Rather than a premium, what I should have said was toyota, honda and bmw dont have to bribe people to buy their cars with huge incentives because of public perception of their vehicles.


Look what oil prices and public perception have done to the prius. Its selling for $5,000 over sticker in Baltimore and I saw 2 articles stating they were getting $10,000 over sticker in California.

Granted honda/toyota etc are good cars but IMO they arent as good as people THINK they are. Just like American cars arent NOT poorly designed or "cheap" or "unreliable" as the majority of americans THINK they are.

GM still needs to do something about their interiors. The 04 GP seems a quantum leap over anything previous but yet GM still shoots itself in the foot. Look at the Equinox, it gets rave reviews for design, size, space efficiency etc but when you get to the interior, it sucks. Its cheap and flimsy plasticky. It ruins the overall impression of the rest of the truck to the point that I wouldnt buy it. And I dont feel too good about driving something with a V6 made in China, no matter how old/good the design. How they can put the 250hp honda V6 in the VUE and not the equinox is beyond common sense to me. Its things like that, that make unfavorable impressions on people.

GM needs to take some of that discount money and just lower the price of the car period and not move, OR put it into better materials in the interiors or wherever they are lacking. They have to get out of the "we have to price it $10,000 more than what it should sell for because we will have to discount it 5-7,000 dollars to get people to buy it" mentality.
When you make a quality product, people will buy it.

Maybe thats why I like the GTO so much, I can forgive the vanilla styling because of the drivetrain and the interior. even if it does have a crappy trunk. Incidently the local dealer was getting $5,000 over sticker on the GTOs. Now I see he has 3 and they are advertized for $29,990 Im sure all the talk about a Judge version and a 400 hp LS2 is now hurting sales of the 04 big time. Id wait too.