The citizens of “G8 Nation” have spoken and GM listened. Consider this our second source confirming that the most hated featured of the 2008 G8 is being removed for 2009. The 2009 G8 will be produced without the Atari style battery and oil gauges above the center stack as we previously reported.
Edward Loh of MotorTrend recently had lunch with GM’s Global Rear Wheel Chief Engineer for North America (that’s GMGRWCENA for short), Al Oppenheiser. The majority of their conversation was about the G8 and Openheiser offered up some info about the digital battery meter and oil gauge.
Oppenheiser said, “We got a lot feedback from guys like you in the media and early buyers, and it just reaffirmed what we had thought after spending a lot of time with the car during development. The readouts don’t change much, there are no units on them, so why would you want to stare at them all the time?”
“It’ll be gone for 2009,” Oppenheiser confirmed.
So with the gauges out, what will the G8 have atop the center stack? One source tells us that the 09 G8s are simply replacing the now vacant spot with storage space. Oppenhiser says that the decisions has not yet been made and the he is pushing to have the analog gauges from the Holden Commodore HSV put in place.
We can’t imagine a change like this to not yet be confirmed since the 2009 G8s are already in production.
Oppenheiser also mentioned that GM was getting grief for not having GPS in the G8 but he didn’t say whether that was a viable possibility so soon.
[Source: MotorTrend]
