all of their eggs in one basket and move up the production of the next generation of full sized trucks from the end of '07 as '08 modles to the begining of '06 as '07 models. This is not the frist time for next years model to be produced this year... back in 1983 Chevy began reproducing the Corvette as a 1984 model. the result was a sales number that is totally unreal because one model year accouns for two years woth of sales. the reason the GMT 900 is not being produced as an '06 model is becuse of the legal mumbo-jumbo that sets the cutoff dates for new model year runs.

What trucks are effected are the Chevy's Tahoe, Suburban, and sooner or later the Silveradro line of pickup trucks; GMC's Yukon in all of its varents, and sooner or later the Sierra pickup truck; the Cadilac Escalade, and Escalade ESV. Thats over 9 different trucks not including the pickup's that may or may not come down the line, right now you can buy the Chevy Tahoe and the rest are soon to come. If you cannot stand just how awesome this new truck platform is you can still buy the old GMT 800 trucks, but you've got to be brain dead to do that.

This new platform is a new design from the ground up. the V8 engines all have Displacement On Demand, which cuts off four cylinders when they are not needed (mostly at highway speeds) and brings them online for a huge kick in power. the EPA says these trucks should get about 22 mpg but mixed use driving should make that a little higher, althought it will not be enought to make a HUGE difference.


What will make a HUGE difference is the new Interior! As you can see in the pictures, it is TOTALLY different; this will the the make it or break it deal for buyers, most importantly the return or repeat buyer. The gaps are tighter, the material is nicer, the seats are firmer, the wood, although obiously fake, is not a bad recreation. the radio is one of the new AC/Delco units that can be found in almost every new GM model, and best of all in the navi system. This navagition system has a nice sized screen with back-up camrias mounted in te rear bumper. Still it's nice to see a full sized Chevy/GMC truck with good flux wood and just the right amount of crome and not acres of plastic across the dashboard.

Althogh seating for 7 is there, like always, it is a little too cramped in the last row of seats. Also this truck makes you take out the rear bench if you want to use the space back there for cargo. Thats really not such a bad thing so long as you dont need to all of a sudden use that row of seats you left in your garage. And GM makes it an easy task and the seats althogh heavy, are not over cumbersum.

If hauling stuff like campers or big boats is more your thing, and dont want a pick up becuase you want to bring a few friends, the GMT-900 stacks up well. Edmunds.com quotes the cargo capacity at 109 cu. ft. , the pay-load capacity at 1473, and the most important number of all the towing capacity at 7700 pounds. Ford does a little better here, with 111, 1629, and 8600 respectivly. Still not bad concidering GM was looking only to imporve the look and feel of the their full sized turck, and not the long proven capacity.

If your only going to be going to sccocer games and pasta parties, will like the larger interior with 41.1in of frot headroom and 40 in the rear this truck can haul the NBA with confort with the rest of the numbers in order, I think just about anybody can ride just fine.

Front Headroom		41.1 in.
Rear Headroom		39.2 in.
Front Shoulder Room		65.3 in.
Rear Shoulder Room		65.2 in.
Front Hip Room		64.4 in.
Rear Hip Room		60.6 in.
Front Leg Room		41.3 in.
Rear Leg Room		39 in.
Maximum Luggage Capacity		16.9 cu.ft.

All in all the best that GM can hope for is not a leading sales figure, but a strong sales figure... The day of the SUV is over, and it's never coming back GM and Ford need to admit this and move on with their lives. It's not a bad thing, just a new (or rather old) way of looking at auto sales. Now if only they can do this with the Impala...

SOLD!

Well I have no more reason to sit in front of my T.V. any more... The Pontiac Bonneville Special was sold for $2,800,000! I wish I had that kind of money..... I wish I had that car for that matter!

