Lighter GM Vehicles

[TooManyHobbies]

Interesting interview with Lutz in the new issue of Automotive Engineering. Best info:

The next challenge for his successors is to whittle away the vehicle curb weight that has increased along the way.
"As we went for product excellence, reducing mass was out lowest priority," he said. "On the next generation, we are going to maintain the excellence but get a lot of mass out." The company aims to drop its average vehicle curb weights as much as two inertia weight classes.

[GeorgeInNePa]

That's the nice way of saying, "Yes, the Camaro is a huge lumbering ham-beast!"

[johnbell2]

There's no choice - you can't meet the new mpg requirements without shedding pounds in the entire product line. Win/win since light will also mean "faster" all else equal.

How "light" gets reconciled with good crash test / safety ratings... that's the magic.

[orangeg8]

nice to hear that . GM has had too many fatties along the way.

[norm8332]

I see increasing defects in the future. It always happens when "cutting the fat"

[NYG8GT]

How "light" gets reconciled with good crash test / safety ratings... that's the magic.

If the Japanese and Germans can do it, I don't see why the overpaid numbskulls over at GM can't halfass their way through a reverse engineering of a 5 star import and apply the same basics to a GM vehicle *shrugs*

[johnbell2]

cheap / fast / good, pick two

[Andy@SquashPerformance]

cheap / fast / good, pick two

Hey it worked for NASA, right? Hah.

Andy