At the very least, this is a horrible PR gaffe from GM, a company with one foot in the grave and one that can ill afford any more bad press.
SS customers are the true enthusiasts, the men and women most likely to be evangelical in promoting these cars.
They also represent 80 percent of the pre-orders and most of them already have paid a deposit AND agreed to pay sticker for their cars. How many buyers of GM products can you say that about?
It's STUPID to piss these people off. In fact, these are the customers who GM should be going out of its way to do the right thing by.
The CAFE explanation makes sense as a reason for the delay, but it should have been communicated to buyers last October.
Instead, literally thousands of SS customers are going to get their cars late this year or even in 2010 after having an order in place for a year or more. And I bet a fair number will cancel their orders as a result.
I doubt that many - if any - SS buyers were told that SS models were a limited production car with highly restricted availability.
To find out five weeks before production was scheduled to begin that your SS might not be ready until 2010 is a swift and unwelcome kick in the groin.
WAY TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS, GM!
