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Hopping in for the last time this year.... ? Wishing all my friends a very happy and healthy NEW YEAR!!

Several years, Cougar had a "cove" rear, but I not only do I prefer the 1969 version, but I think the 1969 rear exemplifies it the best. 1961 Continental Balthy, you already posted a version of it, but I want to post it again as a Galaxie 500 XL 1963 Impala SS.

Sidebar: since we were talking Rivieras and I mentioned the dash design, here are a few interior shots: Purist form - "less is more?" I had seen these in the showroom and liked this car's interior a lot. This may be a kit - not sure if I like it Resemblance to the first-gen Riv - yes, there is definitely some ... I am stunned to see that crank windows were even available on this groundbreaking personal luxury car. Okay, have a great day, folks, and Happy New Year. Since it's 2020, it might be good to put things into a 20/20 POV. Cheers.

BREAKING NEWS: Carlos Ghosn has fled Japan and shown up in Lebanon his original birth Country and will hold news Conferences next week to balance out the injustice system of Japan. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/ex-nissan-boss-carlos-ghosn-flees-to-lebanon-slams-japans-justice-system/2019/12/30/61e89258-2b7c-11ea-bffe-020c88b3f120_story.html

For my usual use cases, I find Wikipedia quite useful. It's definitely lacking in detail on certain subjects and I've seen factual errors. But I don't have to go to a library and dig through encyclopedias or specialized books when I need to quickly find facts like the wheelbase of a 463 series G-wagen, Robin Trower's discography after 1973, the engine choices on an '89 Regal, facts about the towns on Lake Constance, or the county seat of Knox County, Oh...

My issue with Wiki is their criteria (and I may have stated this before, but it's come to the forefront in writing a book)- they only use published sources but ANY published source is technically OK, even if it's factual garbage. Plus, depending on when you may happen to check an entry vs. when it may have been purposefully vandalized or erroneously edited, once again there's little assurance you're getting hard factual data. I started one page on an automaker and sourced my data from a published book, but it was a 'university press' publication without an ISBN. Subsequent edits deleted my information because of that irrelevant fact (they couldn't look the book up I assume). Yet who looks up the facts in the books they can look up? No money for Wiki from me.

Someone traded a squeaky clean, 2018 black Canyon SLT crewcab 4WD on a new Genesis G70 3.3 AWD. I checked the VIN and it is a business vehicle, so I guess it was for tax purposes (?) We are the only Genesis dealer in SEPA.

The Audi 3.0TFSI has a similar whine (S4, SQ5, A8 3.0TFSI, etc). Well, it has the same Eaton TVS 4-lobe supercharger (albeit a shorter version TVS R1320 version rather than the LT4's R1740 or LT5's R2300). That is also Audi's most reliable engine in the current lineup. It is new enough to not have the 1st gen FSI's Direct Injection intake fouling issues and it does not have the grenading turbo problems of all the VW-Audi engines with a check valve and oil screen in the turbo oil feed. FYI, if you own a car with the Supercharged 3.0T (not the newer Hot-Vee single turbo 3.0T), the TVS R1320 makes about 33% more boost than the 3.0T engine actually uses. So the ECU cracks the bypass valve at higher rpms to bleed off boost it doesn't want. This overboost and bleed concept is also used on the Jaguar AJ133 and other supercharged engines. It means that if you screw with the ECU program and keep that bypass valve shut longer and open it less, you get quite a bit more power... about 100 hp and 90 ft-lbs more over the upper half of the rev range.

About those Rivieras...the comparison of the interiors of the first generation 1963-1964 and the last generation 1995-1999. Its kinda cool that the last gen really emulated the look of the 1st generation. Its kinda cool that that the last generation book-ended the end of the Riviera by imitating the 1st gen interior. It kinda ended up that way. That would be a bummer though that Buick never again gave us a Riviera. Another bummer would be: Its a damned shame that even though the last gen imitated the 1st gen's interior, its a huge shame that Buick gave us a very cheap plasticky interior for it... The original is a zillion times more luxurious... What is Buick? One look at the original and you immediately understand what is Buick. One look at the 1995 interior and you understand why Buick is where its at in the market place in 2019...

