In 3 days...the world will have the new Skyline GTR

[G.Irish]

But the GTO is the victim of terrible marketing, and I, personally would welcome a 4 door, assuming it was priced right. With even Hyundai coming out with a rear-drive platform, Detroit needs to re-establish themselves as kings of proper-drive. What Ford NEEDS is the Falcon. What we GOT was the Fusion. Thank you ford, but I didn't like the Taurus the first time.

Therein lies the problem, "if it was priced right". Had the GTO come in at $20-25k it would have sold like hotcakes. At the $30k+ mark its not such a hot deal.

For the Falcon to sell well here it would have to start in the high teens and not really get up past the mid 20's for the Turbo. For the bread-and-butter models they'd have to line up favorably against the Accord, Camry, Altima, 6, and 300C. In that company that car would have to come up very big on the goods to make it worth the expense of importing, especially considering the financial trouble Ford is in right now.

Of course, had Ford not wasted its money on the Fusion maybe they could've afforded to bring the Falcon and make it successful.

And as far as the Ute, the El Camino was more a victim of the Death Of The Muscle Car than it was from "People hate it". I mean, the new Brat, I mean Baja, isn't doing too bad.

The Baja has done terrible in sales. As of September Subaru has only sold 4900 of them. Word is, it'll be discontinued soon.

And the VX220 is more than a GM Elise. It's turbo, with an engine that doesn't have to be wound to oblivion just to get a lil horsepower. I know it would completely cannablize the Elise AND Solstice sales, but jeez it'd be awesome to have here.

Still, a GM Elise with a turbo. The powerplant makes the VX220 much easier to live with for sure, but I'm not sure the cost of crash testing the car, jumping through all of the emissions hoops, setting up either a Vauxhall dealer network or rebadging the car (as a Pontiac?) and doing all of the training and parts supply rollout would be worth it in sales. Who would buy it?

The Elise is pretty darned fast as is so there probably aren't a whole bunch of customers who didn't buy it because it was underpowered. A turbocharged car of course provides a lot of room to crank up the power for cheap but I doubt the typical buyer (or prospective buyer) of an Elise/VX220 is that type of enthusiast anyway. No, for the VX220 it would have to provide significant upside over the Elise (read: a lot more power in stock form or much lower price). More power would break the 1st Commandment of GM: Thou shalt not be faster than the Corvette. Lower price would make it difficult to turn a profit.

I think it has kind of snuck up on us, but this is one of the best times in the last 20 years to be a car enthusiast in the US.