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Time for some Push it!

Lady Gaga time while working

Crap modern design : wonky front overhangs, poor greenhouse-to-body proportions, janky fascia profiles, poor cohesiveness front-to-back, arbitrary surface treatments, too many body seams.

20 minutes ago, ocnblu said:

Better than the original! 

Check the date ::

On 11/22/2019 at 12:18 AM, balthazar said:

It looks like it was built with cardboard and a few cans of spray paint.

No; it doesn't look better. The problem is; it doesn't look worse.

Better than the original! 

I knew this would happen at least a year ago.  All one needed to do is go into the Buick showroom when their car is being serviced and see the now lone LaCrosse and Regal over in a corner, or maybe just one of them.  When the LaCrosse was on the chopping block, I knew the Regal would be, too.

It's weird because, from the dim days where even Buicks had marginal build quality, the brand had come a long ways.  At this point, ALL of General Motors will be offering only ONE passenger car that is mid- to full-sized and mid-priced, and that's the Malibu.  Would I have thought this was possible as a teen or in my 20s?  No.  This is just sad.

I am now wondering if GM will recant along the way and start expanding their sedan or coupe line in the future because some customers will want them, even though the Asians and the Europeans seem to be content to address North America's demand for sedans.

@oldshurst442

A lot of good info there!

As for video 1, someone needs to inform the person or party who uploaded it that they've misspelled the title.

It should be "C'e' La Luna Mezzo Mare" - apostrophe and accent over the e; no h.

They way it's spelled, with Che, means the person was thinking it would be pronounced like it is in Spanish.  It's not.  Instead, "che" would be pronounced as "keh" in Italian.

Stand alone option? What is this; 1995??

There's a dipshit at every corporation 'forcing' this. In order to get a 2.0T in a sonata, you jump -guess what- $10K to the top-tier Limited (over the base sedan). I would love for GM to do ala carte options, but that industry ship sailed 2 decades ago, so it makes no sense to me to get outraged about it.

On 12/6/2019 at 8:09 AM, dfelt said:

@regfootball Sadly cost and the lack of many 3rd world places that cannot afford large engines plus China moving to EV focus will dictate what you get in an auto. The US is no longer the worlds biggest market and growth is not here anymore. Poor leadership is a problem. You can blame it on Mary at GM for going after profits and keeping the lights on or you can blame the silent generation and younger generations for instant gratification that has moved to debt loaded life's where they cannot afford to buy an auto anymore. Blame the political lack of leadership. Many things to blame, but sadly the time has come for change and that change will move many into uncomfortable choices because change is the hardest for humanity to take when it affects a passion of theirs.

we don't need to settle for the choices being offered if the choices being offered are market reasons.

Some dipshit at Buick an in interview said they were dropping the higher power 1.4 in the Encore because it wasn't selling (no demand).  No, it wasn't selling because you didn't package it correctly.  you made someone upgrade packages to get it, and most likely that drove a huge price increase.  And, you simply didn't make it available.  So, had they made it a standalone and offered it on all trims or even simply made the higher power motor the base motor, they acted like typical GM.

but maybe they saved a tenth of mpg on CAFE by doing it.......why?  not because of demand but because of regulations.

I'll use that Malibu as an example again.  the price of the larger motor (which is just simply a larger version of the same thing....4 pistons, same number of valves, etc. just physically a bit bigger.  package it up so you cannot find one without buying a fully loaded version thats 10k more or so than the base.  Purposely youre doing that as GM to discourage anyone from buying the larger motor because what you really want to do is cave to the feds and keep your CAFE low.  You figure 10 grand or so is enough of a penalty to the consumer for wanting power and the smart consumer knows there is a tradeoff between power and FE, you should let them make the choice.  I'm assuming the powertrain cost different is not much so offer the choice to the market and let them decide apples to apples.

3 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

Haha.  There's a lot of truth to that.  Greeks have left an indelible (still standing!) mark on Sicily and the southern provinces of Italy, at places like Paestum.

I haven't been to Greece as many times as I should have!  I've been to Athens and 3 islands.

I'd like to go to Athens and then to Corfu (Kerkyra) and get back to Italy from there ... on an overnight ferry ... that way, the passage is just a little bit more in $ than a hotel room and that includes a cabin.  It would nice to get up early and see the ferry approach the Italian coast at Bari or Brindisi ... both on the heel of the peninsula.

