Chicagoland

Well, this 'clone' is selling better than expected. Looks like there is some good 'badge engineering' once in a while.

US Montanas are dead now. How much is 'sell great'?

Wikipedia? LOL As reliable as a bathroom wall. See "The Onion" parody site, about the Wikipedia's "25th of July Celebration of US History".

I am glad to be wrong and C&G right, that the car is really coming. B4, people here said it was coming and didn't beleive it, till this year's Auto Shows. C&G was only off by 3-4 years though. 1st said 2005, then 2007, now for sure it is 2009 model year. Better late than never!

And Korea is not part of Japan, but some think it is.

It wasn't too long ago GM had some of the boring-est cars around. Like Century, Malibu, LeSabre, Lumina.... So, people in glass houses..

The H and G FWD bodies are popular as 'beaters' in my area. The older boxy FWD C bodies [PA, 98] were previously, but are worn out.

The Aspen will flop too. The true full sized Tahoe gets better mpg than the Durango, and they are stuck with it for a while, no replacements in sight. The 300 has cooled off, not th savior it was proclaimed. Not every buyer is 'dying for a RWD V8 car' as some think.

My 05 Sentra gets 30.5 mpg combined city/hiway, with AC on, thank you very much. I hardly think that it 'fails to get good fuel economy'. yes, it is getting replaced in a matter of weeks, not months, or years [like Ford] Cobalt's mileage is too low, these days drag racing at stoplights is out, and savign $$ is in.

"In 1965, it worked because GM owned the market and because a Pontiac Bonneville looked NOTHING like an Impala. Most people wouldn't have even known they were the same car. " Show pictures to a 20 yer old, and he/she would only see that the Pontiac has vertical headlights. The 64 GTO looks alot like the Cutlass then too. But just that Boomers memorized the differences then. The var has the same roof sweep and Coke Bottle hump. It is only in the emotional attachments to these old cars the old Boomers say 'they looked completely different".

Fusion finally outsold Taurus, so now it can be put to sleep.

Subtract Impala fleet sales and... Also, the Chevy competitor of Fusion is Malibu, not Imapla.

Glad to see I was even wrong about July sales! Was afraid of some bad numbers for the media to crow about. Oh "The Truth about Cars" writers, when is the predicted "death of GM"? Wasn't it supposed to be about now? Instead, more cars are selling at retail. Buickman, wasn't the Lucerne supposed to flop since it was a new name replacing 2 old ones? Looks like more retail buyers, instead of rentals getting new Buicks. Also, looks like no need to rely on GM employees only.

A short time ago, Cadillac was considered 'dying', 'irrelavant', 'old mans car', 'done'. Lucurne is getting some attention, and only tru domestic haters in the media have given it bad reviews.

Altima was new in fall 2001, 2 years before the Ion. So actaully Ion is the copy cat.

What's "Buickman" think? And "The Truth about cars"? To them GM is supposed to be bankrupt by now, right?

Never, ever, take what MT says as 'the word'. They are 90% of time reporting hearsay or dated info. In fact all the monthly car rags are reporting old news or just rumors. Only thing the rags are good for is road tests, nostolgia, and 'nice drive' stories I only believe press releases from the manufacturers.

Buick had compacts in the 70's, too. {Opels dont count} The RWD X body [Nova] 73-79 Apollo/Skylark were compacts. The 75-80 Skyhawk was a 'sub-compact', based on Chevy Monza/Vega H body. The 61-63 Special/F85/Tempest were loosely based on the Corvair! Shared unibody platform. But they were marketed as 'senior compacts'. The 64 BOF A body replaced them all, and reclassed Mid sized.

"I thought the 300's sales were dropping significantly since it came out?" Only since gas went back above 3$ the past 3 months, and not 'signifiicatly", still close to 10K units per month. The Charger & Magnum, though, are not doing as well as predicted. RWD Zetas will help, but not dominate GM's future.

The RWD X body Apollos and Skylarks came with Buick V8 engines, optional. And then after 1975 'real Buick V6's' aka 3800. And these are as much a Buick as the mid size A bodies, which were the same underneath as the Chevys, too. Problem was big car fans looked down an anything smaller than midsized, until 1979. Then, lots of Buick fans got the FWD X body Skylarks, and we know what happened next.

I do want to see new top of the line RWD cars, but I don't think they alone will 'secure GM's comeback'. They need a full line of good cars, not just RWD V8's for rich people who can afford $80 tanks of gas each week.

What is needed for sure is a base motor that gets at least 28-30 MPG city, to match Civic and Corolla. MPG is #1 now, not zoom zoom.

Sentra SE-R's with the 2.5 L have same issues as Altimas.

What was so great about the Breeze? and all the other boring Plymouths [stripped Dodges] from 1975 to 2002? The 'great' Hemi Cudas had not been built since 1971. Some think they made only muscle cars in old days, but most were plain cars and wagons. Also, 1990's Plymouth badged cars certainly were not worth alot, [the Prowler was just a toy]. And it's been nearly a decade, 8 years, since DCX was formed, isn't it a bit late now? I'm sure some cried years after Walter Chrysler bought Dodge, but time to get over it. Where were all these people when sales were needed?

Well, at least we know it's a 4 door. Rumors were that it would be a wagon like the Caliber and Magnum, but then Dodge needs more 4 cyl. cars to keep CAFE up, and offset the LX cars.