BlackHorse

I stil have trouble seeing $25,000 for this car. It would be great and I think that's a fair price. But I also think that by and large car companies are pretty greedy and they know that there's plenty of people that will pay $30,000 for it. Then those same people wonder why one year later their brand new 30K car is only worth 20K and the reason is they're overpriced to begin with and the market is now telling you what it's really worth. But that's a market wide problem, with all manufacturers. So long as people are willing to pay for an overpriced car they can't really get upset when it depreciates like a rock in a pond. At $25,000 I think these cars would never see the lot and if they did it would only be long enough to offload them from the car carrier and hand the keys to the owner. Heck at $25,000 I'd have to seriously consider one. They would be wildly popular. It wouldn't be long before you would start seeing them all over ebay for $30,000 and up. Car companies aren't the only greedy people in America you see.

It's true about the Expediton, I should have remembered that. It got some positive press. Regretably, sales of Expedition have taken a nose dive due to the gas prices. The Fusion articles I have read have all placed it in the so / so category. I haven't read anything on the MKZ yet.

swen, I suggest driving both the Aura and the Camry, it might change your mind. I did it. I have to tell you that I thought the Aura was the better car. With respect to the looks, taste is subjective. Some will find the body of the Aura more appealing, others the Camry. But from the "is it a good sedan" point of view. That being, does it drive well, is it comfortable, good road manners, quiet, features and all of that, I felt the Aura was clearly the better car. But that's me. Check it out yourself, take a day and drive both, see what you think.

I'm glad to hear that Ford has a plan to address the issue of the 4 speed transmission in the Escape. It just frustrates me that it always seems Ford is for some reason always behind the power curve. Five and six speed automatic transmissions are nothing new in this segment. If they bothered with all the trouble of a redesign and skipped on the transmission upgrade it just leaves me wondering why they bothered in the first place. Don't even get me started on the drum brake issue. I still think that's a terrible idea. It seems like Ford doesn't understand what they are supposed to do until they release a vehicle to the market and have the tabloids thorougly trash it. Then they say "Ok, now we know what we should have done." As if all along nobody on the development team realized that going back to drum brakes or keeping the outdated driveline wasn't a good idea. They really get me frustrated sometimes with the apparent lack of obvious foresight in their product development. Aside from the Mustang I can't remember the last time a new Ford product came out and got anything better than a medicore reception from the periodicals and most often those less than cheery reviews are deserved. It's a truly baffeling problem from a company that should be rolling in design and development talent given it's financial capability and long history.

jpd80, I fully appreciate your apprasial of the Holden cars. I have no doubt they are reliable and good cars. I never doubted the GTO was a fast and fun car. But honesty sir, if it was a success they would still be selling it here. Never believe a car company when they say "Well, we intended for it to be a limited release all along." The nature of business contradicts that entirely. If something is selling well, particularly if you are GM and you need those sales, you don't just decide to discontinue it. 40,000 units in 3 years is by no means an astounding success. I won't argue the semantics with you. The bottom line is, cars that sell well do not get dropped, that's just the nature of business. It would be nice to see a Holden SS with a $25,000 price tag. I don't think it's going to happen. Lets condsider GM's nearest comparable cars already on the NA market, the Impala SS and the Monte Carlo SS. Both of these average about 28 to 30 thousand. I sincerely doubt the Holden, which by all accounts is a better car, is going to sell for less and still be equipped with the HO V8. I still really believe that in order to make the Holden viable, they will need a 6 cylinder, entry level model to help keep the sales numbers up. If they only sell 40,000 G8's in 3 years the next thing you know Ponitac will be holding a press conference to tell everyone how it was intended to be a limited run car all along.

The last time I saw one of those it was in the movie Freejack with Emilo Estivez.

As I recall, the GTO failed for two reasons. 1. I didn't look like a GTO at all but rather more like a slightly larger Grand Prix. GM probably should have invested some money into making the sheet metal look more like a GTO or at least less like a Grand Prix. That aspect of the car turned off a lot of potential buyers and when coupled with problem # 2 only insured the GTO's failure. 2. Buyers in todays market are hesitant to spend well over 30 grand for a domestic sedan, be it GM or Ford. Sure it had a V8 and it was fast and fun to drive and all of that, but the market for people who want to spend over 30 thousand for a Pontiac sedan is small to say the least. How often do you see a Bonneville SSei on the streets? My point exactly. I'm not sure who GM hired to look into the demographics about the GTO but they didn't do a very good job. Put yourselves in the shoes of someone who might consider a V8 powered Pontiac performance sedan. You arrive at the lot to find that it is essentially a 2 door slightly larger version of the Grand Prix with a hefty price tag. I think those combination of factors is what killed the GTO. This Holden is a nice looking car but like the Mustang and the Accord in order to justify keeping it GM needs to sell a base model version. They should offer the V6 version or possilby even the inline 6 version. If they only offer it as a V8 powered sedan and the price tags are well north of the 30 thousand mark, it will suffer the same fate as the GTO. We all know that eighty something precent of Camry and Accord sales are the 4 cylinder model, not the V6 models which seem to garner all the press attention. Similarly, the majority of Mustang sales are the V6, not the GT. Without these sales the two companies respectively couldn't afford to keep around their more pricey versions. GM should take that into account and offer an entry level version of the Commodore in order to sell enough of them to make the model line viable here in the US. My two cents.

I like the looks of it, even better than the Altima, although the Altima is nice too. The market is about to be flush with a lot of really interesting new cars. This one, the Malibu, the Aura, the Camaro, the C30, the Altima Coupe, even that new Volt has some appeal. There's some really nice stuff on the market now, unfortunately, Ford isn't in the thick of it. They need something.

Oh it's not all bad bec5150. The dual action tailgate it kind of cool, maybe the big 3 should do something like that. The storage bin in the bed is a nice touch as well. But the gas mileage is pretty lousy and it doesn't measure up from a pure toughness point of view with Ford and the others. It truly is a "light duty" truck. I wouldn't subject it to much more than camping trips and hauling home a couple bags of quick crete. It's not worth much more than that and the price tag on them is on up there.

I had the opportunity to spend some time behind the wheel of a new Aura a couple of months back. From a design and fit and finish standpoint it's pretty well done, a vast improvement for GM and certainly comparable to offereings from Toyota and Honda. I wouldn't call the body design ground breaking, but it certainly isn't deplorable either. It has a certain appeal if only from a generic sense. The interior was pleasent, comfortable, and offered some nice features although again, nothing ground breaking. The Nissan Altima comes to mind here, offereing the keyless entry and starting system on all models from the base right on up. So with respect to the Aura, nothing extraordinary, but nothing wrong either, just a good all around sedan. The one feature that I most noticed about the Aura that truely sets it apart from the rest of it's class is how quiet the ride is at highway speed. They attribute this to some steel form contstruction or something to that effect. What ever it is, it works. At 80 mph I could literally whisper to the young lady riding with me and be clearly heard. The quiet ride is easily on par with Lexus and Infiniti. In a sedan I would consider that a good selling point. People don't often buy a sedan with the desire to hear the roar of the engine, the hum of the tires or anything else that would be considered road noise permeating from outside the passenger cabin. All in all I can understand how they selected the Aura for the car of the year. In all fairness it did beat out the Toyota Camry for the top spot so if nothing else we should all rejoice that an American sedan walked away with top honors this year. Last year you may recall it was Honda that swept the show with their Civic and Ridgeline. So while it may not be a blue oval victory, it is at least a victory for the American auto industry at a time when we desparately need all the positive news we can get.

I must admit a preference for the European Focus hatchback. Nice body design, nice wheels, nice interior, good peformance.

Everyone has an opinion I guess. Personally I think the body is a very slight improvement over the current model, the wheels on the blue one look nice, a nice touch. Other than that it's neither strinkingly impressive nor depressingly ugly. It's a good middle of the road car. The interior in my opinion is a dramatic improvement. The current Focus interior is by far one of the worst available interiors on the market. The new interior is a night and day improvement. I really like it. I hope along with the asthetics they have incorporated some catchy options. Perhaps lighted cup holders or chilled drink holder, things like that.

He might have a point though. This month Car and Driver did a head to head of a variety of mid-size sedans. I noticed that the Fusion was not included in their comparison. The Accord won. Big surprise I guess.

Lately it seems that Chrysler has become a lot more innovative about interior options on their vehicles. The Calibur comes to mind with the chilled drink holder, removeable lamp and adjustable speakers. Here we see the table option with front seats that turn completely around converting your mini van into a make shift dinning room. Like the calibur I'd wager this one will also feature a chilled drink holder. Other car companies should take a look at things like this. Say what you will about Chrysler, there's no denying a catchy idea. I can't speak for everywhere, but where I live the Calibur has really become popular, you see them everywhere.

I always thought it was a mistake to make the Tacoma bigger. It's almost a full size truck now. I read the C&D article on it as well. I haven't had the opportunity to drive one, but I did own a Tacoma years back when they were a smaller truck. I actually liked it because for just running around town it was fine. It had the 4 cylinder engine, but the PreRunner off road package. It got decent mileage but didn't like interstate runs too much. It was just a fun to drive truck. When they got bigger I didn't much care for them, it kind of took the small truck driveability away. I'm not surprised they are having issues with it.

I'd just be curious to see how much this "Interceptor" would cost once built. Ford seems to have problem right now convincing the buying public to spend much more than about 20 to 25 thousand for their cars. While this Interceptor certainly has some appeal, I suspect that given it's mechanical underpinnings it's also going to be priced in the low 30 thousand range. Sadly I envision dealers have to lay a lot of money on the hood in order to move them. I'm not sure now is the right time for this kind of car from Ford.

The switch back to drum brakes on on the rear is not going to be received well by the buying public even if it made sense from a mechanical point of view for the vehicle. Drum brakes are by and large regarded as old or even outdated technology amidst the majority of the buying public. Ford Motor has enough problems already with public perception about it's products. This was not a good idea. Surely someone on the development team for this vehicle must have realized that the likes of Car and Driver, Motortend and the rest of the automotive periodical segment was going to point this out. More bad press is not what this company needs right now.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the media does get wrong in their reporting and it's not just limited to the national or cable news level. Right down to the local level it seems to be a problem. I hate dealing with the media because every time that I do I know they are invariably going to misrepresent some facts of the story. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it's very frustrating at times. The vast majority of the viewing public, completely unaware of the problem, just continue to tune in and believe everything they see and hear from the talking heads.

The whole conversation seemed pretty civil until this Zan person called the other fellow a filthy liar and a stinking liar. It was downhill after that but honestly it seemed to me the pcsario chap was just giving back as good as he got. With respect to this new Malibu, I rather like it. Taste is subjective of course but it has a certain level of appeal. It's certainly an improvement over the current Malibu offering, especially with respect to the interior. Apparently GM is taking seriously the idea of being competitive in the midsize sedan market. I'll be interested to see one at the Detroit show.