Does this mean the Mazda Miata remains the only player in this segment?
File this under things that make you go hmmm...

http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f...xed-r-d-68685/

 

I saw that on Autoblog. If true, it saddens me, although I prefer the Miata in most respects, competition is good for this class of cars, and I do find myself strangely attracted to the upcoming (unless axed) Solstice Coupe which is supposed to debut early next year. Hopefully they can find some way to keep the Kappa cars going, like maybe basing the next generation Kappa off a modified C7 platform and move the production to Bowling Green (would require expanding the BG plant), and kill off the XLR which is made alongside the Corvette.

 

I've been lambasted for it in the past, but virtually every time we see something released about GM's continually revised product plans I'm vindicated in my argument that GM is increasingly being laid bare as the car company which seemingly can do nothing right.

Kappa: A low volume platform which underpins two roadsters GM loses 10k per unit on, and which are produced with soft tooling which ensures that GM cannot expand the Kappa lineup in an effort to offset production costs. I would go into all the reasons why this is stupid, but I'm not ready to write a novel yet. Even better???? It gets worse.

Zeta: GM blows the farm on their new Holden-developed, full-sized, rwd platform convincing themselves and a great many others that their Australian division could develop a viable, affordable, global rwd platform despite the fact that common sense deemed otherwise. Not surprisingly, they were wrong.

The list of mistakes? GM was so certain this platform would underpin cars that would sell in phenomenal numbers, showing a complete disregard for the economic climate in the process, that they a: didn't see the need to design the platform to be flexible enough to underpin anything smaller than the new Camaro, b: were and still are terribly late to the game developing an alternative to the V8 engines the cars which were intended to be based on this platform were destined to be heavily dependent upon, and c: didn't realize the need to seriously upgrade their V8 program in a timely enough manner to offset disaster. The ultimate insult? Rumors indicated long before the first Zeta based car debuted that Holden had blown their budget and done so in grand fashion. So now we have a platform pigeon-holed into a segment GM cannot figure out how to play within without relatively thirsty V8 engines and we have the added insult of higher than planned production costs.

The end result? We have Zeta cancellations left and right. In fact, even the Zeta based Cadillacs intended to help ease the pain of all the other Zeta cancellations, not to mention the general cost of this platform, have apparently been axed...which should tell everybody something about just how expensive this platform really is since the same is no less than a by-proxy admission that GM cannot produce a Zeta-based STS or CTS replacement without taking a financial bath. By this point I am all but convinced that GM would likely lose money on the Camaro is they asked C6 money for it, which could explain their willingness to price the car so close to the Mustang. Whats another 2k per car when you are already taking a 10k per car bath?

Alpha: The final blow. It is difficult to imagine this isn't related to the Zeta debacle, but for those who don't already know Holden has been stripped of the Alpha platform and Caddy and GM Europe have now gotten the job for reasons....well, which are likely listed above. This means that Alpha has become a strictly luxury/high end platform and likely signals the final blow to GM's rwd revival.....when it comes to Alpha nobody but Caddy is likely going to be allowed to play here in the US.

It's like the Keystone Cops. except that it isn't funny.

 

Somehow it doesn't surprise me. GM is usually late to the party, builds sub-par to par machines, and makes really stupid decisions.