GM is planning on creating a a rear-wheel-drive, 3 Series-type at a much more affordable price.
A new GM car with its roots in the Holden Torana and a mechanical package developed from the VE Commodore, could be on the road by 2011. It will be rear-wheel-drive like the Commodore, but smaller and linked to the Torana TT36 concept seen at the 2004 Australian International Motor Show.
The idea for a born-again Torana; probably to be called the Pontiac G6; was first floated by the former head of GM Holden, Peter Hanenberger, who believed it was the right car to give GM a prestige rival to the BMW 3 Series.
Development of the car is now under way and General Motors vice-president of product development, Bob Lutz, confirms details first leaked through the powerful United Automobile Workers union in the US.
Lutz, speaking during a visit to Melbourne to check on technical work at Fishermans Bend, says the compact will be in production within five years.
The UAW has already revealed it will be built at a factory at Lordstown, Ohio and will be developed from the Global Alpha mechanical platform.
Lutz says the Torana TT36 is a good pointer to the newcomer. “From a size and proportions standpoint that's what we're looking at,” he says.
“That's about the size were looking at, but that wasn't completely worked out. That was a sort of truncated Commodore, the components in that.”
Lutz says the new compact would work well with the Pontiac brand, which is already committed to a re-badged and re-styled Commodore which will be sold as the G8.
“Pontiac wants to be a sporting rear-wheel-drive brand,” Lutz says.
“So we have several brands that would be potential beneficiaries of a small rear-wheel-drive architecture and ... Holden is, obviously, one of the logical ones.”
He says the car could give GM a crucial point of difference in a crowded marketplace. “Because everybody has highly competent front-wheel-drive sedans and they all look more or less the same,” Lutz says.
“And the way to get a slightly different proportion and to do something different, because I'm a firm believer nowadays that if you want to grab market share you have to do something different. "
“If you do the same thing that everybody else is doing and you just do it a little bit better you'll kind of hold your own. But I'm a firm believer that, hey, when everybody else is doing small front-wheel-driver cars, which are excellent cars; but let's do something different for Pontiac.”
Even if the car is targeted at the 3 Series it will be cheaper.
“Well, you'd definitely never price at that level,” Lutz says. “That's the whole premise ... a 3 Series-type car but priced at a more affordable level."
“You'd basically have 3 Series ride, handling, steering, all of the dynamic qualities of a smallish rear-wheel-drive sedan; the lighter weight, the ability to use four-cylinder engines; and not have to carry around a big V6 or V8 lump of an engine up there."
“And you'd have a very nimble, very agile, dynamically pleasing car reminiscent or great driving German rear-wheel-drive sedans but at a much lower price point.”
