On the outside, the GS gets some unique body work and 20″ wheels.  It’s also lowered 0.4 inches thanks to a sport suspension with an adaptive shock system.  The concept also has AWD with a 6-speed manual transmission.  Under the hood, you’ll find a 2.0L 4-cylinder turbocharged powerplant.  Specs on the turbo 4 are 255 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque.

Source: Car and Driver

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The CTS-V coupe will be premiering early this year on the show circuit.  The performance/luxury two-door has been spiffed up with a mesh grill, widened race tires, new chrome exhaust, heavy-duty Brembo brakes, and GM’s stabilizing ride control.  556 hp is provided thanks to a supercharged 6.2 L V-8, attached to either a 6-spd. manual or automatic transmission. 1959 cadillac for sale

The article was done by someone going under the creative name of “the Mechanic.”  Rumor has it he was a former Detroit exotic dancer, sometime salesman, and later editor for The Advocate.  Actually, we’re not really sure.  Nor do we care.

So here is a summary of Inside Line‘s predictions:

The BMW 5 Series GT and Honda Accord Crosstour will be colossal failures.

The Chevy Volt will be a sales flop.

Bob Lutz will abandon GM and move to Chrysler.

The feds will find out that Tesla and Fisker investment is a waste.

The Camaro will burn out.

The Toyota Tundra will be axed.

Michael Schumacher’s F1 comeback will go nowhere.

Subaru will emerge as the hottest Japanese brand.

Mercury will be dropped.

Korea will dominate.

The real shame here is that this guy’ll get two or three of these things right, the rest wrong, and still have a job.  At least he’s giving us something to whine about.

If this truly is the end of Saab, maybe it’s just as well Bob Sinclair isn’t around to see it.

Sinclair, who died in May at age 77, made Saab a success in the United States. As head of U.S. operations in the 1980s, he pushed his reluctant Swedish bosses to add content and luxury to their cars.

We forget just how well Saab was doing in this country a couple of decades ago, nearly hitting sales of 50,000 units before the October 1987 stock market crash. Saab was quirky, but also cool.

Think how hard it is these days to take a brand upmarket. You have to marvel at Sinclair, who retired in 1991. In fact, Saab may be the last brand to make a successful transition from downmarket to upmarket — here or anywhere.

In December 1989, General Motors was cash-flush and distressed that it had lost out to Ford in bidding for Jaguar. So GM acquired half of Saab. Several years later, it bought the rest.

You can trace the beginning of the end of Saab to the January 1990 press conference in Trollhattan at which GM was introduced as Saab’s 50 percent shareholder. David Herman, an American GM executive installed as CEO, was perplexed when a Swedish journalist asked him what the Saab brand stood for. I remember that the reporters and Saab employees kept remarking about that.

GM kept getting it wrong in Trollhattan. At first, the U.S. company was too hands-off. So what you got were years of indecision. It took almost 15 years for GM to become serious about leveraging its economies of scale to help slow-growing Saab. Early in this decade, Rick Wagoner finally decided that in trying to safeguard Saab’s brand character, GM had been overly deferential.

So six years ago, GM folded Saab’s independent product development and manufacturing operations into Opel’s. But that didn’t work, either. It seemed as if Saab was never more than an afterthought at GM.

I can’t help thinking that an independent Saab, led by independent thinkers like Bob Sinclair, would have done much better these past 20 years.

Column courtesy of Automotive News.

GM failed to sell it, and now Saab’s going the way on Saturn and Pontiac.

No matter what diehards say, Saab never stood a chance.  It was never a hot brand, its vehicles were overpriced, and its name’s barely recognizable to the masses.  Spyker, the small Dutch exotic carmaker, could not reach an accord with GM over a buyout.  Saabs make up less than 1% of total GM sales.  To make a starker picture–the division sells barely a fraction of what Corvettes pull in each year.

One question still lingers: What will happen to the new 9-5?  GM was investing a lot into the midsizer, and word was good on it.  GM will be rapidly cutting back on all Saab operations and services, so the 9-5′s premiere is unlikely.

GM’s always wanted the Hummer to be America’s twenty-first-century Jeep.  After all, didn’t the military derivative, the Humvee, replace the old Willys icon?  In the midst of an SUV boom in the early 2000s, General Motors finally went all-out.  A smaller, more public-friendly “H2″ was launched, alongside an entire Hummer division.

Then it all fizzled.  Sky-high gas prices and greenie hatred turned the Hummer into the most divisive American automobile in memory.

Shame the HX should be caught up in that.  If ever there was a Hummer capable to really hitting the Jeep, this would’ve been it.  The HX concept was released nearly two years ago as a genuine sport-ute.  The HX carried a high stance, an open-air cabin, small dimensions, and removable paneling.  Under the hood was a flex-fuel 3.6 L V6 delivering up to 304 hp and 273 ft.-lbs.  The 3.6 was mated to a 6-spd. “Hydra-matic” auto gearbox, helping to deliver an estimated average of around 25 mpg.

The HX may have a future…somewhat.  Hummer’s Chinese owners are continuing with the proposed compact H4 prototype, said to be based off the HX.  Given China’s choppy rep, we’ll have to wait and see how the H4 works out.  As it stands now: Hummer is a long way from becoming the new-world Jeep. hummer h2 for sale

Can’t GM keep an exec?  The General has lost how many people in the past three weeks?  CEO Fritz Henderson bailed right out of nowhere.  Then came word Chevy head Brent Dewar flew the coop.  Right after the Dewar break came the shock that the Buick-GMC chief, Michael Richards, jumped ship after nine days on the job.

We contend Buick-GMC is a doomed asset, but Richards’s departure is shocking even for us cynics.  GM isn’t finding any love in Europe either, with Swede authorities demanding GM sell off Saab before the new year.  German treasury and trade officials–as well as the labor force–are equally hostile to the General maintaining ownership of Opel.  No rest at home, no rest abroad.

Shame no one wants to live in Detroit.

A lot has been happening with the General.  The blogosphere went into a hoot over Frederick “Fritz” Henderson’s resignation as CEO,as the move was unexpected even by his colleagues.  As Vice-Chair Bob Lutz put it, “None of us had any hint this was coming.”  Ed Whitacre, GM’s board chair, will step in temporarily to fill the CEO slot.

Henderson’s departure comes as GM continues to suffer heavy losses, as well as some very public embarrassments.  The Opel, Saturn, and Saab deals all fell through, with European trade and treasury officials publicly questioning GM’s competence.   Opel’s CFO, Marco Molinari, quit the exhausted German subsidiary just yesterday.  (Not an inspiring sign.)

Mike Jackson, head of the largest US auto retailer, was open about his fears in an interview with Automotive News: “I’m concerned because I think Ed [Whitacre] and Fritz made a great team of complementary talents and I think Fritz’s expertise will be missed.  And, since everyone agrees the core business of GM was on a very good path, you have to ask the question, why are they doing this?”

Others were not so forgiving.  ”Both the plan and the resignation of GM chief Henderson confirm that there is no clear line at GM,” said German economy minister Rainer Bruederle.

David Kiley of Popular Mechanics offered his analysis on why Henderson left: “Henderson did not see eye-to-eye with chairman Ed Whitacre, who was brought in by the White House after Henderson was given the job: Henderson was keen to sell off the company’s Opel division in Europe, a move the board reversed. He led the selection of ‘preferred buyers’ for Saab and Saturn only to have both deals fall apart because the would-be buyers backed out of the deals at the 11th hour. Henderson pushed back on replacing chief financial officer, Ray Young. And Whitacre looked at how much GM had budgeted for marketing, deemed it insufficient to compete against rivals Ford and Toyota, and boosted the funds by some $500 million.”

General Motors reports it lost approximately $1,500,000,000 in the third fiscal quarter of 2009.

CEO Fritz Henderson remained positive with the announcement, saying “today’s results provide evidence of the solid foundation we’re building for the new GM.”  Total revenue was up from the preceding quarter and Henderson also announced the company was ready to begin paying back taxpayer loans.

The dour financial news was met by word GM’s remaining US properties would be having a cross-brand sales event during the week.  How shoppers will respond to the bleak forecast remains to be seen.