There's no place like the Med!

Many Italians live in Corfu.  Not far away from Brindisi, hence a ferry route between Brindisi and Corfu.

My mom came from the island just below, the biggest in the Ionian. Kephalonia. I had a friend that came from Corfu, (his parents) and he often visited Italy when he went to Greece. 

Ive only been to Greece. Many times.  But Im dying to visit Italy. My daughter has a Eurotrip in a couple of years, and guess what? 

Her trip for her graduating year is...Switzerland and...ITALY!!!  She is sooooo happy. And I for her!!!

If you havent seen the movie Captain Correlli's Mandolin, I suggest you see it.   My mom's parents knew of the family (see it and you'll understand)  and I have a friend or two that were  extras in the movie.  

Thanks to the Romans, the Greek world survived. Rome conquered Greece, but because Rome wanted to model their empire along Greek culture, art, architecture, politics, language in trade routes, etc,  the cradle of Western civilization has been credited to the Greeks, but 'twas the Romans that spread and KEPT Hellenism around more than the Greeks themselves could have ever imagined.   So who conquered who???  LOL

I guess both cultures realize this and both of our cultures greatly respect one another.   This is what I adore.  1000s of years later and Italy tries to conquer Greece again, this time they lose, but because Germany had other plans, Greece fell to the Axis. When when the Italians became enemies of Germany, Greece and the Greeks protected the Italian soldiers from the Germans  towards the end of the war.  Una Faccia, una razza...1000s of years in the making...

Sicily...if Im not mistaken, Poseidon's son Polyphemus, from the island of the Cyclops, from Homer's Odyssey, is said to be, Sicily. 

19 hours ago, smk4565 said:

The Tesla at $35k outsells any car GM or Ford make.   That should concern them already.  Once Tesla gets SUVs going against them, they are in trouble.   Ford Edge or Chevy Balzer or a Tesla?  No contest.  

how many of those Tesla 3's are actually priced at 35.... methinks .01 percent.......

10 minutes ago, balthazar said:

• Cadillac had no big block until it had a small block, but even then it’s 350 (‘76) was forged at Olds... so still only 1 block at that point.
• Yes; there were 3 co-existing 455s, tho Olds got theirs out in ‘68 and Pontiac & Buick in ‘70. Nothing interchanges.

I know that Cadillac used the 350 V8 in the first Seville but I kept it to four divisions because, in that case, they were very forthcoming that Oldsmobile had produced the engine specifically for them, but with (then rudimentary) fuel injection instead of a carburetor.  It still looked like a carbureted engine when you lifted up the hood of a Seville with a 350 V8.

Good move on Cadillac's part.  That's probably why you sometimes still see first-gen Sevilles on the road today.  What a success story for Cadillac.

1 hour ago, trinacriabob said:

@frogger

So, then 2 center stack areas would need to be pulled out - the CD player up above and the area near the cigarette lighter down below.

I'll have to look into this.  There's a shop that does great electrical work and I will need some small dash lights redone.  He has done work for me.

The important thing is that, if someone went this way, they should hopefully be able to toggle through their  music with their steering wheel controls.

You won't be able to control whatever is hooked up to this new auxiliary port with the steering wheel controls (other than volume), but you shouldn't lose existing functionality if you are not using satellite radio.

• Cadillac had no big block until it had a small block, but even then it’s 350 (‘76) was forged at Olds... so still only 1 block at that point.
• Yes; there were 3 co-existing 455s, tho Olds got theirs out in ‘68 and Pontiac & Buick in ‘70. Nothing interchanges.

• Each Division had their own proprietary engine programs & foundries to produce them. This went back to the independent roots of each Division; Cadillac’s engine building began in 1890.

20 minutes ago, dfelt said:

For me the choice is based on past auto's from those vendors so I would put the V8's in this Order:

1. Olds
2. Chevy
3. Pontiac
4. Buick

Very, very close to what I thought:

1. Olds (by a fairly wide margin)

2. Pontiac (I prefer the under hood layout to that of Chevy, as well as its sound)

3. Chevrolet

4. Buick

Also, weren't there THREE 455 big block V8s at one one (Olds, Buick, Pontiac), all different from each other, while Chevy had a 454 V8?  

