Why not? Saturn Sky / Pontiac Solstice

[Ace-Garageguy]

I will believe to the day I die that, with the right people, Saturn could have been spun off as a totally stand-alone enterprise, perhaps using it's GM ties as leverage to get cost savings on materials and generic parts, and downsized (by cutting a LOT of deadweight management, for a start) until the production-numbers became profitable. They were good vehicles, had their own build style (much more like the revered Japanese brands than the cheaper US products), and the early twin-cam 4-banger is a great little engine. But I'm sure a massive write-down was more attractive to the knee-jerk cost-cutting management style that characterizes GM than trying to really build great cars.

And maybe it WAS time to axe Olds, but as you mention, Pontiac, another US brand with name-recognition, could well have been retained as a lower-production performance-oriented division. Foreign car companies are capable of building good cars that folks buy, here in the US. Why does it seem so hard for US companies, the same ones that practically INVENTED the car-manufacturing business, to do as well?

I also believe that when the focus of US car companies changed from "building cars, making money" to "making money by indulging in the necessary-evil of building cars", that the whole industry began to go off the rails. If the marketing-driven trends in management (plus focused production-cost saving while middle management bloats all out of proportion, and the abandonment of product-as-king mentality) that have crept into business since the '50s are so freaking great, why is the worldwide economy in the toilet ?

Edited April 6, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[jaymcminn]

A buddy of mine has a Solstice It's an '07 that he bought with only 15k miles on the clock last year. Neat little car, but:

1- no spare tire, or any real provisions for a flat

2- a tiny amount of cargo space with the top up, none whatsoever with the top down

3- shocking interior build quality

4- not nearly as quick as you'd expect (but the GXP solves that problem)

5- really, really unreliable- CEL continuously goes on for no apparent reason, trans control module crapped out at 17k miles

Overall, it's a fun little car, but I'd never have one as my only form of transportation.

[Craig Irwin]

Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Saturn are gone because they were redundant. GM's orignal idea of moving up from one make to the next in asending order as you became more afluent was replaced by 6 makes building badge enginered versions of the same cars. For many years Pontiacs were nothing but Chevys with stuck on plastic body clading and red dash lights. Oldsmobiles were very little differant from Buicks. GM was competing with itself.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Craig Irwin

[Ace-Garageguy]

Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Saturn are gone because they were redundant. GM's orignal idea of moving up from one make to the next in asending order as you became more afluent was replaced by 6 makes building badge enginered versions of the same cars. For many years Pontiacs were nothing but Chevys with stuck on plastic body clading and red dash lights. Oldsmobiles were very little differant from Buicks. GM was competing with itself.

Funny how when the different divisions in GM actually made cars that WERE in fact, DIFFERENT (not badge-engineered rubbish) GM did pretty well "competing with itself".

Edited April 6, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

A buddy of mine has a Solstice It's an '07 that he bought with only 15k miles on the clock last year. Neat little car, but:

1- no spare tire, or any real provisions for a flat

2- a tiny amount of cargo space with the top up, none whatsoever with the top down

3- shocking interior build quality

4- not nearly as quick as you'd expect (but the GXP solves that problem)

5- really, really unreliable- CEL continuously goes on for no apparent reason, trans control module crapped out at 17k miles

Overall, it's a fun little car, but I'd never have one as my only form of transportation.

Yup, and a buddy of mine has a first-gen Miata he bought new, now with 160,000 on the clock, and it's never missed a beat. It has a fully-functional trunk, an accessible spare tire, and the interior hasn't self-destructed. There's your problem.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Craig Irwin]

Funny how when the different divisions in GM actually made cars that WERE in fact, DIFFERENT (not badge-engineered rubbish) they did pretty well "competing with themselves".

But GM wasn't competing against itself back then, buyers "steped up" from a lesser make as they could afford it. Chevy was a small 6 cyl. car, Pontiac was a longer wheelbase car with an available 8, and so on.

[Cato]

Lutz's 'car-guy' stuff couldn't overcome the union's desire to turn out nothing more than mediocre quality..

[Ace-Garageguy]

But GM wasn't competing against itself back then, buyers "steped up" from a lesser make as they could afford it. Chevy was a small 6 cyl. car, Pontiac was a longer wheelbase car with an available 8, and so on.

Yes, and you just made my point for me. Thank you. GM had a corporate strategy that worked well. When it was thrown out for the 'new-improved' quality-engineered-out-for-cost-saving, overlapping-badge-engineered-junk strategy, things began to go all pear-shaped.

In the '50s, American cars were the world standard for comfort, reliability and speed, really the equal of Mercedes but less complicated. Not so these days, with all the 'better' management, eh?

Edited April 6, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

In the '50s, American cars were the world standard for comfort, reliability and speed...

Said with good ol' American swagger.

Ah, but a much simpler time then. Back in the '50s you rarely saw anything but American cars on American roads. Sure, once in a while the odd MG or Jag or even a Volvo or two would be seen, but those cars were always owned by the eccentric college-professor types who wore tweed jackets with the suede elbow patches. Joe and Jane Sixpack wouldn't be caught dead driving one of them "ferrin" cars like a "Toyoder." American cars ruled the roost here because the world was a very different place then. We can tell ourselves that American cars were the best, but we didn't have anything else on our roads to compare to!

But them ferriners sure caught on quick. And they taught us a thing or two along the way.

[Harry P.]

Remember "planned obsolescence?"

Some of those cars back in the day were already beginning to rust away before you got them home.

[Cato]

Ah but we digress...

So how come no injection-molded Skys and Sols?? They sold well enough for specialty cars; why no interest by Revell-O-Gram??

Or Fujimi / Airfix / Italeri / ROG?? You'd think Revell of GERMANY since there was an Opel variant-no??

They made lovely die casts and the owners who posted those apparently like them...

[cobraman]

I think the Miata is probably the best bang for the buck if you interested in a 2 seater but why do they seem to be thought of as a chicks car ? At least thats what I normally hear.

[Cato]

I think the Miata is probably the best bang for the buck if you interested in a 2 seater but why do they seem to be thought of as a chicks car ?

Not in the SCCA-there's millions of 'em.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Well Harry, in the late '60s and into the 70's, I had started working on then-new ferrin cars and I embraced the opinion widely held at the time by the Euro / Jappo crowd (left-wing pinko-commie readers of Car and Driver) that 'Merkin cars were junk. I held this opinion for quite some time.

But as is often the case, with time and experience come perspective and wisdom. After having worked on (in great depth) a whole lot of what was built on both sides of both oceans since the end of WWII, I have to say that American cars really WERE easily better in many ways than what the other guys made for quite some time. Our automatic gearboxes led the world in the technology (both Jag and Rolls used Borg-Warner and GM auto gearboxes, for example). Our materials were often superior; I've seen brand new Datsun 240Z headbolts wring off before reaching the correct torque spec. Talk about rusting before you got it home...look at the '70s Japanese cars that live in the road-salt belt. More holes than steel. Tiny Euro motors would wear their little complicated hearts out keeping up with American traffic. And don't even bother trying to get anywhere in anything English if it's raining.

Mercedes is widely reputed to run forever, and Honda and Toyota aren't far behind in the perception of reliability / longevity . But these days, I routinely work on US cars built in the early to mid'30s that are still going strong, many that haven't been restored-simply maintained correctly. Even my old '92 Chevy truck has only required the trans to be rebuilt at 200,000 miles; otherwise it's just had minor nickle and dime issues. I kinda doubt any of the $40,000 pickups on the new market today will last as well. If nothing else, when the perceived-as-necessary electronics fail (with doubtful long-term parts support), and they will, they'll be scrap.

From a performance and reliability standpoint, the Corvette is equal and often superior to Euro exotics costing many many times more...all with archaic pushrod-engine designs. In short, American car companies have proven they CAN build cars as good as anything out there, and for less money. It's just a matter of management WANTING to.

It also should be remembered that both Japan and much of Europe had been bombed flat during the last real war, and that they took a while to catch up. The VW factory had no roof when Beetle production resumed after the war, and the Porsche factory looks like a chicken coupe in some early shots. But catch up they did, and then surpass the US car biz, as American manufacturers seemed to be content to rest on the reputation for excellence they'd earned before the '70s.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[martinfan5]

My 2001 Nissan Maxima is still going strong at 294,000 on the OD, engine and tranny never been rebuilt, no rust, everything works like it should , well ok, the truck light works when it wants to, and sometimes the steering wheel radio controls will stop working for a few mins here and there, mostly in cold weather.

Ace, lets add something to what you posted about Japanese cars from the 70's, while that is true, we need to be honest, there were just as many American cars on the road that were junk too, are we forgetting the Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega just to name a few.

This is a decent list of cars, both American and Import

http://chrisoncars.com/2012/08/worst-cars-from-the-1970s/

Edited April 7, 2013 by martinfan5

[Ace-Garageguy]

The ultra rare Coupe (less than 1200) is to my eye, what the 'Vette should have become. The bloated corpse Camaro, Vette and Mustang should have taken design cues from these cool and tasteful examples.

