GM hunts for architecture for rear-drive performance car
By Dave Guilford Automotive News / April 13, 2005
DETROIT -- General Motors is considering creating a rear-wheel-drive performance car in the tradition of the discontinued Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird.
"We're going to take another look at high performance rear-wheel drive," GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said Tuesday at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress.
A Camaro-type vehicle was expected to be part of the rwd Zeta architecture being developed by Holden Ltd., GM's Australian subsidiary. But GM recently halted development of that program, saying vehicles would be too costly.
GM executives have said they are exploring existing GM rwd architectures to house vehicles similar to those proposed for the Zeta program. Options include modified forms of the Zeta and Sigma architectures. Sigma is a rwd architecture used by Cadillac.
The timing of the vehicles is in limbo until GM settles on a vehicle architecture.
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DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND MY CONTROL, MY BRAIN IS CURRENTLY NOT FUNCTIONAL. MY EMPLOYER HAS BEEN NOTIFIED. AT THIS TIME, I HAVE NO WAY OF PREDICTING HOW LONG THIS ISSUE WILL TAKE TO CORRECT.
I hope they do introduce a new rear drive performance platform, but I doubt they'll be doing a whole lot of extra or unnecessary R&D until their financial situation is a little better. Then again, they might, and just forget profit all together for a couple years, and hope it pays off in the long run.
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DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND MY CONTROL, MY BRAIN IS CURRENTLY NOT FUNCTIONAL. MY EMPLOYER HAS BEEN NOTIFIED. AT THIS TIME, I HAVE NO WAY OF PREDICTING HOW LONG THIS ISSUE WILL TAKE TO CORRECT.
Then again, they might, and just forget profit all together for a couple years, and hope it pays off in the long run.