Earlier this summer, after GM had run through bankruptcy like a greased pig, our John Phillips threw a page of questions onto my desk. The queries sought to make sense of the rearranged domestic car industry. There were a lot of them, but they demanded answers. Here are the most pressing five:

Q: If it’s true that Americans will only buy small, fuel-efficient cars when gas exceeds $4 per gallon—and stays there—why would Fiat’s range of small cars help Chrysler?

A: Fiat’s small cars won’t help Chrysler, but its engine technology and mid-size platform will. The critical distinction here is between “small” and “fuel efficient.”

It’s true that Americans want big cars—they represent security, utility, and status to those of us poor unfortunate souls condemned to living between the coasts. But we also want fuel-efficient cars, especially with so much volatility in gas prices. The two would appear to be at odds. It wasn’t until recently that cars such as the Ford Fusion hybrid and the Chevy Malibu four-cylinder/six-speed automatic broke the “fuel efficient means small” paradigm. What Fiat will give Chrysler are the platforms to make cars like that—C- and D-segment fillers with modern, fuel-efficient powertrains.

And although coming CAFE regs are mainly supply-side sleight of hand, Fiat will have to build as many high-mpg cars as it can, in America, to satisfy the government. Everyone involved hopes this will stabilize Chrysler’s vitals.

Q: Why does GM—or Chrysler or Ford—care how many dealers it has? (GM plans to go from 6000 dealers in the U.S. to 3600. Honda has 1300 here, Toyota 1500.) If any given dealer can sell enough cars to turn a profit, who cares how many there are?

A: The care and feeding of dealers is expensive. Carmakers have to train all of them, for one thing. Also, there are certain costs, such as “dealer holdback” (an amount given to dealers from the automaker to offset the interest costs on loans), that are administered on a per-dealer basis rather than a per-car basis. The more dealers an automaker has, the higher its fixed costs. So the object for the carmaker is to maximize sales per dealership. To look at GM’s dealer body prior to offloading its four hobbled brands, you’d think it still owned half the market. No, make that one-and-a-half of the market.

Q: Why can’t GM follow the successful leads of Toyota and Honda, offering a mainstream brand and a luxury brand? Wouldn’t Cadillac and Chevrolet suffice? What’s the point of keeping Buick and GMC?

A: There is now alignment between GM and Toyota on this front. Toyota actually has four brands if you look hard enough: Scion, Toyota, Lexus, and Toyota truck. Chevy will soon comprise a very Toyota-like 70 percent of GM’s sales, with the rest split among premium-priced Cadillac, Buick, and GMC. Buick sticks around because it sells well in China, and because there are those American customers who won’t buy Chevrolets. GMC lives on because it demands premium pricing without much corporate heavy lifting.

Q: Ford didn’t take government bailouts, but it did sell off subsidiaries in the past few years and effectively mortgaged the company to raise cash. Will it soon similarly face Chrysler’s and GM’s crises/bankruptcies? Should Ford declare bankruptcy, too, so it can emerge at least as competitive as GM and Chrysler?

A: When the Big Three went to Capitol Hill last fall, my friend Jim Hall, an auto analyst, asked me: “What’s special about Ford, structurally speaking?” He went on to talk about the differentiating effect of its dual-class share structure, in which the family holds the voting rights. If the company goes bankrupt, the reputational hit—and the risk that the family could lose control—is enormous. Ford took an arguably bigger risk in mortgaging itself in 2006, but it’s paying off: The company avoided public ire by not taking a bailout, and its purchase consideration and market share are finally growing.

Q: If there had been no bailout monies, wouldn’t Chrysler and GM simply have gone into bankruptcy a few months earlier than they did? What, specifically, did the bailout money achieve other than forestalling bankruptcy for a few months?

A: According to presidential auto task force head Ron Bloom, “These were completely failed enterprises in need of restructuring.” Don’t sugarcoat it, Ronnie. Without the government’s oversight, though, it’s safe to say GM and Chrysler would have been liquidated. And without the government’s investment, GM’s and Chrysler’s chapter 11 filings wouldn’t have happened with such whiplash-inducing swiftness; the claims of complainants wouldn’t have been swept under the rug, and more suppliers to GM and Chrysler would have drowned. Bloom may be a bit self-serving here, but the man has a point.

Column courtesy of Car and Driver