GM Issues Stay of Execution for G8 - Sort Of

5th October 2009

GM announced today that it will save the G8 and start selling a Chevrolet Caprice. This was widely reported, confirmed by GM and then denied by GM recently. The catch here is that the Caprice will be a Police Patrol Vehicle (PPV) only - at least for now. When GM publicly stated that they were not going to keep the G8 in the US market as a Chevrolet, it was because they couldn’t make a business case for it. However, the Caprice that they are now going to sell in the US isn’t even the same car as the G8, though they both come from Holden - GM’s operation down under.

Among many other nameplates, Holden sells a model called the Commodore, which comes in many configurations. It is the Commodore that spawned the G8 which Pontiac sells. The Commodore/G8 is based on a platform that GM calls its global rear drive platform, otherwise known as Zeta. This platform also underpins the new Chevrolet Camaro. That platform also includes the Holden Caprice, which is a slightly larger version (the wheelbase is stretched 3.7″ and it is 10.4″ longer than the Commodore) of the Commodore/G8. The Caprice is sold as a luxury car in Australia.

So GM can’t make a case for retail sales of the G8 as a Chevrolet, but they apparently can for the police-only Caprice? The investment into making the Caprice a PPV has to be significantly more than giving the G8 a nose job to sell it as a Chevrolet. Police cars require special equipment for their hard life chasing the bad guys that their more sedate retail cousins do not. Specifically, GM has added the following equipment to the Caprice, in addition to a specially calibrated transmission:

High-output alternator
Engine oil, transmission and power steering coolers
Standard 18-inch steel wheels with bolt-on center caps
Large, four-wheel disc brakes with heavy-duty brake pads
Heavy-duty suspension components
Police-calibrated stability control system
Driver information center in the instrument cluster with selectable speed tracking feature

All this makes me think that GM still might sell the Commodore/G8 or the Caprice to the US retail market. Why wouldn’t they? Chevrolet dealerships will have to be trained and stocked to service the Caprice anyway; the incremental effort and investment of selling it to Joe the plumber is inconsequential. Because the Commodore/G8 and Caprice are kissin’ cousins anyway, the Chevy nose job applied to the Caprice could likely be used to make the G8 into a Chevrolet for free.So will we see the Caprice in either version at your local Chevy dealer anytime soon? Hard to say, but today’s announcement surely improves the chances. For now, GM is using the fact that the Caprice is not available to retail customers to sell it to police departments, saying, “Unlike other police cars on the market, the Caprice PPV is not based on (an) existing “civilian” passenger-car model sold in North America.” This wording was clearly designed by the legal and marketing staff to mislead, but not lie. It is based on an existing civilian passenger-car model (but not sold in North America), and it is so closely related to the G8 that this borders on a lie, but doesn’t quite cross the line. GM better hope that police departments don’t read The Slandy Report.

That’s what I think - how about you? Please leave your comments below.

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