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GM knew about fatal Chevy ignition problem decade before recall

Well, this is not good for General Motors. Following a report last week that GM was recalling 778,000 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 compacts over concerns that the ignition could switch out of the "run" position without warning, USA Today reports that the Detroit-based behemoth knew about the issue, which affected 2005 to 2007 Cobalts (the Cobalt shown above and in the gallery is from 2010) and 2007 Pontiac G5s, all the way back in 2004.
The information comes from a deposition in a civil lawsuit against GM, obtained by USA Today, which claims that a GM engineer experienced the issue while the then-new model was undergoing testing. The issue was "solved" when a technical service bulletin was issued in 2005, informing dealers to install a snap-on key cover on the cars of customers who complained about the issue. According to the Cobalt's program engineering manager, Gary Altman, the cover was an "improvement, it was not a fix to the issue."
The case where the depositions were made was from 2010, and involved Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse in Georgia who was killed on her birthday. At the time, police claimed she was going too fast on a wet, rural road, although it later came out through the black box that her car's ignition had come out of the "run" position at least three seconds before the accident (the max amount of time a black box records before a wreck), disabling her airbags, power steering and anti-lock brakes. According to USA Today, police said Melton was "traveling too fast for the roadway conditions," although it's impossible to know if she'd have been in the wreck, which injured the occupants of another vehicle, had her 2005 Chevy not shut off. GM settled the Melton family's case, although the details remain confidential.

Junkyard Gem: 1988 Pontiac 6000 LE Safari Wagon

The Detroit station wagon was fast losing sales to minivans and trucks as the decade of the 1980s progressed, but Pontiac shoppers still had plenty of choices as late as the 1988 model year. A visit to a Pontiac dealership in 1988 would have presented you with three sizes of wagon, from the little Sunbird through the midsize 6000 and up to the mighty Parisienne-based Safari. Today's Junkyard Gem is a luxed-up 6000 LE, complete with "wood" paneling, found in a car graveyard in Fargo, North Dakota. Confusingly, the "Safari" name in 1988 was used by Pontiac to designate both a specific model — the wagon version of the Parisienne/Bonneville— and as the traditional Pontiac designation for a station wagon. That meant that the wagon we're looking at now was a Safari but not the Safari in the 1988 Pontiac universe. The 6000 lived on the GM A-Body platform, as the Pontiac-badged version of the Chevrolet Celebrity. Production ran from the 1982 through 1991 model years, with the A-Body Buick Century surviving all the way through 1996. The LE trim level came between the base 6000 and the gloriously complex 6000 STE (which wasn't available in wagon form, sadly). I visited this yard in Fargo after judging at the Minneapolis 500 24 Hours of Lemons in Brainerd, Minnesota, last fall. Up to that point, I had visited 47 of the Lower 48 United States, with just North Dakota remaining, so I made a point of doing a Fargo detour in order to check that state off my list. I'm pleased that I found such a good example of the 1982-1996 GM A-Body in this yard, because the most famous of all the A-Bodies is the 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera driven to Brainerd by the inept Fargo-based kidnappers in the film "Fargo." This Minnesota-plated 6000 had some rust, but just negligible levels by Upper Midwestern standards on a 31-year-old car. The interior looked very good, with the original owner's manual still inside. The 6000 LE boasted "redesigned contoured seats and London/Empress fabric," which sounds pretty swanky. Something less swanky lives under the hood: an Iron Duke 2.5-liter pushrod four-cylinder engine, known as the Tech 4 by 1988. The Iron Duke was, at heart, one cylinder bank of the not-quite-renowned Pontiac 301-cubic-inch V8; while fairly rugged, the Duke ran rough (typical of large-displacement straight-four engines) and made just 98 horsepower in this application. Pontiac offered a couple of optional V6s in the 6000 in 1988, but no Quad 4.

Celebrate the summer solstice by building the Pontiac Solstice shooting brake GM never did

Happy summer solstice, everyone! To celebrate, we have a particularly unusual eBay find connected to the Pontiac Solstice sports car. A seller has leftover inventory of fiberglass hardtops designed to turn the Pontiac Solstice roadster into a shooting brake. The seller says they came from a since-closed Indiana company, and they're clearly inspired by another aftermarket part and even a GM concept that never saw the light of day. We'll start from the beginning: the stillborn Chevy Nomad concept. It was a concept that came out about the same time as the original Solstice concept, and it was clearly based on the same platform, featuring a small two-door body and a long nose. It also had unashamedly retro Nomad wagon design cues and cues from the original Corvette. The car never saw production, but clearly people were interested in having a wagon-like sports car. That brings us to the next bit of history with an aftermarket hardtop developed by German company EDAG. We saw a prototype in person, and the overall shape seemed to fit the car — and the wraparound window design certainly seemed Nomadic. Besides the unique look, the hardtop and its functional hatch made the Solstice roadster's miniscule cargo space far more usable. It doesn't appear many of the tops were sold, though. These tops on eBay look very similar to the EDAG tops, though it's not clear if they're a direct replica or something similar. Being that the parts are leftover inventory, the seller notes that some of the tops may be missing pieces for installation, so only those who are handy with bodywork and fasteners, or who are able to lean on someone who is, need apply. Even with some extra work, if you really want a Solstice shooting brake, this is likely easier and cheaper than commissioning a shop to custom-build a roof for your. If you're interested, check out the link. They're $499.99 apiece, and the seller will also provide a set of seals and gaskets for the top for an extra $125.