$118,800.00

Thats right, $118,800.00 for a 1967 Plymouth Bel Verdere GTX 2 door hardtop "HEMI RECREATION" now I do know what a Plymouth Bel Verdere GTX is, and I know what a HEMI is; but can someone PLEASE tell me why some jack would pay $118,800.00 for one of these things??? I never thought in my life I would see a price tag like that so I ran up Hemmings Motor News to see if the guys over at Barret-Jackson were making an honest buck or if the guy was "outtahismind!!!" What I found was that there were convertables in nice shap (one with a 440 magnum) going for about >10K to about 22K. In otherwords this jack was OUTTAHISMIND!!!I doo look forward to seeing the 1954 Pontiac Bonneville Special, yet another copycar of the orginal 1953 Corvette. Simmiler to the 1954 Oldmobile F88 that sold for 3,250,000.00 a few years back at Barrett-Jackson, the Bonneville Special was never bulit for the same two reasions the olds F88 was not built. Poor sales figures for the Corvette (only 300 in 1953, when the Pontiac car was touring shows) and a lack of support from General Motors brass. Had this car have been produced, many think just like the old F88's possabilty of saving Oldsmobile, maybe Pontiac would not be in the place it is, trying to match the imports with metoo cars and a poor recreation of the GTO.


Note: The Oldsmobile F88 should be on desplay in Colorado at the Gateway Colorado Auto Museum. Just a one-hour southwesterly drive from Grand Junction on Colorado Scenic and Historic By-way 141. Go check it out!

Market Time!

well guys it's not 5:30 in New York and the Market is closed! Lets see how we did...

NASDAQ: 2,320.32 (+1.63)

Dow Jones: 11,011.58 (-0.32)

S&P 500: 1,289.69 (-0.46)

Ford Motor Co.: 8.77 (+0.15)

General Motors: 22.06 (-0.35)

Daimlerchrysler AG: 54.83 (+0.28)

Long Live Detroit!

Two new AWESOME show cars, from Chevy and Dodge. First, the car we know so little about; the new 2006 Camaro.

This right here, this sexy, fast, thank GOD GM is not totally dead car, is the new Camaro. Although it might not make it to production in 2008, a 2009 model year is very possible. what better way to commerate 40 years of true Camaro muscle (the '69 Camaro is known to be the best in its performance history) than designing a retro rod with ques right off of a real 1969 Camaro SS? I am sorry I don't have any pics from the rear, cause that's all your going to see when you go red light racing.

Enough of the design crap, now for what really matter... The BIG ASS ENGINE! I am so glad not everybody in GM is as dumb as people think. To keep up with the competition, and to not piss off the likes of Lee Iacocca, Harley Earl, and John Delorian, GM brass shoved a 6.0L V-8 pulled from the corvette line, and and built the Camaro show car on the New Zeta rear-drive platform that is being developed in Australia for high volume low-cost cars (such as a possible rear drive Impala/Monte Carlo, and the next gen GTO/Holden Monaro) This Camaro also handles a lot better then even the old 2002 model with a better developed, more modern fully independent suspension and smokes the tires with a 6-speed manual transmission.

The bad news is this car is only a "show car" and is out only to judge public reaction. The Zeta platform was put on hold until further notice because of cost and the fact that GM is still losing money makes the likelihood of this car actually being built a long shot at best. So get out there and show GM and Chevy that we care and we what this car to be built. Don't forget that although V-8's are powerful, V-6's are cheaper and a buzzy one (like those found in BMW's) are fast, and I-4's are cheaper still and lighter than the V-8's and V-6's. Lets have a Camaro that goes fast, and a Camaro that high school kids can afford again! I don't want to see rice-burners all over the roads anymore!!!



Now for the car that has the best possibility of being built. Enter the challenger! We were all disappointed when Dodge flubbed the Charger by adding two more doors and calling it is "coupe-sedan" What ever they were thinking, I don't know, and if I ever run into the guy who did that I'm going to have a few words for him. After all, who are they to tell me that "coupes are dead, this is a car for the newest era of buyers" Well Ford is selling more Mustangs than ever (see review below), than maybe Dodge needed to rethink their take on the market. When the design team was asked to create a new coupe on the LX platform (the underpinnings of the 300C, Charger, and Magnum) they bought an original 1970 and literally copied almost everything. So what did they scrap? The 14-inch wheels, narrow width and wheel base (the '70 has 110" the '06 has a 116, the 300c has 120") and the over all length. other than that it was mostly how do we get the old car to look modern, and more bad-ass?! Oh, I almost forgot! YES ITS GOT A HEMI!

This time the Hemi comes out with 425 horses running from 0-60 in about 4.5 seconds, and almost sprinting this huge car down the qouter mile in about 13 seconds. The hemi is connected, like the Camaro's LS2, to a 6-speed manual transimission. Some other small little details that make this Challanger so nice is the lack of 14's; the design team opted for 20's up front, and 21's out the back. I would expect to see 17's to 20's offered in simmiler packages to what is offered on BMW's with the sport package or dressed in full M trim.

Once again, for the sake of all that is good and holly people, PLEASE go to your local auto show, email or call Dodge tell them you LOVE this car, and they are doing the right thing. If this car gets to your show room 99% unchanged from the concept like the Pontiac solstice did I am sure that like the Pontiac, the dealers will not be able to keep them on the lot.

It seems very odd to me that both Chevy and Dodge are keeping these cars under such a tight seel. I can only come up with two reasons, totally opasite from eachother: both of these cars will be produced very soon, and will take the market by suprise and by storm tracking HUGE sales figures, or enither of these cars will be produced and Dodge and Chvey are just kidding around and trying to gain public reconition. If the fromer is true, chevy and dodge rock; I for one would love to see these cars in show rooms very soon. right now the only choise I have in the Ford Mustang, I am personally a chevy guy, and if these too cars make it to show rooms Ford will no longer be the king of the hill. History repeites it self so well.

Back to the Future: Ford Mustang

When Michel J. Fox went "Back to the Future" traveling to 2005, no one could have guessed at the time, that cars would still be gas dependant; and why shouldnt skateboards hover? Well now that 2005 is over with (thank God), and because its been out for a year now, it's time to test out the new Ford Mustang. The 2006 model is largly unchanged, and I have had the lucky privlage of driving three different varitations. I was able to drive the V-6 convertable with a manual, the V-8 coupe with an automatic, and the V-8 convertable with the manual.

The current Mustang uses a lot of past influence in its design, and it's not all in looks. As far as style goes, Ford got bit by the retro bug; Ford has done well creating a nice looking car that is modern and celerbrates its history. The front grill is simmiler to the orginal, 65-66, and the tail lights look like they are from the big 1970's 'stangs, and the little window behind the B-piler is stright from the orginal shelby Mustang corba GT500. There is more to this pony car than the retro styling, though and it's all under the hood.

What is nice about the Mustang, is it is still an afordable kids' car. If you are looking for a car for your 16 year old highschooler, but want to get him or her a new car because of safty and relibilty concerns, the Mustang would be a very good choice. For those buyers, For has the base Mustang with a V-6 in either Premium or Delux trim. I would recomend a coupe with the auto for your kid's first car. the insurance will be a little higher than a Civic's, but the Mustang is better looking and will give you kid the confidance he or she needs. The automaic transmission is good for new drivers because as we all know, the lack of experience only gets worse when your kid is trying to learn how to shift. (I drive a 5-speed now, but it's not my first car by a long shot) The real prize comes in the V-6; this little engine is all you really need for a teenage driver, and on the weekends when your kid is busey studying for college you can sneak out with the fun new pony and still be able to leave some lines behind you. If you kid is bringing home all A's you may want to opt for the convertable and give your self an even nicer "weekend car".

The V-8 is the one to get though, but you need to be sure you know what you want. If this is the first time you are buying a proformance machine, you will want to get the automatic. the only problem with this configuration is because of the age of the 4-speed auto Ford puts in its Crown Vic's the car just doesnt want to pull out like it should. Don't get me wrong, the auto is bullit prof, and is a fine choice; but if you want to really smoke the tires and feel like a kid again, then you would want to opt for the money saving 5-speed manual.

The 5-speed is what makes the Mustang GT a Mustang GT. I this car out for a spin a few hours ago and my hands are still shaking! I am supprised at how nicely that old 289 gets out! Ford says the GT makes 300 horses, and 320 foot pounds of torque, but with our that 5-speed and the ability to drive the car with high revs, they go nowere.

If you wanted to get a Mustang as a cheep car that looks good, get a basic V-6 with almost no options, if you want to really drive the car, than the GT 5-speed convertable premium is the one to get. you really dont need any other options after the premium, I like the red leather and the interior upgrade packages, but the 500-watt radio is fine, and the 17-inch painted aluminum wheels that come with the GT are the best looking as well as the best riding. the interior upgrade package gives you the aluminum finish on the dash, shifter, and stearing wheel.

Thank God that Ford built this car, now if GM and Crysiler can do the same with the Camaro and Challanger, we might have something here.