GCBC REVERSE TAKE - Day at Milford

After 11 drives in 10 different vehicles as well as the use of four vehicles during an Advanced Driving Techniques course at General Motors' Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan, in addition to a dinner with Chevrolet's man-in-charge, here's The Good Car Guy's take on yesterday starting from the final activity.

General Motors flew in a group of us social media types (yes, even those of us... me, who were at one time in print) to sample a large variety of GM vehicles, take a driving course, and have dinner with Ed Peper and GM Communications representatives. The pic you see is not of Mr. Peper at that dinner, although he did open with remarks covering a wide array of topics.

Conversation at dinner flowed easily around the banquet table; with Ed Peper being forced to answer questions based on topics as varied as GM's environmental impact during manufacturing to future plans for diesels. On that count, Mr. Peper and Chevrolet/GM North America as a whole let us down a bit. We weren't hoping to hear of concrete plans for Malibu diesels by the end of the year or anything. Personally, I wanted to know - to hear straight from the horse's mouth - that General Motors understood consumer craving for high-mileage, high-torque vehicles seriously. It's one of many things they're looking at, he said, but he clearly felt he must tell the whole fuel mileage 'story'. E85, hydrogen Equinox's, hybrid SUV's - that sorta thing.

Dinner was superb; knowing GM paid was even better. The best part was the realization GM has come to: the internet matters, bloggers matter, and they're representative of the marketplace. We were listened to and taken seriously. We were asked questions, too. Answers were forthcoming on Mr. Peper's part, and though they weren't always what we wanted to hear (verily not), they did reflect his passion for the automobile. Especially those with a bow-tie badge.