Do Corvettes qualify? Maybe the concave is not concave enough and its not flanked by enough closure at the sides?

I haven't driven enough vehicles and would be basing it on what I've watched and read of other's opinions. We now have a few Teslas in my extended family and my brother acquired a <40,000km P85d Model S a few weeks ago after shopping performance trims of various midsize Germans. I drove it around the suburbs for about 20 minutes and it blew my socks off in most respects except interior material quality, and it is pretty much too fast off the line for me at full throttle (too easy to give myself motion sickness).

These are my personal best cars of the last decade. "Best" in my case means different things. It may mean forever game changing in the car world or it may mean the bestest of the bestest in the quest for speed or it may mean simply the best and better than all the rest or it may mean what I like the best. 1. Tesla Model S. It truly changed the way the world views electric cars and it very well be the one and only electric car that ever existed in the history of EVs that all EVs are judged by and produced and manufactured and sold as. The absolute standard for EV cars going forward into the future and the only EV car ever that single handedly made the ICE world change to ITS standard. 2. Dodge Challenger Hellcat. For me, the bestest of the bestest of all muscle cars ever to grace our streets. The end all, be all of the muscle cars. It made the modern horsepower wars fun like it was back in the good 'ole days (so Ive heard as I wasnt alive during that time). It made exotic supercars cars question themselves and the ONLY ICE car that keeps rabid EV and Tesla fanbois sleepless at night. The Hellcat can keep up and actually surpass the "ludicrously" crazy fast acceleration that Teslas are known for and the Hellcats (Demon) can do that non-stop with trick A/C cooling but that poor Tesla goes into limp mode and Viagara cant help it. When driving a Hellcat, Viagara is not needed as that V8 sound is seduction times a trillion. 3. Chevrolet SS The closest an American car got to have the feels of the coveted BMW sport sedan persona. And not only did it achieve it, it out-BMWed it in this modern era as BMW themselves have lost it. Although Cadillac also achieved this, I am more of a blue collar guy than a snooty 1%er. Its too bad that Oldsmobile wasnt around to get a version of this as Olds would be more me than Chevy, however, the interior of the SS is more akin to a REAL Oldsmobile interior than it is to Chevys, so there is that. And, more importantly...its still a muscle car. A very usably 4 door sedan muscle car. It retains that big cubed, high HP and high torque at low RPMs that muscle car V8s are known for under the hood. 4. Ford F-150 Raptor Surprisingly, Ive started changing my mind with fullsized pick-up trucks. Not that I hated them, but I was more of a car guy. I dont like CUVs,, but fullsized BOF SUVs or the Jeeps like Wrangler and Grand Cherokee is at my limits. But those fullsized pick-up trucks. They rock when I start to look at them without my biased car eyes. Ive ALWAYS loved the muscle trucks and I always loved Big Foot. So...with Big Foot in mind, the Raptor would be my best 2010-2019 vehicle. Seeing that this last decade, no real muscle truck existed, but Ford did introduce a beast of an offroader fullsized pick-up WITH muscle car power under the hood. OK...the last gen got a turbo V6, but...its got the torque and HP numbers to make muscle cars shake in fear in their shoes tires. Dont forget though...GM's midsized muscle trucks of the early 1990s were turbo V6s too... 5. Ferrari 812 Superfast It took me a loooong time to decide upon this one. I wanted a Corvette. Or maybe the last Viper ever. But then I realized. The 812 Supefast IS a Corvette AND a Viper all in one while retaining its Ferrari greatness. 6.5 liters. 396 or so cubic inches of 12 cylinder, 789 naturally aspirated HP madness. What it lacks in torque, "only" 553 ft/lbs, it gains in outstanding acceleration runs, in crazy, muscle car like prowess in ride as its a GT car and not a track car which translates to what I love about muscle cars. In other words, Ferrari created, IN MY EYES, an Italian version of a 1969 aluminum block 427 Corvette ZL-1, a 1996 Viper GTS coupe, with the finest Ferrari Italian leather in the interior with their latest and greatest V12. The Viper is not with us anymore, the Corvette has gone down the European road of mid-engined , RWD engineering but...Ferrari has EMBRACED the "no replacement for displacement" muscle car mantra and upped its V12 to 396 cubic inches and retained the awesome long hood,/short deck, front engine/rear wheel drive layout.