After the holidays, most likely ...

ROFLMAO, Canada sure likes their Snow, Columbian Snow for Xmas! 

For me the choice is based on past auto's from those vendors so I would put the V8's in this Order:

1. Olds
2. Chevy
3. Pontiac
4. Buick

6 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Note that those were slightly fudged numbers for marketing purposes; the Pontiac 350 was actually a 355. Other ‘350’s might also be a bit off (nothing like daimler calling a 4.0L engine a ‘560’ tho! ) 

I have no preferences here, as I’m a big block guy and not much interchanges. I can tell you that the Buick 350 -like it’s big brother- has a really great torque plot.

Curiosity Question to the Yoda of all things old. 

So the big blocks in the Cadillac, Buick, Olds and Chevy all came from the same department in GM?

@trinacriabob I looked through the thread in the Forum Frogger posted and while cool that you can do an update yourself, even with Shielded wire there was low engine noise. I would save up and you can get some nice 300 to 400 Android / Apple head units for your auto that would get you modern current. Work great and I honestly cannot believe I waited so long to do it in my SS. Worth the money.

I went to Car Toys. You can also get the head unit, wiring harness, etc. all online and do the install yourself.

Note that those were slightly fudged numbers for marketing purposes; the Pontiac 350 was actually a 355. Other ‘350’s might also be a bit off (nothing like daimler calling a 4.0L engine a ‘560’ tho! ) 

I have no preferences here, as I’m a big block guy and not much interchanges. I can tell you that the Buick 350 -like it’s big brother- has a really great torque plot.

I was having this discussion with a few people on Friday.  GM essentially bought up some independent motor companies (Olds, Buick) to create their large entity and kept their strong divisional thinking for decades after that.

Up until the 1970s, FOUR divisions of GM made a 350 small block V8 engine.  Essentially, it was each division except Cadillac.

Rank these 4 (Chevy, Pontiac, Olds, Buick) in your order of preference: 1, 2, 3, 4 - for whatever reason, such as longevity, materials, intake, exhaust, general configuration (for repair, access), whatever you decide ...

She is so lovely, way better than Marlyn Monroe!

@frogger

So, then 2 center stack areas would need to be pulled out - the CD player up above and the area near the cigarette lighter down below.

I'll have to look into this.  There's a shop that does great electrical work and I will need some small dash lights redone.  He has done work for me.

The important thing is that, if someone went this way, they should hopefully be able to toggle through their  music with their steering wheel controls.

So we have Tesla 3 smashing into Police car in Connecticut in Autopilot mode. OUCH Idiot owner was Checking on his dog in the back seat when the auto hit the police car dealing with a disabled auto on the side of the road and hit the disabled auto before stopping with hitting the second police car there too.  IDIOTS, Driving is your only responsibility, not the damn dog.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-model-3-autopilot-crash-police-car/

Yet now Mercedes-Benz is talking up their self driving S-Class cars in California.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mercedes-benz-bosch-self-driving-s-class-san-jose/

 This does make one want to think twice.

Seems Musk is out driving the Cybertruck and cannot help but drive over stuff. I can honestly say I hate it, the rear seats have head room below the front so your always blocked from any view. Clearly he cannot drive something so big.

Only in Canada would this happen or would it?

Seems a very long dedicated Infiniti buyer, aka mayor of the city wanted to go EV and yet Infiniti does not have an EV yet till 2021 as a 2022 model. Local Infiniti dealer who always sold to him got a used Tesla 3 in trade. The mayor bought it till Infiniti has their EVs.

https://electrek.co/2019/12/09/infiniti-delivers-tesla-model-3-loyal-customer/

VW Congratulates Tesla for Swiss Car of the Year, Challenges them with the ID 3 that will be out next year in a Paid AD by VW.

https://electrek.co/2019/12/09/tesla-vw-kudo-ad-car-of-the-year-award-challenges-id3/#more-114331

Gotta hand it to VW, this is smart marketing.

The message in the ad is in German and roughly translates to this (via Google Translate):

“Swiss car of the year 2020 Was it too easy, Tesla?

Dear Tesla Model 3, I congratulate you on winning. Next year’s competition will be stronger. See you next year.

Greetings from the ID.3”