Slideshow
Detroit 2009: GM Post-Bailout Booth Tour
Aug 8, 2013
- Detroit 2009: Chevy Booth
- The Cruze and the Beat greet journalists early Monday, January 12.
- Detroit 2009: Chevy Booth
- Entering on the Chevy side, the Volt display is up front, followed by a long expanse of Bowtie-adorned metal. The Corvette ZR1 is on the floor in front of a Camaro display.
- Detroit 2009: Chevy Booth
- The other assorted Chevy cars and trucks (there's certainly no shortage of nameplates) are mixed in beyond that. The Equinox, making its big debut, is on a rotating dish toward the back end of the Chevy area. The Bowtie is the giant 900-pound gorilla here. Its mere existence obviates the need for most of the GM brands and nameplates joining it on the floor.
- Detroit 2009: GM Display - the right side
- One thing that we noticed down at the GM area is that if you stand at the front, between Chevy and Cadillac, you get a view down the main hallway that seems a bit telling. On the right are brands that are likely to survive: Chevy, Buick, and GMC...
- Detroit 2009: Saab Booth
- The centerpiece of the Saab display is the 9-X Air BioHybrid Concept. Very pretty. Very not-gonna-happen. A handful of production models are scattered behind it, but you can almost smell the looming death in the air here.
- Detroit 2009: Saturn Booth
- Next up is Saturn. The Vue Plug-In Hybrid gets the prime turntable real estate, but it seems hopelessly optimistic given the recent media reports about GM's plans to shrink down to four brands. That casts a pall over the display, where a number of the vehicles are beginning to look a little aged. And the gray "Hybrid" stickers on the "mild" Aura only look like a cry for relevance. Next door at Ford, the new Fusion hybrid makes it look like an antique.
- Detroit 2009: Pontiac Booth
- The Solstice is hidden away in the corner of the floor. Bring a jacket if you plan to go see it. It's cold in Siberia
- Detroit 2009: GMC Booth
- GMC stands opposite Pontiac, and you can't help but wonder why it always seems to make it onto the keep-alive list. There's not a single product there that isn't completely duplicated by a near-identical-looking Chevy truck or, now, the Traverse crossover. Baffling. Like the rest of the General Motors displays, GMC's got nothing especially fancy going on here.