DETROIT -- General Motors, focusing on mainstream products in a battle to survive, has scrapped a unit that produced high-performance vehicles.
GM today disbanded High Performance Vehicle Operations, which is based at the company’s suburban Detroit technical center, and redeployed its engineers, said spokesman Vince Muniga.
“All high-performance projects are on indefinite hold,” Muniga said. “The engineers are moving into different areas of the organization, and they will work on Cadillacs, Buicks, Chevrolets and Pontiacs.”
The unit created low-volume vehicles for GM’s divisions designed to appeal to enthusiasts and bolster the company’s image. Products included V-series Cadillacs and the Chevrolet Cobalt SS, HHR SS and a V-8 version of the Colorado.
Muniga said there are no plans for high-performance versions of upcoming cars.The move is in the spirit of GM’s viability plan delivered to the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday. In the plan, GM said its future-product focus is on fuel- efficient cars and crossovers. It also pledged to increase its current offering of six hybrids to 14 by 2012 and to 26 by 2014. GM also boosted its request for federal aid by as much as $16.6 billion.
The High Performance Vehicle Operations unit could be reinstated once GM regains its financial health, GM’s Muniga said.
“These guys are pretty good at what they do,” Muniga said, “They are moving into different areas to work on core products.”
Sad, but they'll scrape a lot more types of vehicles before the end of this year.
All fellow members of the Roman senate hear me. Shall we continue to build palace after palace for the rich? Or shall we aspire to a more noble purpose and build decent housing for the poor? How does the senate vote?
They are still going forward at least with the ALMS GT1/GT2 programs for this year at least. That's a Pratt/Miller effort w/funding from GM of course. Amazed that program has dodged the hatchet so far.
I couldn't put it more obvious but they need to sell car. Get the guys who create the V's to create more spark in GM's cars. I'm with Insomniac2100 where the only GM products that I really look at are those and that's sad.
This puts me more in mind of what happened in the '80s.
This sucks. You don't see Ford bailing on performance product.
Performance models disappeared en masse in the early-mid '70s. They started to trickle back into the market in the '80s, and by the '90s it was on again.
Quote, originally posted by Turbiodiesel! »
It's like rubbernecking a horrible, high-speed accident made entirely of words.
Performance models disappeared en masse in the early-mid '70s. They started to trickle back into the market in the '80s, and by the '90s it was on again.
I could be wrong but when I think of the early '80s (should've specified that), all I can think of is an era of boring, box-shaped vehicles that came in small, medium and large sizes. Not a whole lot of high-performance vehicles come to mind.
I don't know...I've never thought about '80s cars that much.
This puts me more in mind of what happened in the '80s.
This sucks. You don't see Ford bailing on performance product.
Ford already did....look up the history of SVT. HPVO or Performance Division was an internal group that operated in a development role to improve the performance of a bunch of models. The Corvette was never one of them...that was always a platform car.
Now, if anyone remembered that Heinricy retired a few months ago...well, it all makes sense. Argh.
Well, the CTS-V is one of the best cars GM has ever made, and now it's going to be a pretty rare bird.
'02 330i Did the Germans invent power steering, or did they just get it right?
I could be wrong but when I think of the early '80s (should've specified that), all I can think of is an era of boring, box-shaped vehicles that came in small, medium and large sizes. Not a whole lot of high-performance vehicles come to mind.
I don't know...I've never thought about '80s cars that much.
?
it was the mid-70's where all the fun dissapeared.
I can give the exact year that "the music died" as far as American high-performance/musclecars in the 1970s. It was 1971, the year that the EPA really clamped-down on emissions, and the automakers were completely ill-prepared to cope, thus resulting in strangled, backfiring, gas-slurping, wheezing, generally horrible engines for everyone. The corpse was finally buried in 1974 (the worst year for performance automobiles in history). The body came back to miraculous life, though, in 1975, though just barely, thanx to the catalytic (we all owe a debt of gratitude to GM's engineers for this, btw) converter that liberated the IC engine from the strangulation that had nearly killed it in previous years. It was able to dig out of its shallow grave and begin a revival process that continued through the '80s.
"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." - Jebediah Springfield
Toyota did this YEARS ago, got rid of the Supra, Celica, MR2 and it seems to have helped them out quite a bit. Look where they are today!
I hope it works out for GM, but at the same time its a great loss for car enthusiasts.
"From the heavy rumble of a stormy night, through the trumpeting of mighty elephants, to the roar of a raging lion, the SuperVeloce performs the grand opera for 12 cylinders, 48 valves, and 8000 revs!"
So does this make the MS3 and WRX the fastest sport compacts now that the Cobalt SS is dead?
The Cobalt SS isn't dead, there's just no sign of a replacement coming...
Your car does not have soul, you just have a pitiful selection of adjectives in your vocabulary. -... .- -. - .- -... ..- .-.. .- I post useless garbage at http://twitter.com/salynch
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