Despite General Motors executives' pledges during the past two years that development of new cars, not trucks, would be getting heavier emphasis at the giant automaker, the word from Detroit now is that some of those cars have been delayed indefinitely so more trucks can come to market quicker. The automaker announced this week it is shelving plans to develop its so-called Zeta premium midsize rear-drive vehicle architecture for a new line of cars for the North American market. Instead, money that had been allocated to that program will be diverted to help bring the next generation of GM's full-size sport utility vehicles and pickups to market. Those programs won't be speeded up, as has been speculated in various automotive media recently, but because of GM's current financial crisis, including an expected drop of 80 percent in earnings for 2005, the company needs to put most of its new-vehicle development money into the truck side, which is responsible for most of the company's profits. "Basically, we're taking some of the resources allocated to premium rear-drive cars and putting those resources toward the full-size SUVs," spokesman Pat Morrissey said. The SUVs — including the popular Chevrolet Tahoe/Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade — will be first, coming to market in their newest forms next January as 2006 models, followed by the company's full-size pickups for model year 2007. All of these vehicles are developed on the same chassis platform, but when they were updated last, the pickups came to market first, in 1999, and the full-size SUVs a year later. This time, the SUVs are coming first. Full Story: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/stories/MYSA032605.1J.williams.16e07d030.html
