Looks like pre-Government Motors got this one right:

GM wise to let Cruze lead the way

(Gm/wieck)

Leadership inherently is at odds with the notion of “good enough.” Leadership believes it can do better. It works to become the best. “Good enough” makes peace with mediocrity and settles comfortably into oblivion, which is where General Motors has been for the past two decades in the small-car segment of the U.S. automobile market…

I ended my day-long run in the Cruze cars confident that I was right to continue believing in GM’s people when it seemed everyone else had turned against them. They have the right stuff. They simply needed corporate leaders to pull it out of them.

They had those leaders with former GM chairman G. Richard Wagoner and product czar Robert Lutz, under whose guidance the Cruze was developed. But theirs was tough luck. After rising through the old GM’s bureaucratic muck to get to a place where they could make a difference in the company’s products, Wagoner and Lutz became the political victims of a strained national economy.

Here’s hoping that their administrative replacements understand the difference between mediocrity and leadership. For assistance, they need look no further than the metal and rubber examples already before them. Mediocrity is what begot the Cavalier. Leadership is what gave us the Cruze…

More here:

Bottom line: The Chevrolet Cruze is a bona fide contender for your small-car dollar. You would be making a serious mistake if you did not put it on the same shopping list as the Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte and Toyota Corolla…

GM may have another good one, from Oshawa:

…the new Lacrosse (read the first para) and Regal (Canadian review here) may really help in North America, esp. the US with its stronger market for more expensive vehicles than ours.  The Regal, assembled at Oshawa–good luck to them:

…

On the other hand, the US and Ontario governments are heavily subsidizing this automotive eco-self-indulgence:

Cars and electric fairyland: Not much jolt from the Volt

Mark
Ottawa