<VV> GM into "Drag" Racing? - only slight Corvair

[FrankCB at aol.com]

Seth,
    Well, in some cases at least, I think GM paid TOO  MUCH attention to the 
female buyers.  In my 1995 Trans Sport Minivan the  only way I can get enough 
leg room (as the driver) is to move the seat ALL the  way back and ALL the way 
up.  And I'm less than 6 feet tall and less than  200 lbs!!!  I could 
understand doing this in a SMALL car, where legroom is  at a premium, but in a LARGE 
MINIVAN it seems a bit ridiculous to limit the  driver seat rearward travel.  
I wonder how many drivers 6 ft and  taller were turned away from buying these 
cars since they couldn't  easily DRIVE them?
    Reminds me of the time I slipped into the driver's  seat of a LM Corvair 
with Crown V-8 conversion.  Not a car I could  live with on a long drive, but 
at least there I could see the reason for  it.  What's GM's excuse for their 
NEWER STOCK cars?
    Frank "grumpy" Burkhard    
 
In a message dated 8/15/2007 2:29:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
Sethracer at aol.com writes:

>From  some Auto Industry Blog:  
(http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?DID=RSS&n=189&sid=189&article=13211
)  

During the development of General Motors' new GMT900 SUVs, the team  in  
charge of design was taken out to the company's Milford Proving  Grounds and 
made  
to dress in drag as an exercise. They wore  high-heels, fake press-on nails 
and  
garbage bag skirts to simulate  what The Car Connection refers to as "female  
handicaps" (are we  really calling them that?) while operating various 
features 
of their new  'utes. The result was at least three features on GM's new SUVs 
that   wouldn't have been there otherwise: retractable running boards for  
easier  entry/exit in a skirt, a larger center console that can hold  a purse 
and an 
easier to operate rear lift gate.

The idea for this  excursion into  androgyny came from Mary Sipes, a vehicle 
line  director at GM and a woman with a  mission to make her company's 
vehicles  
more user friendly for females. Since  women comprise more than  50-percent 
of 
the buying public, she realized it would  only help the  company's bottom 
line 
to consider them more when designing new   vehicles. Since the design teams 
are 
still very male dominated, Sipes  decided to  dress her teams in drag to 
force 
them to consider their  vehicles from a female  perspective. Hmmm... perhaps 
a 
better  solution than playing dress up would be to  just hire more women.  
Regardless, the intent was commendable, but we're  wondering if our  female 
readers 
can think of any other missing features that  might  make their lives a 
little 
easier.







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