If I could build another car, it would be that Coupe with a 700HP LS-7.

Now that I think of it, I didn't even know they MADE a coupe. That's a cool little car. Kinda almost has some Cheetah going on. Hmmmm....700HP, eh ?

[Cato]

Now that I think of it, I didn't even know they MADE a coupe. That's a cool little car. Kinda almost has some Cheetah going on. Hmmmm....700HP, eh ?

Thanks for returning to subject in MY thread. The black Coupe in the link I provided looks even better.

Trying to get the knowledgeable model historians to speculate on why we have no kits of these two lost jems...

[Ace-Garageguy]

Remember "planned obsolescence?"

It never left...like most everything else these days, it's just not okay to call it what it actually is. The incessant march of marketed-and-perceived-as-necessary technology like XM, Bluetooth, MP-3 docks and GPS are every bit as much intended to make the older car as un-desirable as the yearly model-change of the '50s.

[martinfan5]

My 2001 Nissan Maxima is still going strong at 294,000 on the OD, engine and tranny never been rebuilt, no rust, everything works like it should , well ok, the truck light works when it wants to, and sometimes the steering wheel radio controls will stop working for a few mins here and there, mostly in cold weather.

Ace, lets add something to what you posted about Japanese cars from the 70's, while that is true, we need to be honest, there were just as many American cars on the road that were junk too, are we forgetting the Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega just to name a few.

This is a decent list of cars, both American and Import

http://chrisoncars.c...from-the-1970s/

[Ace-Garageguy]

Thanks for returning to subject in MY thread. The black Coupe in the link I provided looks even better.

Trying to get the knowledgeable model historians to speculate on why we have no kits of these two lost jems...

Sorry. It just seemed natural to go off in the direction of why it was killed as a symptom of a generally sick American car manufacturing business, and to rail at the perception that fun sports cars can't be built profitably in the States. Frankly, I always enjoyed seeing the Solstice on the street, because it gave me hope that GM might continue making interesting cars for niche markets.

I would think the low sales numbers of the 1:1s would be the answer to why no kit manufacturer invested the bucks to make models of it. If the real one is perceived as having a very small following, there's not really any incentive to make a model if profit and rapid ROI is the goal.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

Ace, lets add something to what you posted about Japanese cars from the 70's, while that is true, we need to be honest, there were just as many American cars on the road that were junk too, are we forgetting the Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega just to name a few.

I agree in principle, and I think that by the early-mid '70s American cars in general had lost a lot of the quality that had made the companies in the first place. And though I know practically nothing about the Solstice, I'm pretty sure it's at least a competent car, and I really think decent marketing and some well-thought-out development could have made it profitable enough to continue.

I have seen exactly one Solstice ad. Anyone else?

[timc]

Buick is still here because when you turn 62 or 65,whatever the retirement age is,they issue you a gold buick four door and the right to drive 25 mph under the posted speed limit.

I might step on some toes here. 90% of the time when there is a line of traffic moving slow there is a gold buick leading the way with an elderly driver at the wheel.

Pay attention the next time you are out and about and you'll see what I'm sayin.

Edited April 7, 2013 by timc

[martinfan5]

I agree in principle, and I think that by the early-mid '70s American cars in general had lost a lot of the quality that had made the companies in the first place. And though I know practically nothing about the Solstice, I'm pretty sure it's at least a competent car, and I really think decent marketing and some well-thought-out development could have made it profitable enough to continue.

I have seen exactly one Solstice ad. Anyone else?

I think the 70s for the automobile world as whole was just a junk decade

I think I have seen one , maybe two, does seeing one at a used car lot count as three?

[Joe Handley]

Buick is still here because when you turn 62 or 65,whatever the retirement age is,they issue you a gold buick four door and the right to drive 25 mph under the posted speed limit.

I might step on some toes here. 90% of the time when there is a line of traffic moving slow there is a gold buick leading the way with an elderly driver at the wheel.

Pay attention the next time you are out and about and you'll see what I'm sayin.

It's just not Buicks here, seen plenty of Toyota (mainly Camry and Prius owners) as well as Honda Accord and stock Civic owners.

[MrObsessive]

I was sincerely hoping for a glue kit of a Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky ever since they came out in '06/'07. Now with both divisions gone it's likely we'll never see one.

The Sky could have been the closest thing to an "affordable" 'Vette that we've ever had. It's interesting that GM didn't let Chevrolet use that car as an alternative sports car for Chevy, and let the Corvette have its own standalone dealers.

Not sure how that would have worked, but the Corvette has gotten so danged expensive, it looks out of place with the rest of the Chevrolet lineup price wise.