Yesterday I was able to attend GM’s Product and Technology Event where they put on a show to present their future capabilities. The people invited were all random going through 30 different channels to reach bloggers of varying types.   The morning started off with Mr. Lutz making some great comments. My favorite being his reference to their old interiors looking like “hardened lava.”  I couldn’t explain it any better.  We then got a tour of the four new Brand “Salons.”  Unfortuneatley ther were no cameras allowed, so I will do my best to describe them.  Hit the jump and look into the next 24 months of GM’s lineup.

GMC                                    Buick                                      Chevrolet                                   Cadillac

GMC

Terrain: doesn’t look any better in person even after stareing at it for hours.  This vehicle could go way of the Aztek.  Yes I said Aztek.  Interior looks great, but is the same as the Equinox.  Which is fine but there should be some kind of upgrade for the GMC brand.  There was still hard plastics all around.

Concept:  This vehicle won my best of show award.  It was designed in the California studio and even the designers there had not seen it before.  It shows you how fresh out some of these concepts were.  The small crossover is best explained as a Scion XB that was squashed and stretched.  A lot of surface detail with a masculine appearance.  This would make a great compact for the GMC brand.  Please build it!!  AS IS!!

Buick

Midsize Sedan:  This will be the Opel Insignia rebadged as a Buick.  Nice looking car but looses the gestures of Buick that has been started with the Enclave and LaCrosse.

Compact Sedan: Another “nice” car but without any Buick sculpting.  These cars are beginning to loose any Buick character.

Compact Crossover: As shown last week, this will be a rebadged Saturn Vue for year one.  Looks like year two will have a redesign.  The redesign reminded me of a Nissan Morano scaled to half size.  It was much more expressive with nice form development.

There was also a couple quarter scale models that looked great.  They really captured Buick and maybe we will see one of these in the form of a concept car at NAIAS?

Chevrolet

Spark:  As expected coming in 2012

Aveo:  All new and bigger with a look reminding you of a Mitsu Evo.  Shown in hatchback form this car looks the part to be a Rally Car.  Very cool pocket rocket.  Lets hope there will be some performance to back it up.  Marketing should have a good time getting people to forget what a current Aveo is.

Cruze: Coming in April of 2010.

Orlando:  This 7 seater compact crossover lost a lot of character when it left the auto show.  The new front end is dull with forms the same as a Cobalt.  Kind of a bummer.

Camaro Convertible: Is in the works, maybe next summer?

Malibu: Yes they already had a new Malibu design.  This new car takes cues from the Nissan Maxima getting more sculpted sheet metal for an athletic feel and even a bit of a “Bangle Butt.”  Not sure if it was over done in the short time I had to look at it, but I look forward to seeing it again.  Not sure when this will be coming to dealers, but it did look very production ready.

Volt:  This car will really be something when it comes out.  Gm has to figure out a way to communicat its fuel mileage.  Nobody understands since it is not cut and dry math.  Some drivers may never use gas and therfore have incredible mileage.  Others may only get 80mpg.  Darn only 80?  This car is also smart.  You can program it to only charge wneh electricity is at its cheapest price and the car will not start with the charging plug in.  So no worries of pulling out of the garage with it still plugged in.

Cadillac

CTS Coupe: Coming in the spring?

CTS Sportwagon:  I am sure you knew this

SRX:  In dealers next month

XTS:  This car is replacing the big guy.  Awesome looking car with clean, subtle surfacing and attention to detail.  It had a presence like the Audi A7 at last years auto show.  The roof line was long and flowing similar to the A% sportback and BMW GT coming out.  This car will be a winner.

ATS:  This is the new 3 series competitor.  I was expecting something with the character of the Cadillac Converj concept.  Youthful, fresh and dynamic to take on the Germans.  Instead it was stiff and boring.  There was know ooohing and awwing from the crowd when it was unveiled.  Maybe there is still time to go with option B.

Interiors:  The new Cadillac interiors look incredible.  They are finally putting the technolgy look and feel inside the car.  A gloss black surface stretches from the console up into the instrument panel.  Withing in that are small chrome details guiding your havd to all od the hidden touch screen buttons, ala IPhone style interface.  It looks clean and sophisticated.  Those Bang and Olufson inspiration boards finally paid off.  The technolgy in the car is upgradeable so that you are always up to date with the newest gadget.

Overall the future is looking bright at the new GM.  The company seams to be trying hard to connect with the consumer.  Lets hope they can keep it up.  It is easy to do a few events now, but what about a year from now and two years out.  What kind of company will it be?  All we can say now is keep it up and we look forward to the next creations to come out.

This was an incredible event being able to view concepts before anyone.  The afternoon of the event was spent driving all the new models.  I will have more on that in a bit.