GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Hmm... Look familiar???BIG SURPRISE: Europeans WANT small, efficient 5-door 'wagons'.Let me get this straight. GM is rushing to build a 'Chevy Cruze Wagon' in Europe, because they don't have anything like it on sale in Europe.Suppose GM and Toyota had 'saved' NUMMI. They could have used excess NUMMI capacity and produced hundreds of thousands of Vibes (call them Chevy Cruzes or whatever) and shipped them to Europe while European production came on-line. But the Vibe (and to some extent the NUMMI "Nova") always, always suffered from the 'Not Invented Here' syndrome. GM would rather publicly humiliate and kill it's b*stard stepchildren than ever ever admit to having an automotive affair with arch-enemy Toyota. Even though Toyota taught them how to make cost-, fuel-, and space-efficient small cars in a quasi-UAW environment.Link to full article: http://www.leftlanenews.com/ch....html

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I like the Cruze. The other day, I was just telling a Chevy salesperson that if Chevy offered the Cruze as a wagon, I would consider trading in my Vibe.

Quote, originally posted by K-NINE »if Chevy offered the Cruze as a wagon, I would consider trading in my Vibe. IF it cost the same as what I paid for mine.... with the 1.4 turbo and stick.... But those are pretty big if's!!!

In reality, by the time the Cruze came out GM could have cut ties with Toyota, put Vibe on the Delta II platform, and given it the 1.8 and 1.4t Ecotec engines, and the Vibe would have been a better car (higher MPGs, better transmission, 6-spd stick, Vibe Eco?) and 100% GM, not the child of GM-Toyota. I'm not 100% that it could go all the way to 300,00+ miles, but only because I haven't looked for an Ecotec with that many miles. The only reason I believe our 1.8 Toyota engines can do it is because I've seen it on the forums. If I were to see more than a handful of Cobalts with over 300,000 I'd have full faith in the Ecotec. Already I believe its achievable with almost any engine if you take care of it.

...yes, GM demonstrated absolutely no foresight with Pontiac or the Vibe.

What mystifies me is that there are some people that are surprised at the thought GM would have no foresight in thingsHere is a commercial for the 1987 Caprice Classichttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWtm4er_P2YIn this commercial Chevy is trying to poach sales from Oldsmobile(a sister division of GM at the time) instead of the Ford LTD Crown Victoria. Selling Chevrolet at the expense of other GM divisions is the reason GM wound up in financial trouble. On top of that the 1987 Caprice was a rear wheel drive car with a carb. The 1987 Delta 88 was a front wheel drive car with a fuel injected engine. The cars were night and day to each other.

In fairness to GM, I think that was a Chevy dealer ad. And I'll bet that GM quickly put pressure on that dealer to stop it - or at least tried.

Quote, originally posted by Old Tele man »...yes, GM demonstrated absolutely no foresight with Pontiac or the Vibe.Not that familiar with the Pontiac situation, but as for the Vibe I am reasonably certain it was not profitable for GM. For some reason US buyers prefer sedans with a trunk whereas we here like the versatility of a hatchback. Ford discontinued the Focus station wagon - as a stockholder I wrote to them that their mistake was in only offering that version in the higher trim line. Also very few were to be found on dealer lots. Whether that was a chicken and egg thing I don't know. Maybe the dealers did not stock them because they didn't sell. Many many years ago Civic had a high top wagon but discontinued it. Toyota discontinued the Corolla and Camry station wagons. I remember that Toyota also once had a hatchback but they were rare as hen's teeth.