Exactly my thinking, haha.

Moral of the story? Capitalism rewards handsomely those who dramatically change how we live our lives for the better -- be it Ford then, Gates, Jobs, Bezos or Suck-a-Bird more recently. That is a good thing because there is nothing like income equality when it comes to ensuring that nothing gets invented, no sht gets done and everyone is a useless dependent of State.

The 3800 was a fantastic engine -- smooth, reliable, bulletproof and economical. The 3.6 DOHC HF V6 -- at least for the first two generations from LY7 to LLT -- not so much. It is not until the LFX that some basic reliability issues got addressed. The LGX if a good engine, but that is a totally new architecture with new bore spacings and a new AFM setup. They should have continued to build the V6es off of the 5.3L LS design giving a 4.0L V6. Power would have been 220 to 240 hp for a port injected 4.0 V6 engine. The current LT based 4.3L V6 makes 297hp. These would have been more reliable engines for the Malibu, Impala and all the crossovers. Probably more efficient than the 4-valve 3.6 too.

Nonsense, nonsense and nonsense. (1) You can put a unique serial number and hand build a Small Block. Oh wait, the LS7 was exactly that. (2) Hot Vees do not require any higher or lower tolerances than side mounted turbos. (3) As I have said, an LT based engine displacing 6.8 liters and featuring individual butterflies, cam-in-cam dual phasing and dual injection will produce the same power (~550) with zero lag and with less complexity. As previous small block engines have proven, fuel economy will be equivalent to, or better than, DOHC powerplants of lower displacement but with a similar output (turbocharged or otherwise). The point here is that the Pushrod design is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a GM asset which should be maximized not shunned. It should have been in the ATS-V and it should be in every flagship Cadillac. Whatever displacement taxes may or may not exist in certain markets is irrelevant to this category of vehicles.

Hard to grasp how wealthy Henry Ford I was. A few years ago I calculated his worth in today’s dollars and it was about $180 billion. At one point he owned 3 million acres of land, almost the size of the state of Connecticut.

It's longitudinally engined, full time AWD... aka Quattro. The entire engine is ahead of the front axle. The transmission and the front differential axle is in a single casing. The center and front differential are torsen type limited slip; the rear differential is active. The default torque split is 40 front / 60 rear, but out to 85% can go to the rear and 65% can go to the front. -- It is also a Hot Vee engine. Meaning the exhaust comes out in the middle and the twin turbos sit on top in the valley of the Vee. The intakes are on the sides. There is an air-to-water aftercooler in the front between the throttle body and the intake plenums. The turbos are tiny and design for response not maximizing engine power. The engine makes a paltry 435 hp @ 5,100-6000 rpm with 444 lb-ft available from 1,500-5,000 rpm. The redline is a modest 6,000 rpm.

Pretty clean (10K/year). Can't at all say I'm a fan of the styling tho. But wow- assuming the dealership made some money on the trade, the owner may have gotten only $25K; 4 years cost him $84,000 in depreciation. What an idiot.

If I was to do a muscle car garage, it would have to be like this for the 5 auto's. 69 GTO Judge Early 70's Chevelle SS Convertible 77 Pontiac Can Am 1986 Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupe Maroon 1996 Imapla SS There is my Full size GM Muscle Car Garage.