Posted on 07/04/2008 7:50:09 AM PDT by Babu
General Motors is considering a new Chevrolet mini car for the United States as it reworks its product lineup to cope with a dramatic consumer shift to more fuel efficient vehicles, a spokesman said.
GM spokesman Dee Allen said bringing the Chevrolet Beat to the U.S. market is among the options the company is studying. About the size of a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris, the Beat is a front-wheel-drive, three-door hatchback.
The Beat, to be built in South Korea, will be rolled out in other global markets faster than it would in the United States, Allen said. The car still must be engineered to meet U.S. safety and emissions standards, he said.
U.S. mini car sales are up nearly 31 percent for the first half of the year, even though the total U.S. auto market is down more than 18 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Chevy Chevette? Luv Truck? Been there done that.
So how do they intend to launch it? With a catapult?
It’s small and light enough that they’ll use a slingshot wielded by a skinny 10 year-old kid.
... with a trebuchet driven by explodable rechargeable lithium-ion batteries
Yeah ! We got the beat, we got the beat! /Go Gos
Bring back the VEGA,
VIVA LA VEGA!!!!!!
Ahhhh, the Vega. My first wife bought one of those things (1971, first production year) before we were married, and I should have taken that as a sign that the marriage would not work either.
I think the goal of modern liberal car design is to make driving a totally unpalatable experience.
When Beat meets Hummer, it won’t be pretty ...
Two years into the Obamanation of Regulation, this will be considered a standard sized car.
“I think the goal of modern liberal car design is to make driving a totally unpalatable experience.”
I’m not sure I even get your point. Demand exists for lighter vehicles that get better gas mileage. This decreases tax revenues from fuel surcharges, cuts costs at the pump, and means less money going into the Middle East. Further, these vehicles are economical. It’s about freaking time GM started getting in on this, even if they are producing cars in South Korea.
How are these liberal concepts?
And further, small cars can be a lot of fun to drive. They definitely have better turning radiuses than more obese vehicles. Gotta love a quick U-turn on a two-lane road.
Yeah, like i`m gonna sell my truck and buy one of those
sardine cans.
Have no plans to buy the GM Vot either. At 40 grand a pop who wants to sit in the middle of a strong electro-magnetic feild when they went hysterical over holding a tiny cell phone to your head for a few minutes.
They are just trying to help remind you of your childhood.
This is a Mini Car:
They are everywhere here in Germany.
And it does not deserve the title "car."
..my first car was a Vega
If it gets great gas mileage,it could look like Helen Thomas and still be a good thing.
There is nothing fun about traveling acroos country yo see family in a tiny box.
Did in the past with a little child in the car. It was a nightmare.
Good. More product. More choices. Let the marketplace decide. Great, humorous thread BUMP!
Got to say GM is making major and rapid adjustments. They might dominate the world car/truck industry in a couple years.
Bummer
I won’t be buying one, but I wish them great success — It’s a weally weally good thang if GM figures out how to save itself.
Otherwise, Congresscritters are going to use your and my tax dollars to save GM from bankruptcy (as well as Ford and Chrysler).
I had a Chevy Sprint in the ‘80’s. Fantastic car - 50 MPG. I don’t know why the hell GM stopped making it...
My first thought:
That was one of those 3 cylinder jobs? Suzuki-designed I believe.
I owned a 1972 Vega hatchback and loved it. Replaced it with a Monza “station wagon”.
Liberal car design? The not-so-big three are in the business of making cars that somebody -- anybody -- will buy. Their business is surviving the next fiscal quarter, not in promoting "liberal" or "conservative" cars.
Note that this car, if it is built at all, will NOT be built in the U.S. The Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris are not built in the U.S. either. The more the goverment ratchets up the CAFE standards, the more jobs it is forcing auto manufacturers to move overseas. The Democrats’ longed-for $5 a gallon gasoline and 40-mph mileage standards will destroy what is left of the U.S. auto industry.
Early in our marriage my wife and I had three small children, all in diapers, and out only car was a 1958 Rambler Metropolitan. You should have seen us traveling in that car! I saw one just like the one we had at a car show recently and was amazed at how much smaller it was than I remembered. My wife looked at it and said how much bigger it was than she remembered! Funny how time changes our memories. Gender changes them too I guess.
Same reason they don't make the Geo Metro any longer. It won't pass safety standards. Emissions might even be iffy. Without Emission controls, most vehicles on the road today with computer controlled fuel/timing could get 10-50% better mpg. They'd be spewing nasty Nox and smog, but get great mileage.
Yeah, 3 cylinder 5-speed. Mitsubishi, I think.
It was a great car.
Did you see the video linked here a couple of days ago that showed a Smart Car being driven at 70 mph into a concrete barrier? I was amazed. I had no idea they could even reach 70 mph! The results were truly astounding. They talked about its steel cage that designed to protect the occupants, showed the extensive damage to the front end, and then walked up and were able to open both front doors. I guess ‘front doors’ is redundant since that’s all it has.
When it hit the barrier it must have jumped 10 or 15 feet into the air!
Still wouldn’t want to be in one that got hit or hit something, but it was pretty interesting how well it protected the passenger area.
I did not bookmark the post and now I can’t find it again. Silly me. Maybe someone saved it and can share the link.
They are producing in South Korea, because unions have bankrupted motor vehicle production in this country.
Giant Trebouchet, at the ready for launch of Beat
Unions destroyed the U.S. auto industry. Honda and Toyota are not unionized.
Suzuki still sells a Swift, which is what the Geo Metro was based off of. Suzuki moved over to a 4-cyl, however, when they made the change from the Forsa to the Swift, while the Geo got the new body style but kept the little 3-cyl engine. Most people didn’t want that small of an engine anymore.
The Chevette - GM's answer to the Ford Pinto. Funny how you don't see many on the road today.
It looks like the new Camaro as reflected in a funhouse mirror.
GMC is doing terribly because they put all their eggs in the big truck basket. You knew the SUV bubble would have to pop sometime and they were woefully unprepared.
I too agree that getting a car that is cheaper to run is not a liberal thing or a conservative thing. Its something that makes a lot of sense. Some of the new generation of small cars are very nice to drive too. Take the Mini for example. I’ve driven one and its a real hoot. Its more fun than a Nissan 350Z or some of the other fast cars i’ve driven lately. Others may have more power but the Mini can corner like nobodies bussiness which provides for more real world fun since you have the opportunity to fly around a corner a lot more often than the opportunity to go 100. And the new Honda Fit is known for handling very well. Car and Driver found that it slaloms faster than a Corvette.
Side-impact crash standards, passive restraint systems and engine designs which minimize emissions at the expense of fuel efficiency are the major ingredients that killed off cars like the Sprint and the Honda CRX.
Today's VW Rabbit weighs 50% more than the original version of 20+ years ago. Yes, it's now a better car, but technology is only now pushing fuel economy back to where it was to begin with.
“Unions destroyed the U.S. auto industry. Honda and Toyota are not unionized.”
It goes much deeper than that. Poor product planing and decades of inferior design and reliability are huge reasons that GM and Ford are in the hole they are in. They drove a lot of customers away with a couple decades worth of crappy cars and those customers are now happy with their Japanese or Europeon cars and it will take a lot to win them back.
GM stock was under $10/share a day or two ago......IMO: will probably go lower!
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