…seems to be looking up! While I was most surprised to have first heard this – they are indeed making huge leaps in improving the quality of their cars. They are trying hard to shake their stigma of making cars with parts bin interior (those switches on your 50k Corvette might be the same as a 15k Cobalt), lousy cornering, but decent engines that produce a lot of kick. Their hard work is especially evident in some of the new stuff that has been leaving their factories – the Cobalt SS, the Pontiac G8, the C6 Corvette, and a couple other hits. This is a lot more than I can say for Chrysler, which might actually merge with GM in the near future, but that is a topic for another blog post.

The Cobalt SS has been causing a major stir among car enthusiasts that previously would never even consider a FWD sport compact from GM (isnt that the realm of the Japanese automakers anyways?) to be competitive in any form – WRONG. The latest turbocharged version has been breaking records and winning the hearts of reviewers everywhere. Not only is the handling sharp, the engine puts out a healthy 264 horsepower (and it has the new no-lift-shift technology). It has also set the bar for FWD production cars making a run around the Nurburgring in just 8:22; to give you an idea of how fast this is, the E46 M3 and R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R also share this time.

Pontiac’s G8 (sharing the Zeta platform with the Holden Commodore) has also been a hit among enthusiasts – even though it was released with your choice of an automatic or an automatic transmission on its first run. Praised for having a handsome exterior, large interior space, a compliant yet sporty suspension, and a 6.0 Liter V8 engine that makes 360 horsepower – and thats not even the performance model supposedly in the works! While it probably won’t be converting any buyers cross shopping the BMW M5 or a Mercedes AMG sedan, it does offer a spectacular deal for all those that have been forced to give up their coupes and two seaters in favor of a more practical choice.

Of course, theres the Corvette – which is an awesome car and would need its own blog post to talk about, especially with the release of the new ZR1.

Hopefully GM will be adding another cheap performer to its stable in the near future – the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze, which is intended to replace the Cobalt. The SS version should be a hoot if their engineers can improve upon the already robust Cobalt platform. With all the above mentioned cars (and more like the Volt) maybe GM sales will start picking up in the near future and we won’t be stuck with only foreign cars to choose from!