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Just got the August 2005 issue of HOTROD magazine with an interview of Mark Reuss, head of GM's Performance Division. I'm re-typing the last couple of paragraphs:
HOTROD: In the past, the Performance Division has made a couple of assaults on the record books out on the Bonneville Salt Flats with your partners at So Cal Speed Shop. Explain the attraction of Bonneville racing.
Reuss: Instead of following the import-tuner craze that may or may not be out there, that's a way that we can put credibility and viability into our four-cylinder Ecotec engine programs. Everybody talks about grassroots racing but it doesn't get any more grassroots than Bonneville. It doesn't get any more American than that. Particularly working with an American hot rod company. No one else can do that.
HOTROD: Speaking of the Ecotec, the new Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky roadsters have a lot of performance potential. A Solstice with an Ecotec and a turbo would be a bad-ass little car.
Reuss: You're going to see some cars at SEMA this year that take advantage of that very notion but in a road-racing type format. These cars can do a lot more than straight-line acceleration. A few of us fell on our swords to have only four cylinders in that architecture. You could make a hell of a business case for V-6s because you could get a higher price point, but mass begets mass because all of a sudden you've got heavier corners, you've got a heavier tranny to handle the torque, and the car gets ruined.
HOTROD: You can leave the V-8 swaps to HOT ROD. One of our pet projects is to put an LS7 in a Solstice. It would be like a modern interpretation of the Shelby Cobra or a Lister Corvette.
Reuss: We can help you with that. We actually know that something very close to that fits.