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Avista, Not Only Is It Not Coming.....

33K views 200 replies 66 participants last post by  bmwboy2007 
#1 · (Edited)
But....people almost got fired for releasing it to the public as a concept. There are no plans for it from Buick, never were, and in fact upper management is pretty pissed off it ever even saw the light of day.
 
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#2 ·
Are you serious? That is absolutely the most ass backward thing I've ever heard. How can they be upset about a beautiful concept bringing excitement to a brand? Worse yet, that it was so production possible. This is just baffling.
 
#13 ·
Whether you love or hate the car, someone needs to ask the question, "How does this stuff happen?" If the top brass didn't want the car shown, then there should be no way it gets shown. You'd think the sign-off for what makes it onto the car show circuit comes from pretty high up, so as to safeguard intellectual GM's intellectual property and not give away potential product plans before they're ready to do so.

Methinks there's more to the story than just a skunkworks group going rogue.





This is called objectivity. And there's a difference between looking at GM decisions with a critical eye (see this thread) and criticizing every move GM makes, regardless of whether it's "good" or "bad" (which is what you often do). Hence my comment on the GM profit thread about waiting for you to tell me why it was bad news. No, I was not harassing you, as you claimed when you reported my post, but simply (and legitimately) wondering what your "yeah but" was going to be.
 
#32 ·
Heck, new GM doesn't have nearly the cojones that old GM had. Old GM brought us some really edgy and daring designs. Just a few I can recall in my era.
- Pontiac Fiero
- Dustbuster vans (those looked right out of the future to my 12yr old eyes when they came out)
- Buick Reatta
- GMC Syclone/Typhoon (they could/should so bring these back)
- 4th Gen Camaro/Firebird (5th gen too really)
- Cadillac XLR

Hearing this garbage about the Avista is just frustrating. GM needs to take more chances with cars like this!
 
#16 ·
I can tell you guys one thing. When I requested an interview with the designers of the Avista at the Chicago show. The Buick PR guy was minding our interview like he was trained in North Korea.
 
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#18 ·
 
#21 ·
My sense: Avista was a bit of a trial balloon, likely pushed by design but against the wishes of the product management folks, to demonstrate some interest in a big, Buick coupe. The PM folks will show loads of data that spending any development on a coupe is insane when there is no market growth there and it's already a niche dominated by performance cars. But, endless CUVs don't provide much of a canvas for design. There just isn't a ton of room for a big design statement barring something like the RR Evoque (and, no, I don't think the current crop of CUV/coupes qualify!).

My guess: the Avista got amazing press and loads of attention for Buick (good), but even with an actual, beautiful car to point to, there was likely very little data pointing to anything approaching a business case for a production version. Volumes would be low (likely less-than-Camaro low) and I'm guessing at that rate, the numbers didn't work. Moreover, I'm also guessing the same was true in China (or we'd be seeing a production Avista).

So, now GM needs to manage expectations via all channels (including back channels) -- hence the 'brass was ticked' narrative.
 
#113 ·
Avista was hot enough they could have sold it 4 different ways, 4 different trims and interiors, made money, and gotten acclaim. The rags and the enthusiasts wouldn't have minded much.

This was no A-body.
 
#25 ·
Design team gone rogue? Awesome! A big beast like GM needs a little bit of rebellion once in a while.

When the Viper was in development only a few members of upper management knew about it. Had they waited for approval to begin development, it never would have happened.
 
#28 ·
Didn't Pontiac once briefly show a competitor to the Corvette at an auto show in the DeLorean days? I thought the story was that the car was confiscated by the higher-ups at GM corporate and was never seen again. But the positive reaction to its brief appearance led to Pontiac getting an f-body, the Firebird.

I doubt that the end result will be so positive in this case.
 
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#31 ·
#36 · (Edited)
Sure. The coupe market isn't very big and it isn't growing. So, any entry needs to either steal buyers from other (non-GM) coupes or convince people who would have otherwise bought something else (ideally something cheaper from GM or something from a competitor).

The sort-of competitors for the Avista might have been more expensive cars like the Audi A5 or BMW 6-series. Hard to imagine those buyers 'stepping down' to Buick in significant numbers. Maybe some ponycar buyers might by, but there's not much of a business case to create a new car to steal Camaro buyers. Better (and cheaper) to evolve Camaro to capture those buyers. The last chance is that the Avista is so compelling that someone looking at, say an Equinox and decides, to spend a little more and reward himself with a big Buick coupe. Again, that goes against every current market trend; people are dropping sedans like the plague to get into a fashionable CUV.

The one shot the Avista had was if there was suddenly a ton of interest in China. That's why I believe they showed it there. The fact that they aren't going forward (and that they've shown more than one coupe concept in China) says to me they aren't finding a growing segment there either.

Listen, the Chevy SSR concept had people really excited too, then GM built it and the reality (including the price point and impracticality) meant a lot of enthusiastic looker did not translate into buyers.

Yes, there are a bunch of people on GMI who love the car. How many of them would part with 40,000-50,000 dollars to get one, especially if it didn't have some element (LT1, for example) that they imagine as a must-have? Even the Corvette sold something like 40K cars last year and most at a lot more than $40K. Could Buick find more than 40,000 buyers for more than a year or two? Looks like GM thinks not.
 
#34 ·
Sounds like you have access to some very sensitive internal info, perhaps it could be called "GM inside news".

I'd like to hope this story is innacurate. Is it only the unveiling that they went rouge on? We heard of a "new Buick Coupe" for about a week, then they had a whole page of info ready and two of them made.
 
#58 ·
I thought someone on here said that there were actually three. There was the blue one we saw, a red one, and I thought someone else said that there was a third prototype made that was shown in China. Does anyone remember?
 
#62 ·
Then how does this square with these past comments:
The wonderful, unexpected return of the luxury coupe
"We're getting the data points in North America right now, because everybody loves it. And so, when is the right time to do it?" says Mark Reuss, GM's executive VP of global production development. "Is it three years from now; is it two years from now? Is it a year from now? When is that? That would be the next discussion. And so, it's not out of the question, but the point of the car is, 'here's where Buick's heading.'"
Then there was the second red Avista built for the NYIAS


In addition for GM to openly talk about the internal 4-door 3rd Avista prototype.

All of this was really adding up that the car was actually heading for production.

Could there actually have been serious internal pressure from the Camaro folks to kill the car (much like the rumors that Cadillac lobbied and had the Avenir killed). The Avista really shows how lame the 6th-gen design really is.

*Heck, if I ever win the lottery, I'll buy a Camaro, have the body stripped off, and get Chip Foose to build my own Avista. :)
 
#66 ·
Then how does this square with these past comments:
I'm guessing that was PR designed to try to contain the situation. They can't very well air all the dirty laundry out to the public and say "Well actually top GM brass didn't support this concept being shown, and there are no plans at all to produce it." after seeing the overwhelmingly positive response that the car got.
 
#65 ·
This is a clear example of Chevy and Cadillac squeezing Buick. They were successful with Saturn, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile and now they are doing the same politics with Buick.

It's a shame as innovation succeeds when politics takes a seat. Unfortunately, politics still has strong pull within GM. When politics takes a front seat, things like an Aztek get "created" and basically put negative pressure on the GM brand.

It's sad state of affairs when you hear stories like this.
 
#68 ·
When Olds was cut, they finally got their act together and had some of the best cars for their day. A 01 Aurora, to this day still looks good and relevant, if you can find one with less than 200k miles in good shape. Saturn got their act together next and had really nice cars too, then axed. It's always right after they start making good cars and leaving the other brands behind do they go.
 
#73 ·
Each brand functions as their own business unit; Despite all getting paid by "GM" some wear brand-hats, Chevy, Buick, GMC, Cadillac; I'm sure few Buick or GMC people objected, but people that wear chevy or Cadillac hats?

What about the people that wear GM hats, but want to see the brands managed differently?
- I'm sure some want each brand to "stay in their own corner" while others think the brands should run more independently, because preventing them from competing with themselves, also prevents them from competing with the competition.
 
#72 ·
... and this information comes from...?

I couldn't see GM creating this concept without intending to show it to the public. There's a lot of coordination between design, engineering and marketing to coordinate the build work and the show schedules and overall "message" ... I doubt that happened in a vacuum and without management's awareness.
 
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