Topic: "GM adds small car to Pontiac lineup"

[Thinking Out Loud]

Too funny.  Appearantly all the Pontiac salespeople forgot about the WAVE.   

They clean up the Wave, call it the G3, erase the old Wave from the lineup and they have now 'added' a vehicle (?):

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/501412

1 + 1 - 1 = 1, or the same number from the outset.

[mrthompson]

GM forgot to carry the 1.

[Ex-airbalancer]

The story is from DETROIT,from AP, in the US they never had the Wave
So it is a new car in the States

[tenpenny]

The story is from DETROIT,from AP, in the US they never had the Wave
So it is a new car in the States

That's funny, and the Star just cuts and pastes wire service articles, so there's nobody paying attention to whether the article is relevant or not.

[Bubba]

The story is from DETROIT,from AP, in the US they never had the Wave
So it is a new car in the States

That's funny, and the Star just cuts and pastes wire service articles, so there's nobody paying attention to whether the article is relevant or not.

Nice going, you Star morons.  No wonder newspapers are slowly dying.

[Zoo]

Jeesh! They want $15000 USD for this car?

From the article:
Pontiac spokesman Jim Hopson said pricing hasn't been released yet, but the G3 likely will have a base price around $15,000. That's more than the $10,895 base price of a 2008 Aveo, but Hopson said the Pontiac will be better-equipped.

Even with std AC etc you are bumping up against Fit, Yaris and other top cars in this segment. They will lose out on the bargain hunters who will seek out a strippo Accent or Aveo; yet miss out on those who want to spend decent $ in this segment and who presently seek out a Fit, Yaris, or Versa.

I smell poor sales, steep discounting, or a combination of both.

[sailor723]

The General is rapidly running out of feet in which to shoot themselves.

[tenpenny]

Remember when they used to sell the Geo Metro etc?  Pontiac dealers yelled at GM, because the Chevy dealers (dealers were either Pontiac/Buick or Chevy/Olds/Cadillac) had Geo cars to sell....so GM suddenly came up with Asuna, which was the Pontiac brand of Isuzu...I remember the Asuna Sunfire, especially, which, for its day, was at least a half decent car.

[ArticSteve]

No leasing  , Daewoos as their econo box offering  , US in steep recession for the next 12 months minimum = Chapter 11 by the start of 2010.

[Zoo]

How does this car (or the "base" G5 for that matter) help Pontiac as a company that sells cars for drivers etc?

Perhaps the Astra would have made for a more interesting Pontiac?

[ArticSteve]

There is little profit in the Astra as they cost GM too much to import.  Similar thing happened to Honda with the 2002-2004 SIR from the UK.

[Zoo]

Maybe GM could have brought the sedan version of the Astra from South America and rebadged it as a Pontiac. This would have at least been different as the G5 is just a rebadged Cobalt. At least a G5 based on the Astra would have been different from what was offered at Chevy across the road. Plus they could have made some $ on the deal.

The Astra hatch is a pretty cool car. GM shouldn't give up on the car and just find a way to get the landed costs down.