Performance models coming back, small cars.....Aveo.....

Copy from Automotive News

DETROIT -- The high-performance group at General Motors Co. has a broader mission again -- with a marketing veteran in charge who is eager to develop powerful small cars.

"We have a tremendous opportunity in the small and compact car market," said Jim Campbell, who was shifted last week to the new position of vice president of GM's performance vehicles and motorsports. He was moved over when GM marketing boss Joel Ewanick hired Chris Perry from Hyundai to run Chevrolet marketing.

GM now is considering expanding its performance line to its small cars, such as the four-cylinder Chevrolet Cruze as well as the next-generation Chevrolet Aveo. The Cruze goes on sale in the fall.

"Small cars and compact cars are going to be more and more important going forward, and we're looking at efficient performance," said Campbell, who has experience working with GM's NASCAR, American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Road Racing teams. "We will work with those teams to provide performance variants."

Campbell will coordinate the performance-vehicle efforts at GM's marketing, engineering and performance parts and accessories departments.

The moves are led by North American boss Mark Reuss, who was executive director of the performance division from 2001 to 2005. It's also a reversal from the pre-bankruptcy days at GM when its High Performance Vehicles Operations unit was axed, and GM reassigned 60 engineers who had worked on special-edition, low-volume performance cars, such as V-Series vehicles for Cadillac and SS vehicles for Chevrolet, at the tech center outside Detroit.

With the division strengthened, GM can look at some projects that were previously put on ice. "This is much better from an organizational perspective," Reuss wrote in an e-mail. "It's people working for a common goal under one strategic direction."

In marketing, Campbell said the aim is to improve the image of each brand.

He said: "If you come in and see a V-Series, you might not buy it, but you might consider something else" in the Cadillac showroom.

Good find!

Just saw that posted on Autoblog too:

Report: GM high performance division put back to work, focus on small cars

Quote:

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This means we should expect higher-output versions of the new Chevrolet Cruze, as well as the upcoming redesigned Aveo – and not just trims that look quick, but go quick too.

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http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/23/repo ... -focus-on/

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(Just a note: it's better to post a link to the source, plus quote a small portion and/or a summary of their story instead of the whole article. That's playing nice, plus copyright and all, you know.)

I'm not the greatest at posting, I tried but yes i understand, I'll try better next time.

Thanks

a bit too late for all of us though

You could look at it this way: the Aveo name living on in a new model might be a good thing for people who already have one. Hmm... I wonder if "orphaned" car models have lower resale than ongoing ones?

I'd bet it's easier to find a lower price on a new/used G3 than an equivalent Aveo even though the warranty is fully supported on both (assuming it hasn't expired, in the case of a used one)!

The article is wierd, GM acts like they've never made a hot compact car before...Which they've done plenty of since the early 1970's. And into the 90's. Good performing small cars have been hot since peeps started tinkering with Honda civic's in the early 1990's. Thats when it became important to focus on hot small cars...

But Camaro's were still selling, and SUV sales were blossoming... So hot compacts weren't so much of a concern giving us such underdog's as the late 90's Z24. Cool cars like Turbo Sprint's were made in numbers to small to be significant. Sent to select dealers to pep up showroom visits.
Not made for mass consumption. While Dodge leaped ahead with it's Neon and the aftermarket that followed.

All that being said, this is still cool news, better late than never... I see Kia's got a semi decent looking small car with the forte, Ford has some cool looking compacts out today and there new styling is kinda cool..
Hyundai has the Genesis as pretty cool looking car.. not sure how compact its considered.

Can't wait to see what GM brings to the table. I'd like to be back in a showroom in 2012/13.

I'll be looking forward to seeing what gm does in the future with the aveo? I was never a fan of the slo-balts, but they did a good job with the cobalt ss turbocharged. That car had some serious potential, and was a decent stock performer as well.

It's a slippery slope imo, because most people buy the smaller cars for more mpg, but if you could find a decent balance between the two I'd be interested.

Based on what they're doing with the Cruze, my bet is they're eventually going to offer at least 3 flavours:

1) regular
2) extra efficient ("Eco")
3) sport ("RS")

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Originally Posted by Monzaveo

I see Kia's got a semi decent looking small car with the forte, Ford has some cool looking compacts out today and there new styling is kinda cool..
Hyundai has the Genesis as pretty cool looking car.. not sure how compact its considered.

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They're in way different categories. Forte qualifies as a coupe/sedan (mid-size I think). Genesis is probably a full size luxury sedan/coupe. And the new styling of the Ford Fiesta may be cool, but the sticker price is way too high to be in the same category as the Aveo...