[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by lbls1

One other thing I missed (rather two things); Cruze and Chevy SS. The Chevy 'SS was a remnant of the Holden line that was imported to the US initially as the Pontiac G8. The model IMO was unique in that it missed its target market twice. It missed it with Pontiac because it was not allowed a long enough run for it to get noticed. Additionally, large sedans (even in '07 and '08) was a segment in recession. There were a few players in the market at that time, but in general midsized sedans were current and popular then. The model returned in '14 as a Chevy variant without a proper name. Essentially unchanged except in its grille and cladding. It had advanced safety and luxury features, and roughly $10k higher in price. GM and Chevy didn't intend for it to be a high volume seller, but more as a way of selling out the remainder of the Holden line. Its demise was unfortunate; The car would have done well had it been introduced four or five years prior to its first launch. The car seemed to have had better than average quality, and certainly the v8 version had great power and performance abilities. If it were handled better at that time it would've made a great follow up to the '94-'96 Impala SS. The Chevy 'SS does have a slight following in the resale market, most notable by its unusually high asking price. But just think of how much better it could have performed with a few years in advance of its launch, and perhaps a different take in styling.

Cruze. To this day I can't put a finger on why it failed. Cruze was the last descendant of Chevy's small car segment, punctuated by the once popular Cavalier. Cavaliers were good as average commuting vehicles, but most viewed it as relatively crude and a bit lacking in quality. Chevy renamed its replacement as Cobalt, and at that time it was meant to signal a better quality product. I would assume that Cobalt may not have completely accomplished Chevrolet's goals, as roughly a decade (give or take a year) it was re-packaged and named Cruze. Cruze seemed to have had a decent start as it looked like it was picking up sales. Then a few years later (six or seven years) it was gone as well. It is a mystery to me as why Cruze did not succeed; Even as Chevy's current crossovers are selling well, the absence of one or two of Chevy's former lines leaves it without a good competitor to Toyota and Honda and other smaller companies entries in the small car and midsized sedan segments.

Good post. I will only try to add a little flavor to it from a former insider’s point of view. I was actually in the room for a number of the events and decisions around both vehicles.

Chevy SS
Actually was a derivative of a derivative. Tom Stephens (Powertrain VP, my boss’s boss at the time) and Bob Lutz collaborated to make the Holden based Pontiac GTO happen. When Pontiac went “boom” the decision was made to shift the vehicle, by then named G8, to Chevrolet portfolio. There was practically no budget for this. Basically, give it Chevrolet brand elements and keep it moving. There was some debate on the name. I was part of a small, loud, but not very powerful contingent suggesting it be called Chevelle. Clearly that didn’t work.

Cruze
Cruze didn’t really fail. Sales were actually quite good at the point in time the decision was made to punt it. Pulling it was part of the strategic exit of sedans. I was gone from GM by the time the exit was executed, but I was really surprised at the timing. Volt was exited at close to the same time since there was a lot of component commonality.

***EDIT*** Meant to point out that the reason there was never any real push to generate volume for GTO, G8, or Chevy SS is because there is a hard cap on the number of vehicles any company can import from Australia. I think the number is 30,000. This is why GM had to basically duplicate a Zeta platform module in Oshawa to build Camaro on Zeta. If you draw the conclusion that Lutz and Stephens pushed the GTO to confirm Zeta as an appropriate platform for Camaro you wouldn’t be totally wrong. The Oshawa module would never have happened if there was no GTO. Without Lutz and Stephens pushing the issue there would have been no GTO.