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red leather seats available on the Pacifica now, But wife doesn't want another minivan........after they add red leather and all wheel drive to the options list,.....?

People are overrated.

I think it might be time for a nice vacation from Facebook...people are going to drive me nuts.......

Been a while since I've had a "toy" car. Decided to buy this 1988 Firebird Formula for my son and I to work on together. He is almost 13 and not at all mechanically inclined. Not so much because he can't be but because I am one of those picky people that would never let him help me because I wanted to make sure it was done right. It's a pretty clean and rust free all original driver but has more than enough flaws (starting with its anemic 305 V8) that I won't feel guilty doing an LS swap on it. I already sourced the engine and trans as well as a far amount of parts for the conversion but with COVID raging here in Michigan I would feel too guilty to order the rest of the parts I need to get the swap going so it is on hold for now. I don't have the time or equipment to do the engine swap so someone will be doing that for me. My son and I will fix up the interior, replace the little work and broken items and install all the suspension components, though. Should be a fun project once it gets going. I don't want to turn it into a race car. Just a fun, reliable street car. It will be a cam only LS1 with a small stall (2500 rpm) 4L60E. The goal will be something like a 375 RWHP car that will dip into the high 11's in the quarter. Perhaps more mods in future years but no plans to go faster than 11.5 as I already went the roll bar route with a different car and don't want to do that again.

Ohio backroad in fall...about an hour from me.. I miss going out to explore..

Latest update: All is still well with the car. I really do like this car. I still kind of wish I had just bought a used V-Sport but the 2.0T acquits itself well. I will say if you are in the market for a nice used car, I'm not sure you could do much better than one of these. You can get a 2-3 year old off lease car for half of MSRP and still under warranty or grab a certified one and have another 3-4 years of warranty (6 yr / 100k miles). The biggest issue I have had with this car is the tires. The stock Pirelli run flats are not fit for Michigan's carpet bombed roads. I have already replaced one of them due to a bad sidewall blister and I now have two more that have smaller sidewall blisters. I have lived in Michigan my whole life and in 30 years of car ownership I don't recall ever having a car get a blister in the sidewall before. From doing a little online research it appears these P-Zero Nero's are known for that problem. Due to Michigan's horrible roads I should have done the wheel & tire insurance. At $230 a pop it doesn't really pay to even replace the two bad ones I have now. I'm better off just replacing all 4 tires with a "lesser" non run flat.

Also bummed out.... Was showering this morning and heard knocking on my door- my neighbor’s mom popped my Cobalt parked out in the street. Was driving her husbands F150 and simply got too close dropping off her lawn mower for her daughter to mow. I was a little worried, as she. Slightly moved it in the street. She ended up scratching the drivers side right fender, tire and wheel cover. Looks like the bumper/fascia took the brunt of the impact and cracked and broke. I took it for a quick test drive, and it looks like everything else is okay with the Balt. I know for sure it will need a new front fascia. Might be able to buff out some of the stratches.... I know my neighbors parents, as I talk to them sometimes when they stop to see their daughter. She seemed quite upset that it happened. We exchanged some info, but she would like it to go through her insurance, which she will call on Monday. So it sounds like the Balt has a date with a body shop. All I really want is a nice shiny painted fascia back on the front- as the car is 14 years old, and in beater status. (Mind you, and well cared for beater) Just sucks after I just detailed the poor car... ? Counting my blessings that the damage was not much worse......

^ At least someone is doing something! :D Here's my hillbilly fire pit: the base to an actual one, a rim that would fit my '40 except someone prior to me inexplicably cut the center out of it, and an old grate I cut to fit in it. If I were to use it as a fire pit, I'll have to put some steel screen across the bottom. To date, I've put it on the ground without the firepit stand and used it to burn papers when I have too much for the wood stove.

Lol yeah what only an extra 30 grand or so. LS is more expensive than the g90..

Put together this fire pit from a kit from Home Depot, light enough to carry out to the yard or patio. Got a box of birch firewood. