With the NHTSA likely applying plenty of pressure after it was questioned over Toyota’s recent recalls, General Motors has announced a recall of 1.3 million vehicles due to power steering issues. The recall affects 1.3 million models including the 905,000 Chevrolet Cobalt models in the U.S., assembled for model year 2005-10. The recall also affects the 2007-10 Pontiac G5, as well as the 2005-06 Pontiac Pursuit in Canada and the 2005-06 Pontiac G4 in Mexico.

GM insists that it has notified the NHTSA and has been operating its own investigation since 2009. The recall comes after over 1,110 complaints that have been linked to 14 crashes and one injury.

GM has announced it it working on a fix and will notify all customers as soon as possible.

[Source: Automotive News]

Things just couldn’t get any worse for Toyota Motor Corp. The automaker has announced yet another recall, this one for 1.1 million vehicles in the United States, and is essentially an expansion of last year’s floor mat/pedal recall that affected 4.3 million vehicles.

The recall is for all 2008-10 Highlanders, 2009-2010 Corollas, Venzas and Matrixes, as well as 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibes, where the gas pedal may become lodged under improperly installed floor mats and cause unintended acceleration.

This recall is separate from the recall of 2.3 million vehicles where the accelerator pedal may stick, a move which prompted Toyota to stop selling affected models and even cease production.

Toyota’s fix for this latest recall of 1.1 million vehicles includes re-shaping or replacing gas pedals, as well as changing the mats with a newly designed mat.

[Source: Automotive News]

Several months ago GM’s Australian Holden division announced that it would offer a special edition of the Commodore, dressed up to look like the Pontiac G8. Called the Holden VE Commodore SS V-Series Special Edition, the new model looks mostly identical to the Pontiac model (itself based on the Commodore), except for the absence of any Pontiac badging.

The model has been such a huge success, that Holden has now said it will continue to offer the package indefinitely. Retailing for $1,000 Australian premium ($923 U.S.), dealerships are even ordering stockiles of Pontiac badges so Aussie gearheads can more accurately replicate the G8.

Sadly, the Aussie’s enthuaism for the car isn’t shared by American consumers, or at least not by the execs at General Motors, who killed off the Pontiac brand shortly after it began to offer the G8 – arguably the best product from the company in 30 years.

[Source: CarPoint]

Frederick “Fritz” Henderson has resigned as General Motors chief executive officer.

Henderson (left, in the photo above) was appointed CEO on March 29, replacing Rick Waggoner who shown the door by the Obama administration. Over the last eight months, Henderson worked at reorganizing the company. GM announced that Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr. (right, in the photo) will take over as interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found.

“Fritz has done a remarkable job in leading the company through an unprecedented period of challenge and change,” said Whitacre. “While momentum has been building over the past several months, all involved agree that changes needed to be made. To this end, I have taken over the role of Chairman and CEO while an international search for a new president and CEO begins immediately. With these new duties, I will begin working in the Renaissance Center headquarters on a daily basis. The leadership team – many who are with me today – are united and committed to the task at hand.”

During Henderson’s tenure, GM filed for Chapter 11 protection and, 40 days later, emerged from protection with help from the government. On Nov. 16, Henderson announced GM would begin paying back the government’s $6.7 billion loan.

As part of the company’s recovery efforts, GM scaled back to four key brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. Pontiac is shutting down and GM found a Chinese buyer for Hummer. GM also came close to finding new owners for Saturn and Saab. A deal with Roger Penske for Saturn fell apart, while a deal for Saab with Koenigsegg also fell through. GM also announced today it has “has received expressions of interest in Saab” and will evaluate potential bids before the end of December.

[Source: MSNBC and Associated Press]

Earlier this week General Motors produced its last Pontiac for the U.S. market, ending the brand’s 82 year run. The final vehicle to roll off the assembly line at 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25th at the Orion Township plant was a rather unspectacular white G6 sedan which is scheduled to be sold to a fleet. It’s hardly the sort of send-off one might expect for a brand that has produced such memorable legends as the GTO and Firebird.

There was no pomp and circumstance as the last 100 vehicles rolled off the line and no GM executive was on hand.

The Pontiac brand was highlighted for elimination on April 27, as a part of General Motors’ viability plan. GM agreed to kill-off Pontiac and try and find buyers for Saab, Saturn and Hummer in exchange for a bailout by the U.S. and Canadian governments. To date, both the Saab and Saturn deals have fallen through, leading to the scheduled elimination of Saturn with the same fate likely for Saab. The sale of Hummer to Chinese heavy machinery company Sichuan Tengzhon is still pending.

Watching the Pontiac brand come to an end isn’t an unfamiliar event for may of the plant workers, as many of them were building Oldsmobiles when GM decided to retire than brand in 2000. For workers there is a glimmer of hope as GM has announced that in 18 months it will begin producing a new small car at the same facility.

In the mean time, the plant will stay open as it wraps up final production of the Pontiac G3 Wave, which is sold in Canada.

Since the brand’s inception in 1926 it is estimated to have sold as many as 41 million cars.

[Source: TheDetroitNews]

Get out your old Whitesnake muscle shirt because the Trans Am is back… sort of. The Corvette and Chevy tuning experts at Lingenfelter have announced that they will bring a modern Trans Am to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas next week, taking inspiration from the 1971 second-gen TA. That means it will have a 445-cubic inch V8 engine under the hood making 655-hp.

The car will also get a duck-tail spoiler, fender vents, a twin-port front grille, 20-inch honeycomb wheels and the obligatory screamin’ chicken. Lingenfelter also promises a retr0-styled interior.

Called the Lingenfeler LTA (Lingenfelter Trans Am) Concept the car is a one-off, but there is cretain to be huge demand for the car – especially considering the popularity of the new Camaro – so a limited number of production models is a definite possibility

We’ll be sure to bring you full coverage of the Lingenfelter Trans Am from the SEMA Show starting November 3rd.

See AutoGuide’s live SEMA Coverage here!

GALLERY: Lingenfelter Trans Am

[Source: InsideLine]

If you’re a car junkie, Twitter is the place to be today. Ahead of a webcast tomorrow morning by GM CEO Fritz Henderson, the General arranged for a select few media to meet with its PR folks and get a preview of what the New GM has to offer.

Many of those folks have been tweeting on Twitter and so we have a good idea of what’s going on. In a press release from earlier today, GM said that Fritz will unveil a new model during the webcast. The only problem is, the tweets cover so many new models that we don’t know which one it will be.

Some of the biggest stories of the day include a new Cadillac model named the ATS, which is aimed at taking on the BMW 3 Series (yes pulease)! And it would be offered as both a coupe and sedan. Other Cadillac news includes a story we ran earlier today about the new CTS Coupe and CTS-V Coupe coming in May. Tweets also covered a story we ran several weeks back about the DTS replacement being called the XTS and using the LaCrosse platform – meaning AWD will be optional.

As for the Buick brand, there will reportedly be a new model added to that lineup – a mid-sized sedan due out in the next 24 months. This will no doubt the the Chinese market Regal, a story we reported on several weeks back as well.

In Chevy news, those lucky enough to be at the General’s party today got to glimpse the 2012 Malibu, well ahead of its unveiling. Additionally Bob Lutz still isn’t done getting peoples’ hopes up, saying that the Pontiac G8 might still have a life at GM.

[Source: Twitter via Autoblog]

Earlier this week General Motors officially turned off the lights and locked the doors at its Boxwood Road assembly plant for the last time, marking the end of the line for the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky.

The two vehicles (along with the Opel GT) were manufactured at the plant in Wilmington, Delaware, which is being closed as a part of GM’s restructuring process.

General Motors has decided to eliminate the Pontiac brand and sell Saturn to the Penske Automotive Group. The announcement to close the plant came on July 1st when GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time GM gave short notice to plant workers saying the facility would be shuttered by the end of July.

GM spokesman John Raut said the final vehicle to roll off the assembly line was a silver Pontiac Solstice.

[Source: SaturnFans]

Yesterday we urged GM CEO Fritz Henderson to sit down with his new Vice Chairman Bob Lutz to get their stories about the future of the Pontiac G8 straight. Now they have, and the news isn’t good.

Bob Lutz posted on GM’s corporate Fastlane Blog that the G8 will not live on as the Chevrolet Caprice. In fact, it won’t live on at all. “The G8 will not be a Caprice after all. I’d mentioned it, and said we were studying it, giving it a serious look, because a car like the G8 was just too good to waste,” wrote Lutz, who continued; “But I have to say that, with my new ‘marketing’ hat on, upon further review and careful study, we simply cannot make a business case for such a program. Not in today’s market, in this economy, and with fuel regulations what they are and will be.”

Lutz then expressed his personal disappointment, but said there was just no way to make the car happen and that the company’s resources had to be placed elsewhere.

He then tried to reassure rear-wheel drive, performance enthusiasts saying that, “in no way does this mean we are backing away from performance, or backing away from rear-wheel drive.” He applauded the Holden team in Australia and said that he would like to look to their products to bring another RWD vehicle over in the future, but not now.

Sadly, the G8 will bow out after a short stay in the North American marketplace, an emotional product that fell victim to “further review and careful study.”

How about an apology for getting our hopes up Bob?

[Source: GM Fastlane Blog]

Perhaps General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson and his newly appointed Vice Chairman Bob Lutz should sit down, have a talk and get their stories straight.

After consistently saying that the Pontiac G8 would be eliminated with the rest of the Pontiac brand, it seemed as though Henderson had a change of heart after his newly appointed Vice Chair and product boss Lutz proudly proclaimed that the G8 would live on as a Chevrolet Caprice. Calling it “too good to waste” Lutz said the rebadged G8 would be available for consumers and as a special model for police departments.

Now, according to an Autoblog interview with Henderson , it seems only the latter is true. “We’ve been looking at it for police applications. As for whether or not it’s broader than police applications, I am not a believer in re-branding and re-badging. We’ve been talking about in terms of potential police applications and we’ll leave it at that.”

So there you have it… the official word on the future of the Pontiac G8… at least until Lutz opens his mouth next.

For a company that recently emerged from bankruptcy and that is trying to promote confidence in its leadership, General Motors certainly isn’t doing a very convincing job.

[Source: Autoblog]