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THE GENERAL’S NEWS

Conventional thinking and official General Motors releases would lead you to believe the upcoming Corvette ZR1 will be priced like an inexpensive supercar (or a very expensive Chevy sports car), but conventional thinking is wrong this time. The first ZR1 sold for 10x the MSRP. The Barrett-Jackson produces big numbers every time this year, and a Corvette ZR1 for a cool million bucks is one of those big numbers, indeed.

Overt, startling, and distracting to the point of appreciation – the Cadillac CTS coupe concept will become a production car in 2010. Expect Cadillac to build 15,000 at the Lansing Grand River facility every year.

The port at Benicia, California is about to accept four ships full of Pontiac G8’s from Down Under, mate. By launch time, Pontiac hopes to have 7,000 G8’s in America. This first batch is near equally split between V6 and V8 models.

Speaking of Oz, a blue police-liveried Hummer H3 is on active duty at community events in Australia. Police hope to ‘foster relationships between police and local youths.’ The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Phil Freeman sounds disappointed in Victoria’s police. “We would much prefer to see Victoria Police encouraging kids to ride bikes both for their environment and their health.”

Forget the Volt – Saturn wants to sell you a full-on plug-in hybrid in SUV form in 2010. (December 31st of 2010 is 35 months away.) The Vue plug-in would recharge at your home’s electrical outlet in less than five hours and would achieve twice the fuel economy of any SUV on the road today. Well, well, well; we shall see.

As described here on GoodCarBadCar, the previously mentioned Pontiac G8 sportwagon will not be sold in North America, but the genuine Australian article, Holden’s Commodore wagon, will be offered in seven versions.