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FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE:

Jim Mateja
GM could reap harvest of cars off Solstice


Published December 8, 2003


General Motors will use the Detroit Auto Show next month to announce that it not only has approved production of the two-seater Pontiac Solstice, but also that it will start assembling the open top, rear-wheel-drive roadster soon, according to Auto Horizon, an Internet automotive information and research newsletter.

Solstice, you may recall, was introduced as a concept at the Detroit Auto Show just two years ago and proved to be an immediate hit.

Auto Horizon says GM initially will build 20,000 annually and work up to 40,000 units of the car.

It also says that a new four-seat Saturn, an unnamed four-seat Buick and perhaps a small open-top Hummer are candidates to share Solstice's new rear-wheel-drive small car Kappa platform.

Bob Lutz, vice chairman of product development for GM, recently told us (Cars, Nov. 13) that the return of the Pontiac Firebird is a dead issue.

But Auto Horizon says now that the GTO is here and because Solstice soon will be, Firebird's cousin Chevy Camaro is still a live issue and a small, rear-wheel-drive model could appear in late '06 off a new platform from GM's Holden subsidiary in Australia.

GM insiders, however, insist that while a small rear-wheel-drive Chevy sports car may be under consideration for the near future, it wouldn't carry the Camaro name if it did appear.

mida see tähendab, aru ma ei saa

Stay tuned.

The AutoHorizon speculation on the addition of several new GM models thanks to its Holden subsidiary makes remarks by Jim Queen, vice president of North American engineering for GM, even more prophetic.

Queen told a recent gathering of scribes that the Holden Monaro-based Pontiac GTO signals a "rapid-fire expansion" of global platform architecture at GM.

"You'll see more of one GM company in the future," he said. "We're going to bombard the market with global architecture with mix-and-match flexibility," meaning one platform as the basis for a variety of GM vehicles around the globe that will bring new vehicles to market at less cost and in less time.

But one platform won't be shared globally.

"Not trucks, that's a product for the U.S. market," Queen said.

Saturn update: Saturn plans to double its lineup to six vehicles in the next three years as well as increase the number of dealers to 650 from the current 500 by '07 or '08, said Jill Lajdziak, vice president of sales-marketing for Saturn.

While, as often reported, Saturn has been looking at a convertible, she's mum on the three new entries coming, other than the Relay for '05, a minivan with sport-utility like attributes that will join the Ion coupe/sedan, L-Series sedan and Vue sport-utility vehicle.

Relay will be first steel-body Saturn in a lineup known for flexible, no-rust plastic body panels. The reason for the switch to steel was obvious, Lajdziak said, since Relay will be built in the same plant as the other steel-panel GM minivan/crossovers, the Chevy Uplander, Pontiac Montana SV6 and Buick Terraza.

Whether future Saturns go steel will depend on where they are built--Saturn plants that now produce plastic panels or GM plants that produce metal bodies.

Better to give: The '04 Pontiac GTO shares platforms with Holden Monaro from GM's subsidiary in Australia. Holden will produce 18,000 GTOs off that platform for Pontiac annually. And how many Monaros will it build for its own market? 2,500 annually.

Age of equality: Mark Reuss, head of GM's performance group, on why his division is creating high-performance versions of vehicles throughout the GM lineup:

"Having fun driving hasn't gone out of style. Young people don't want an old people's car, but old people don't want an old people's car either."

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