[Chip]

I have wondered what the Sky design / assembly team is doing while waiting for the Solstice to launch. I would expect that the Sky is as ready to go as is the Solstice, but it must be tense in the Sky team. They must be ready to correct any problem(s) that show(s) up with the Solstice. Maybe they will focus in on the "high performance" model?
Do any of you have any thoughts as to how Saturn is, or should be using this time?

 

[t.henss]

Hi!

I'm a roadster fan from Germany who's waiting for the new Opel roadster. It will also be based on the kappa platform.

All information we have now points to the fact that the Opel will be a rebagded Sky. As some people in the Solstice forum have mentioned, the Solstice can't be exportet to Europe because of the new european pedestrian protection laws.

If GM decides that the Opel (and therefore also the british Vauxhall) roadster WILL be based on the Sky (with minor modifications to lights and engine), it might make sense to use more or less the same car.

This would mean that the three GM kappas (Solstice/Sky/Opel "GT") would base on the same platform (already confirmed) and on only TWO different bodies (Solstice + Sky/Opel).

In this case the Sky would have to meet the european requirements despite not being sold there. This could be one thing people at Saturn do at the moment. If so, they'll probably receive reinforcements form the Ruesselsheim development center in Germany. In times of global information systems it might well be that the work is done outside the US (remember the design of the Sky which has been taken of a Vauxhall concept car).

Another possibility might be that people try to achive a better quality. I'm no US insider so I'm not sure which reputation Saturn has. But Opel in Europe definetely has a bad reputation due to very bad quality during the last decade. If you ask me GM should not even think about bringing another low-quality Opel while VW is building premium quality at the same time.

Besides the design which is a matter of taste, the Solstice has one big advantage: it will be on the market before the new Miata is there.

The Sky won't have this advantage but the Saturn people now can concentrate on quality issues. I'm quite sure that the first Solstices will have some teething troubles. If Saturn will react fast, the Sky won't have this problems.

 

[Dante]

Saturn tends to be the guinea pig for GM (in years past, GM has tried out a lot of things on Saturn that bombed, like the VTi transmission for example, and the entire platform for the ION and the VUE which have become the Chevy Cobalt and the Chevy Equinox and now Pontiac Solstice), so it's refreshing to see that another division gets to incurr the growing pains of a new platform before Saturn uses it. I am sure the design teams are busy testing and tweaking, at least at Saturn. For the Pontiac group, the designers are probably already onto new projects. I'm sure they're not just havin' a bud, passin' the pipe.

 

[Rainier]

Well, I think they're all sitting around drooling over the prototypes.... It's what I'd be doing!

I sure as hell hope that even the tiniest imperfections in the Solstice will be resolved by the time they launch the Sky. I mean, they can design the damn Solstice from the ground up in a matter of weeks, don't you think that given an entire YEAR, they'd be able to address and correct anything that arises.

I'm with you guys just counting the days until I see my car roll off the back of the transport truck. :willy: :cheers:

BTW, we need a larger library of smilies....12 just aint enough. :banghead:

 

[KappaMan]

Lurking this forum!!! :lol: