I was recently told that some folks think The Autopian has it out for General Motors — that we write too many stories about GM failures, and that we therefore have some kind of beef with the company. That couldn’t be any further from the truth; in fact, to combat this silly notion, it’s time for me to write a quick blog about something I’ve been saying for many years: GM is the greatest automotive engineering company on earth. Better than Koenigsegg. Better than Rimac. Better than Tesla. Better than the Germans. The problem is, it’s oftentimes held back by executives and product planners. Here’s what I mean.
It’s really not hard to engineer a great expensive car. Worst case, you can hire out a third party like Lotus or Multimatic or Magna or Continental, and they can put together a sharp-handling product for you. What’s much, much more challenging is engineering a good inexpensive car, which is why it’s hard for me to consider anyone but GM to be the GOAT of the car-engineering world.
The most obvious examples are the various generations of Corvette, especially the latest ones. We’ve probably all read the recent stories about how the $200,000, 1,250 horsepower Corvette ZR1X lapped the Nürburgring in just 6 minutes and 49.275 seconds — nearly 3 seconds quicker than the $320,000 Ford Mustang GTD.
No matter what price class — whether it’s the base $70,000 car or the $200,000 top dog — the Corvette decimates the competition. This has been the story of the Corvette…pretty much since the beginning — go up against a much more expensive competitor (oftentimes from Italy or Germany) and whoop its ass around the race track.
For as long as I can remember, the Corvette has been leaving performance car reviewers with their jaws on the floor. Remember when Top Gear compared the C6 with the Ferrari 575? “This car really is like Robbie Williams. Who could have guessed that behind the ‘Take that’ nonsense, there was a proper musician trying to get out,” Jeremy Clarkson said, referencing the singer Robbie Williams, who broke off from his boy bad to become a true legend. “The Z06 is $60,000 pounds and the Ferrari 575… is 160,000 pounds. And if a martian came to earth, he’d have the devil’s own job explaining why,” he continued.
Then Top Gear gave the car to The Stig, and watched as the American budget-supercar decimated the 575, and even beat out the Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Murcielago, and Pagani Zonda!:
Then, when the C7 came out, Top Gear put it up its base trim, the Stringray, against a Cayman GTS, which put up a time of 1:21.6 on the Top Gear test track, while the Corvette matched the Porsche Carrera GT at 1:19.8.
Yes, you read that right. The base Corvette, which started at around $58,000, put up the same lap time as a $440,000 Porsche with over 150 horsepower more! Sure, the Porsche was 10 years older, but that’s still absurdly impressive.
We can just go down the line with numerous examples of GM dominating far more expensive cars. Perhaps the most mind-blowing, to me, was the Chevy Camaro ZL1.
There’s supposed to be a big gap between a company’s supercar and its muscle car. The supercar, like Dodge’s Viper or Ford’s GT, was the track weapon, while the muscle car, the Challenger or Mustang (respectively), was the straight-line sledgehammer. This was the case with the Camaro and Mustang, too, but then came the ZL1.
I don’t think people realize how mind-blowing the ZL1 was; Road & Track declared it “The Greatest Track Car GM Has Ever Made.” How? That’s a two-ton car! But sure enough; if you look at the the Jalopnik article “Here Is A List Of Cars That The 2017 Camaro ZL1 Beat Around The Nürburgring” from my former colleague Michael Ballaban, you’ll see that 7 minutes 29.6 seconds beats these:
Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera
Koenigsegg CCX
Ford Shelby GT350R
Porsche 911 GT2
Mercedes-AMG GT S
McLaren 650S Spider
Jaguar XJ220
Caterham R500 Superlight
Trabant
(That last one is RICH).
In 2017 the Camaro ZL1 1LE achieved an even quicker time of 7 minutes 16.04 seconds, absolutely crushing the M4 GTS, Ferrari 488GTB, and Nissan GT-R, and ending up neck-and-neck with the Lexus LFA. All from a standard Camaro chassis!
There are tons of examples of engineering marvels, as well as just some cool, soulful cars GM has built over the years that were just awesome. Here are a few:
Chevy Avalanche:
Midgates are becoming more of a “thing” since EVs entered the mainstream marketplace, but it was Chevy that popularized the concept with the Avalanche, a truly absurd truck with a single piece body instead of a separate cab and bed, storage bins in the bedsides, coil springs in the back (!), and of course that foldable second row that joined the midgate in turning the bed into an 8-footer. It’s a fantastic truck, and beautifully engineered.
GM EV1:
The GM EV-1 was, in some ways, the first mainstream modern (ish) electric car. I’ll quote myself here:
Just to give a little context for those of you not familiar with the EV1: It was an unbelievably advanced electric car built by General motors between 1996 and 1999, and leased to about 1,100 folks, many of whom were celebrities on the west coast.
[…]
…You’ll see technologies that were unheard of in the 1990s. The 0.19 drag coefficient still beats that of any Tesla; the cast aluminum strut towers (here’s GM’s patent) were innovative back then, and you could argue might have inspired Tesla’s GigaCastings; low rolling resistance tires were really barely a thing a the time; the heat pump that is so important to modern EVs getting decent range in the winter was super advanced, as well, and wasn’t found in even much more modern electric vehicles like the early Tesla Model 3. Add the aluminum space frame construction, hidden antenna, and optics-headlights and GM had something truly state-of-the-art.
It was truly revolutionary, but GM killed it, and though their reasoning was sound (it was expensive), the way the company did it created a PR disaster.
The vehicle was so beloved that, when GM pulled the plug on the egregiously expensive program that, one could argue, was perhaps a bit early given where battery tech was at the time (“I said, ‘Roger, just keep in mind what we have here. We’ve got about a gallon of gasoline worth of energy in those 870 pounds of batteries, and we effectively re- fuel it with a syringe’” is an amazing quote from former president of energy and engine management, Don Runkle, referencing former GM CEO Roger Smith (via Automotive News)), hundreds of people took to the streets
The Hy-Wire:
Check out that GM’s Hy-Wire; here’s what Jason had to say about it:
While hydrogen fuel cells really haven’t caught on, you know what did? GM’s revolutionary skateboard chassis design for EVs. Replace those hydrogen tanks with batteries and you effectively have the platform that all modern EVs – from Volkswagen to Rivian to Ford to Hyundai to Tesla to whomever – use today. And guess what GM did with it?
Jack. Jack feces.
Still, it was innovative.
Cadillac CTS-V Wagon:
556 Horsepower through a six-speed manual transmission, in wagon form? There was nothing cooler in the early 2010s. ‘Nuff said.
The Entire Saturn Brand:
Admittedly, some of Saturn was marketing/product planning/customer service, though the engineering side of things deserves some credit, too. The plastic exterior panels were brilliant, and the affordable, safe chassis tech made for a great value.
The Silverado:
I currently daily-drive a 1989 Chevy K1500 GMT400, with a 350 V8, four-wheel drive, a five-speed transmission, and a 14-bolt rear axle. It gets 14 MPG, but it’s simply a sensational truck, and so is the current Silverado, which blew me away after having driven the last-gen (whose interior I found uncompetitive).
Chevy’s engineers don’t know know how to build trucks; they know how to build the greatest trucks of all time, like the GMT400.
Chevy Volt:
The Chevy Volt wasn’t commercially successful, but it was a well-engineered vehicle featuring a semi-EREV hybrid system that was, at the time, truly innovative. Here’s my breakdown of how it works:
It was a good car, and it was well engineered. A T-shaped battery pack sitting under the rear bench and along the spine of the car was filled with liquid-cooled prismatic lithium-ion battery cells. A charge-port located on the driver’s side fender filled up those cells:
The battery then sends juice to an inverter to convert electricity from DC to AC to power the 111kw (~150 hp) electric motor, which feeds a planetary gear set that’s part of the “Voltec electric drive system.”
This drive unit is exceptionally complex, and actually features a 74 horsepower (55 kW) generator that acts as a secondary electric motor to propel the vehicle.
Here’s a slightly more translucent one version of the above shot:
The short of it is that, during normal EV-only operation, a clutch locks the electric motor to the ring gear, creating a 7:1 gear ratio between that primary motor and the differential output. In other circumstances, like at high speeds, the generator will assist the traction motor. If the car runs out of charge, the gas motor will run the generator to power the main traction motor, and, in rare cases (as mentioned before), the gas motor will run the generator while that generator is coupled with the traction motor, and thus the gas engine will be mechanically connected to the wheels.
Here’s a breakdown of how it all works:
GM’s EV Strategy
The Chevy Bolt is no Tesla Model 3, but it was a highly competitive, low-cost EV that offered good range to the layperson on a budget. It did have some “thermal event” issues, which definitely don’t help prove this article’s point, but with the highs come the lows.
And right now, I’d say GM is seeing a high when it comes to its overall EV strategy. Among “Legacy” automakers, it appears to be doing the best, as Matt wrote late last year:
GM’s stated goal this year was to reach profitability in 2024. When that was announced the assumption was that GM’s EV sales would be way higher than they are now, but it sounds like GM is going to pull it off at some point in Q4.
This is a big deal. General Motors has been making electric cars for years and has invested in a platform, Ultium, that can be produced at a large enough scale that the company can start to squeeze out some sort of profit.
With the exception of Tesla, no large non-Chinese automaker I can think of is truly profitable when it comes to electric cars. The investments are too high, the market too competitive, and the scale just isn’t there yet. By doing everything on one platform GM has gotten a little closer.
[…]
Technology is important, and GM’s Ultium isn’t particularly groundbreaking, but having the most efficient platform in the world in terms of range is less important for a company than having one that’s efficient in terms of production. After a lot of work, GM is getting there, helped in large part by its sub-$30k (after incentives) Chevy Equinox EV.
35 grand for an EV with a range over 300 miles? Not bad. To avoid losing your shorts on EVs like everyone else? That’s more than just not bad; that’s amazing.
There Are Tons Of Other Examples
I don’t know that I’d call the current Chevy Trax an engineering Marvel, but it’s a phenomenal value, as Thomas explained in “The Surprisingly Nice 2024 Chevrolet Trax Is $21,495 Of Fundamental Goodness.” (Like I said: It’s a lot harder to build a good car that’s cheap than it is to build a great car that’s expensive).
Then there’s the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, the world-beating Escalade, the GMC Envoy XUT (convertible SUV!), the weird convertible pickup Chevy SSR, and that’s just in the last few years. Go back in time, and you’ll find innovation after innovation.
I regret having even started this list, because to be truly exhaustive, it would probably add another 1000 words to this article. But you get the idea.
Mercedes’s Take: Oh, but don’t worry, David, because I’ll add more for you!
General Motors was once a transportation powerhouse that Chrysler and Ford simply could not even come close to matching. David has told you why GM’s automotive engineering is some of the greatest on the planet, and that’s true. But rewind your clocks back several decades, and the GM Mark of Excellence could also be found on market-dominating buses, best-selling diesel engines, and the most popular diesel-electric locomotives.
General Motors got into buses through its acquisition of the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company in 1925. Yellow Coach was the bus arm of the Yellow Cab Company, which was run by John D. Hertz, yes, of the Hertz rental car company fame! Yellow Coach would later forge one of the greatest advancements in bus design: the monocoque structure. Until about the 1930s, buses were mostly body-on-frame designs. These buses, which usually rode on existing truck chassis, rode high off of the ground and featured rough rides. The 1936 Model 719 highway bus was a revolution, as it featured a transversely-mounted diesel engine in the rear and an aluminum monocoque. Yellow probably didn’t know it back then, but this would become the blueprint for most coach buses and transit buses ever since.
General Motors believed in Yellow so much that it fully absorbed the company into the GMC Truck and Coach Division. GMC would go on to create history’s greatest and most dominating American buses in the New Look and the RTS-II transit buses, as well as highway icons like the Scenicruiser and the “Buffalo” bus. Just how good were GM’s buses? From the period of 1930 to the 1970s, General Motors was America’s number one seller of buses. America’s cities and bus fleets scooped up GM models by the tens of thousands, effectively forcing competition like Flxible and Eagle to fight for second place at best.
It was a similar story when it came to the might of GM in diesel development and locomotive development. In 1930, General Motors purchased the Electro Motive Corporation and the Winton Engine Company. General Motors had invested tons of resources into perfecting the diesel engine and filled its halls with some of the most brilliant engineers of the era. This division, which would be later called the General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD), would build some of the most iconic and most powerful diesel-electric locomotives that the world has ever seen.
By 1953, GM’s EMD held an impressive 73 percent of America’s locomotive market. In a distant second place was the American Locomotive Company (Alco), which held a mere 15 percent of the market. Even when General Electric became a major locomotive competitor and moved into second place in the 1960s, GM EMD still managed to control 70 percent of the market.
Meanwhile, GM’s investment in diesel also paid off in the form of the Detroit Diesel Engine Division. GM’s Detroit Diesel two-cycle diesels dominated America’s highways for decades in everything from fire engines to legendary Class 8 semi-trucks. One of the best-selling Class 8 engines of all time is the Detroit Diesel Series 60, a straight-six known for its good power, repairability, and longevity that could easily pull loads for well over a million miles. GM also used to build big trucks like the innovative ‘Cracker Box’ that I recently wrote about, and the GMC TopKick that formed the base of U-Haul’s largest trucks and the base of countless school buses for decades.
Sadly, General Motors has given up on all of these paths. General Motors sold off its bus operations in 1987, sold off the Electro-Motive Division in 2005, and GM relinquished majority control of Detroit Diesel in 1988 before later pulling entirely out.
Jason’s Take: Despite what people seem to say, I respect the hell out of GM. They’re the only company to build a car that drove beyond Earth!
I know it seems like I’m always picking on some embarrassing GM act of half-assery or absurd penny-pinching, or just general crappiness, but the truth is when they have to, GM can out-engineer almost any entity on the planet. When NASA needed a car, a literal, human-driven automobile that was capable of being driven on the Moon, it was GM that stepped up and designed the first motorized ground vehicle in all of human history ever to drive off the surface of the Earth.
The more you think about it, the more incredible it is: no one had ever done this before, and very little of GM’s previous automotive experience would really apply. Not even things like rubber tires could be used; thermal issues demanded that an entirely new method of making tires had to be found. They had to start from scratch, figuring out how to make a viable, useful vehicle that could operate in incredible temperature extremes, a near vacuum, on rough surfaces, since you really can’t get more off-road than the freaking moon, and had to be able to fold up like origami.
Seriously, look at this:
That folding system is an engineering marvel on its own!
The Lunar Rover GM developed was an absolute triumph, and the three that were built for Apollos 15, 16, and 17 all worked without a hitch. Sure, I may make fun of how Vegas would rust on the showroom floor, but that doesn’t change the fact that GM engineered a car that was shot into space and then drove on the moon the first try.
Oh, and since we’re talking about GM triumphs, I feel like we have to mention turbocharging, right? Especially because it involves my favorite GM car, the Corvair.
The first mass-market turbocharged cars were from GM, way back in 1962, the Oldsmobile Jetfire and the Corvair Monza. Just to put things in perspective, a 1965 Corvair Monza’s turbocharged flat-six air-cooled engine made 180 hp; compare that to another small sporty coupé or convertible that made 180 hp and you’d be looking at a 1998 Audi TT – 33 years later. Sure, maybe GM didn’t explore turbocharging as much as they could, but they were way, way ahead of everyone else.
With That Out Of The Way, We’re Going To Keep Telling Fascinating GM (And Other Automaker) Fail Stories
GM is fully capable of stepping on its own ass by taking shortcuts and starting things that it doesn’t fully see through; in fact, Jason wrote about this in “Here Are Five Times GM Developed Some Pioneering And Important Innovation Only To Fumble It And Have To Catch Up Later Like A Chump.”
