2009 Pontiac G3: An Aveo by Another Name

Responses (11 total)

1. By Ed | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 12:48:11 PM

   I expectged no better from the MORONS that run GM, that's what they ALWAYS did, they made ONE car and caLLED IT 10 different names, one for each Division.
   IN CONTRAST, Honda and TOyota make ONE civic and ONE Accord and ONE Camry and ONE Corolla and sell 2 MILLION copies a year of them, in the US alone, and many more millions around the world,
   and, most important, EVERYBODY and His Mother-in-law KNOWS what a Corolla or a Civic is!!!!
   WHILE NOBODY, even GEARHEADS, have a CLUE what the eff a Pontiac 2-3-8 is.
   So now Pontiac will waste ZTENS OF MILLIONS OF $ ADVERTISING and telling you what the stupid Aveo clone is,
   INSTEAD of USING these millions to make ONE AVEO, BUT BETTER than the Curtrent PIECE OF CRAP that it REALLY IS (the tiny POS DOES NOT EVEN GET DECENT MPG!!!!!!!)

2. By Steven | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 12:58:59 PM

   At least the shnoz on the Pontiac version isn't as dorky looking as the Aveo. It does make me wonder if we'll see the G2, which if I'm not mistaken, is a Daewoo-sourced city car that GM sells in Mexico via Pontiac dealers.

3. By Ed | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 01:24:19 PM

   From AUTOBLOG:
   For a little while there, it looked like Pontiac was getting its mojo back. The G8 is terrific, the Solstice GXP Coupe is ready to join the roadster, and the even more awesome G8 GXP is waiting in the wings. All rear-drive. All meant to be fun.
   And then GM goes and does this.
   Behold, friends, the 2009 Pontiac G3 Wave. Yes, that's an Aveo5 with Poncho nostrils, and it reeks of product strategy that's more 1989 than 2009. Why not just call it G3 Le Mans? You know, in honor of the last Daewoo-sourced trashback that helped turn that whole "We Build Excitement" thing into a punchline.
   By comparison, this makes the equally distressing Pontiac G5 look like a Corvette ZR1 on the cool meter -- and trust us, this is the only scenario in which you'll ever see those two models mentioned in the same sentence again.
   The press release after the jump explains that, "More than ever, fuel economy is an important factor in Pontiac's formula of style and performance."
   In the G3 Waveo, "performance" means red gauge lighting and 106 horsepower channeled through a 5-speed manual or cutting-edge 4-speed automatic.
   It also gets over 30 mpg highway, so we're supposed to bust out the Veuve Clicquot and celebrate this new era of efficiency at the Pontiac division. Thanks, but we'll skip this party.
   The G8 and Solstice are genuinely exciting, desirable cars that had restored some luster to the Arrowhead, but this...

4. By JKD | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 02:48:03 PM

   Maybe they should sell it in Korea where it's made. One American-made Corolla for me please, thank you very much.

5. By JKD | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 02:50:55 PM

   Mark my words, if not the go'vt, some Chinese (or Arab)company will buy out GM any day now and will set up a puppet in Detroit.

6. By Eddie | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 04:34:23 PM

   It seems to me that GM is playing the product mix game by duplicating and increasing its small car line up from the same platform to cover for all the V8's they have. I think this is Sad but necessary to offset all the truck and large SUV offerings they have. For all of those who think GM should just build one GOOD car instead of making so many crappy coppies, I tell you that this is all driven by our CAFE rules and how the government calculates the overall average fuel economy for any company. HONDA and TOYOTA can afford to build only ONE Corolla and ONE Camry is because they don't have many large SUV and Truck offerings to offset. They are fine the way they are and their overal cooprerate MPG is above minimum required by CAFE. If GM does that, they will have to drop the HUMMER and GMC divisions all together so they can afford to make only one Aveo or Cobalt without any clones. Our GOV. needs to handle each GM division separately and that will make it easier for GM to comply with the cooperate average fuel economy (CAFE) but as I said, GMC and HUMMER will need to get small 4 banger cars to stay complient with CAFE. OR, they will have to reclasify their products as large trucks or specialty products of some sort to not have to comply with the 27.5MPG average, or whatever it is now.

7. By Ed | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 04:45:24 PM

   Eddie,
   Your explanation is wrong.
   The reason has nothing to do with CAFE. FORD is also unde rthe CAFE rules, but it ALWAYS had much fewer models than GM.
   This has amways been the GM PHILOSOPHY under Sloan and his successors, and how it is different from Ford.
   FOrd offered only the Model T and only in black (!)
   GM offered 100 different models, one for each different type of customer.
   BUT back then, these were LEGITIMATELY different models, NOT AVEO CLONES such as this silly little pontiac.
   FORD can satifsy today's cafe rules by selling a million FOCUS and another million FIESTA models (next year), it does NOT need 20 different small car models cannibalizing each other and having 20 different ad budgets with tens of millions of $ wasted in each one.

8. By Jay | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 09:27:24 PM

   Ed -
   Last time I checked Honda and Toyota were no strangers to badge engineering. Acura TSX and the european Accord, the Civic and the RSX? The RDX and the CRV, The Pilot and the MDX? How bout the Toyota Camry and the Lexus E? Or the Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe? The Carolla was sold as the Chevy Spectrum, The Sequia, Landcruiser and four runner all have Lexus counterparts as well.
   Get your head on straight before you trash talk. Sometimes, a fresh nose on a car is all it needs to sell more and in this case, bring GM into the stupid Nanny state liberal CAFE standards!

9. By JC | Posted: Sep 18th 2008, 09:41:38 PM

   @ed
   Maybe it might be nice to actually know what you're talking about before spewing words. There are Pontiac dealers that want a small car to sell in a market where small cars are selling..very simple. Not every GM dealer sells Chevys and it's usually the dealers that push for product. If I were a Pontiac dealer and I didn't have a small car to sell in today's market, I'd probably be upset.

10. By Jay | Posted: Sep 19th 2008, 04:22:23 PM

    ED - Now you're on the Ford Bandwagon? You are completely mental. They are the kings of badge engineering! Milan, MKZ, Fusion. F150/Blackwood Taurus/sable the list is endless.
    You also know that the only reason they are selling big numbers in the Focus is because it is cheap - price and quality and as for the European Fiesta, they are willing to buy small hatchbacks in Europe, USA is not there yet.
    It's not just about what they are building, it's about what we are buying and if the american people don't want to buy a hatchback, they won't.
    Get your story straight, it's morons like you that would want to regulate the industry and mandate what they make vs letting the market dicatate what is manufactured.

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