General Motors Corp. has announced that to cut costs it will make equipment currently standard on its 2002 models optional on its '03 vehicles. The immediate reaction of many consumers was that GM is going to strip the machines bare. Not necessarily so, according to the Chicago Tribune, though GM did say that anti-lock brakes, now standard on 219 models, will be made optional on 14 of them, the lowest-priced base versions, for '03. More is still to come, but don't panic, insists John Middlebrook, vice president of sales and marketing for GM. "The things we're talking about making optional that were standard are things like dual sun visors, those nets you now find all over the trunk, embroidered lettering and painted exhausts," Middlebrook said in an interview with the Tribune.