This ruffled some feathers, as have a number of our GM Hit or Miss and Unholy Fails articles like these:
The 2004 Chevrolet Malibu Is The Worst Of 2000s GM Distilled Into One Car: GM Hit Or Miss
Here’s How The Cadillac Catera Got Lost In Translation: GM Hit Or Miss
The truth is that most of our GM stories have been positive, so there’s definitely a bit of hypersensitivity. Just thought I’d write this article to let you all know that, in my mind, GM is the GOAT of automotive engineering. Product planning/bean counting? No, the new Blazer is a huge disappointment and leaving money on the table for the Bronco and Wrangler, the diesel Equinox was the dumbest idea ever, the Buick Cascada was doomed the day it hit our shores, Mary Barra saying she was going to skip hybrids because EVs are inevitable was silly, and I could go on and on the number of foolish moves GM has made throughout the years.
But they weren’t the moves of the engineers. When it comes to engineering, GM is — at least in my view — at the top of the automotive food chain. And has been for some time.
The GMC Motorhome was awesome, iconic, and legendary…as written on this site. I really love this joke (more like a “saying”) that is very true:
“A GM car will run badly longer than other cars will run at all”
(Especially the eternal 3800 engine, at least that’s the one I always think of 1st. Obviously, there are so many others and of course the 350 is the most ubiquitous and legendary engine ever)
Special shoutout to the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer built by Buick motor division in my hometown of Flint, MI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M18_Hellcat
All the American auto companies fall into this trap, and unfortunately the bad ones are what make the news, however with a bit of research, the right American car is more reliable than the Japanese. The Japanese however win on dealer experience and preventative maintenance to make the cars seem more reliable.
Absolutely! I car pooled with someone who touted his new 1991 Camry’s reliability. His first scheduled dealer service on a $13,000 car had cost him $1,300. What did they do for that?
GM’s made some huge mistakes (Pontiac, RIP), but I will say, when they get it right, it is interesting. I just bought a Silverado EV WT and honestly I’m shocked at how good it is. Now I bought it $20K under list, so that’s cheating, but the fact that I get almost 460 miles of range is amazing. I know they weigh a lot, but they don’t drive like it. Is it as good as a Rivian? In many ways no, but that range…
You can make a lot of plays on the name “GM”, but one of my favorites as of late is “Generally Misguided”. There are countless articles about GM’s innovations, but more often than not, they end in “but ultimately it was abandoned/discontinued in favor of cheaper, more conventional products”.
I think outside of the new EV automakers, that GM has the best EV offerings. Just bought a Silverado EV WT and love it.
Pontiac OHC I6…the origin of the mass produced, timing belt equipped engine? I don’t think so. The Lampredi twincam developed for Fiat, was in production already in 1966 in the Spider, followed by the Coupe. This engine was produced for +30 years, placed in convertibles, coupes, sedans, station wagons and other vehicles and is the source of about twelve WRC victories between Fiat and Lancia.
EMD made special 610 and 710 diesel engine sets used in nuclear aircraft carriers as emergency power generators. They prevented meltdown by keeping the cooling pumps operating in the event of catastrophic power loss. They were “nine-nines” engines meaning that they would start 99.9999999 times out of hundred on the first try.
Also, if you’re ever visit the German submarine U505 in Chicago, did you know that in the late nineties, EMD senior (God bless the Duerr brothers) engineers and helpers (I was one) volunteered their time and experience to get one of the engines started when MAN declined? If you visit, the sounds you hear in the engine spaces are looped audio from when the it was started.
Alas, GM is out of the diesel engine and locomotive business and the newest carriers are using Fairbanks-Morse EMG’s
What about that time GM research helped to engineer the great grandfather of cardiopulmonary bypass, technology that makes open heart surgeries possible?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodrill%E2%80%93GMR
This one doesn’t get much press anymore, but when everyone was panicking about ventilators in March 2020, GM stepped in to help streamline manufacturing and sourcing. https://www.venteclife.com/news/general-motors-and-ventec-life-systems-complete-delivery-of-30000-vpro-critical-care-ventilators-
I have a soft spot for GM’s EMD era, since most of what I do at work involves those engines in stationary diesel-powered generator sets. I still enjoy pulling an old drawing and seeing the GM block logo. Many decades ago they designed their own fasteners. Over time, as recognized international standards were put in place, the drawings were revised to reference these standards; sometimes the entire title block would be replaced, and sometimes not. It’s sort of fun looking at the old signatures.
The most recent GM vehicle I’ve driven was a 2025 Chevy Trax (a rental). I wouldn’t want to own one, but as a rental it was fine, and had all the features I wanted…good connectivity with my phone, a built-in cargo cover, and a little button on the door handle so I didn’t have to search for the keyfob every time I wanted to get in the car. Heckin’ loud though…my ’97 ZJ has far less road noise, even on interstates.
Well, this comments section has taught me one thing: people get REALLY MAD when good things about something they don’t like get pointed out.
Makes me beam with pride – we were a GM household when I was a kid. I am not sure that is a thing anymore, families loyal to one particular make or manufacturer, it used to be common.
It’s certainly still a thing in southeast Michigan.
I’m almost 58, and every car I have ever owned (except for buying a Volvo one time) was a GM product. I feel really comfortable driving them – any time I’m in a non-GM rental, it just seems all wrong to me.
A reply to one of my comments reminded me of why GM engineering has been much closer to the worse end of the scale than the best for several decades.
The X-bodies and their derivatives are a perfect example of poor/substandard engineering choices. While there are many I’ll just cite two examples.
Rear brakes, someone in engineering figured that since the rear brakes don’t do a whole lot of the braking and with the vehicle being FWD it would be even less. So they decided that they could make it cheaper and better by making really weak rear brakes and thus not need a proportioning valve. While that did work well enough in initial testing to send to tooling for production they forgot one thing. That thing was parking brake performance. They quickly found out that those weak rear brakes were too weak to hold the vehicle on a significant grade. Rather than admit they screwed up and needed major changes to meet the standards they chose a band-aid fix. What they did was use a much more aggressive friction material on those shoes. While that made the cars pass the parking brake effectiveness standards it made for a vehicle that often locked up the rear wheels. Eventually they did admit they needed a proportioning valve and added it but not before they had played their small part in giving the X-cars a poor reputation.
The next is the Fiero derivative which put that X-body’s subframe in the back. The problems there were two fold, trying to stuff those pieces into a much smaller car led to packaging problems. One of those was the oil pan which they trimmed the capacity way down to get it to fit. Now that in of itself wasn’t the entire problem. The other problem was in their quest for efficiency and lack of proper testing they ended up with connecting rods that ~1 in 4 of weren’t really in spec when they came off the line. Again it was too late to fix the problems that were overlooked by the design and manufacturing engineers. So they sent them out the door knowing that potentially every engine had 1 bad connecting rod and the oil was going to be way overworked. That of course led to rampant engine failures and a few fires. Their fix to the problem a new dipstick calibrated to put an extra quart of oil in said pan. Ok now the oil isn’t running as hot but it is getting churned up and now the engine burns more oil, well at least until it gets down to the design level.
Then you have the A body which really was a lightly tweaked and stretched X-body with most of the problems fixed. Once they ditched the modern engines and put a V-6 with its roots in the early 60’s did they create their first “cockroach of the road” in quite a while.
GM sales peaked in the 70s and 80s—a time period when they made almost nothing but the worst imaginable products. I don’t think that there is any doubt that the single biggest source for bad cars put on the road was/is GM.
The Hywire.I m not sure why GM did not take the concept and replace the hydrogen with Batteries. It was one plug and several bolts to swap bodies. It would be a good based for a convertible since the chassis would be rigid and have a low center of gravity.
I have to say that all of the Big 3 were/are magnificent engineering powerhouse.
One example of the best and worst examples of GM’s engineering might isn’t even a car – it’s a FP-45, a disposable .45 pistol GM designed and built.
The whole point of it was that it was exceedingly cheap to make, easy to manufacture quickly, and disposable. You were supposed to shoot the bad guy, and maybe take his gun. The intent was to make a bazillion of them, drop them behind enemy lines, so that the Axis armies would have to worry about everyone having one of these things.
It 100% hit the mark (see what I did there) and did what it was engineered to do, but there will always be people who say “it was junk,” which was also true. There’s always a balance…
Don’t forget the first mas produced pushrod V8, the first attempt at cylinder deactivation (V8-6-4 was a disaster but it was an attempt), the first car sold with night vision, the magnetic shocks, first car to offer an airbag, and probably more than I can think of off the top of my head. (I heard they were the first to offer keyless entry and a head up display but I can’t verify that)
Saying that GM is the greatest engineering company of all time is like saying the U.S. is the greatest country at the winter Olympics. While the U.S. might have a lot more medals than the likes of Finland and Liechtenstein, it is largely due to the number of entries, not the quality of those entries. The U.S. has .10 medals per 100k of population, while Finland has 2.9, and Liechtenstein has over 23.
GM has produced cars in large quantities for a very long time. The vast majority of which have been total garbage. If the examples shown in this article are the highlights across the thousands of different models they have produced across dozens of different brands over more than a century, it seems more likely that GM is one of the WORST engineering companies of all time.
Given the fact that the bomb of a 6.2 is based on an engine design that is nearly 30 years old, which itself evolved from one that is over 70 years old, would indicate that they really are truly terrible at their jobs.
“The vast majority of which have been total garbage.”
Eyeroll.
You’re missing the point though. The 6.2 debacle is a perfect example of what David is talking about. It’s a fantastic engine, which is currently being hamstrung by penny-pinching on the manufacturing side that resulted in out-of-spec bearings being installed. No engine, no matter how well-engineered, is going to survive that. Just like all the engines recently that have been recalled for debris leftover from manufacturing. Unless they engineered something that is fundamentally impossible to manufacture (which is obviously not the case here), it’s an execution problem (another GM hallmark) not an engineering one.
Engineering needs to account for budgets and manufacturing capabilities. Using either as a reason is simply bad engineering. Also, industrial engineers are responsible for the manufacturing process and are part of GM engineering.
One of my friends owns a 2021 ZL1 1LE that he uses exclusively as a track car. He takes very good care of it, and yet it’s on the second engine, second transmission, and 3rd set of catalytic converters. All covered under warranty.
I have another friend who owns a C8 Z06 that only has a few thousand miles on it. Developed an issue of intermittently not starting and had to be towed to the dealer for diagnosis (it was a loose electrical connection). But now he can’t use it due to the fire risk recall.
They can design stuff that performs well, but that doesn’t mean it’s engineered well from a reliability standpoint.
I’ve always said the only GM vehicle I would buy is a ‘Vette and one of their Trucks. It’s seems to be all they truly care about in the end.
Except their trucks have had catastrophic problems since 2010 onward. Engine & transmission failures at an insane rate.
I am not an apologist for any company that cannot create durable products, but, trying to stay within the bound of the premise here, the chronic issues may well be a result of management, not engineering.
The 6.2L V8 with cylinder deactiviation has been a problem for a while now. The same engine with a manual transmission (in a Camaro) does not have the same issues (no cylinder deactivation on manuals).
Anytime I see chronic issues in any car, it almost always appears to be a choice, not just poor engineering. Ford and their Powershift transmissions; engineering clearly told management that they weren’t good. Management sent them anyway. Ford (again) and their v6 engines where the water pump is in the crankcase and driven off the timing chain. Pump leaks, oil fills with coolant, ruins crank bearings, new engine time. Ford (yet again) with their three cylinder engine that has a timing belt submerged in oil.
I am willing to bet that many a Ford engineer has told their bosses that these are stupid fucking ideas, but probably forced to make it work. In all honestly, I think Ford is probably one of the worst in this regard. I’ve had a Mazda with a Ford PTU that runs the AWD system shit the bed because they did not prescribe a fluid change, nor was there even a drain plug on these things until later models (and police packages which had a drain AND a cooler). Ford’s lovely 3v Triton (why do I keep buying this crap) and all of the issues with their cam phasers for variable valve timing. Issues with bad timing tensioners, and other timing system problems. Self-ejecting spark plugs on earlier Tritons, two-piece spark plugs that snap when you remove them on 3v Tritons.
None of these seem like any engineer would every say “yes, let’s do this, I mean, these solutions are proven garbage, but let’s do it anyway”. These stink of cost-cutting and future revenue generation in the form of service.
Perhaps my memory is biased by the wonderful 1995 C1500 I owned for 11 years. Ah the good old small block 350.
As the former owner of a 2017 Sierra Denali, I can tell you the quality of their trucks isn’t great.
I would not refute that they are probably the best automotive engineering company, but their problem continues to be that they have been run by the exact same types of people for the last 70 years.
As someone who grew up with Saturn and cherishes his current Volt, fully agreed on this. I don’t want to _drive_ any vehicle other than a GM one (particularly late in the product cycle where they’ve perfected it and are just about to kill it). I don’t want to _buy_ another vehicle from GM (see previous parenthetical).
All this and they still can’t figure out:
– how to make a battery serviceable without putting the entire goddamn fuse box right on top of it
– how not to put an oil filter so deeply inset in the oil pan you can’t torque it for removal or installation
– how not to put the most absolutely stupid vanity hubcaps on their HD vehicles (and the odd smattering of passenger ones because why not)
– how to seal an air box without using 4 to 10 screws
– how not to build five-foot-hood pedestrian crushers by default that require a step ladder to do so much as check the oil
– how to make the Suburban/Escalade smaller or safer
Don’t think I’m too down on them, though. They’ve definitely figured out how to use the same shitty plastics for decades.
Don’t forget all the major electrical connections that they leave totally exposed underneath the vehicle that get corroded and cause all sorts of issues down the road.
GM is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite car company. They have the most potential but constantly mess everything up with stupid and mostly preventable issues. It’s like the one friend who you can’t help but like but who is always getting themselves into the worst situations.
GM in Europe was basically synonymous with Vauxhall/Opel. Cynically boring cars without the slightest hint of an innovative spark.
Around the mid Noughties, this was only made worse buy woeful unreliability, often caused by shockingly thick headed money saving endeavours.
I can’t think of any recent cars that lost value quite as fast as the Astra 6 and the Insignia. Reliability got that bad before their sale to PSA and later Stellantis.
The Vauxhall Astra was…a car.
That’s about the nicest thing I can say about it. I’m sure there were many worse cars, but at least those would be interesting to drive.
I would add one more thing…
GM had perfected the UPP system used in Cadillac Eldorado, Oldsmobile Toronado, later Buick Riviera, and GMC Motorhome. Using the robust transfer chain was brilliant solution to the packaging issue.
Wait, I forgot another thing…
GMC Motorhome. The UPP system, air bags for rear suspension, tandem rear wheels, removable rear panel, and smooth body design were brilliant. Shame that GM killed the Motorhome sooner before the economy was picking up in the 1980s.
All of your words to say that my biggest take away is: I miss the old Top Gear.
GM has the ability to create some great stuff but they still can’t get out of their own way most of the time.
I miss the early days of the Clarkson/Hammond/May Top Gear. But it aged out. Got too cheesy and the misadventures too obviously scripted. (The American version was far worse.) And now, I just don’t care. Hooning cars I don’t care about is not fun anymore.
Apparently, there was a previous generation, but I guess I’d have to go to YouTube to find it. And then it will be all about cars we never got here, but can maybe import and not find parts for.
the american version if FAR worse.
Which one? There’s been several attempts, none of them worth watching.
Top Gear started out as a regular motoring ‘magazine show’ in the 1970’s, much more similar to Fifth Gear if you ever watched that (partly because 5th Gear was made by a lot of the OG Top Gear staff).
Basically no hi-jinks, mostly just reviews. Not that the reviews weren’t entertaining, that’s where Clarkson first honed his shtick, before he took over the ‘new’ top Gear in 2002.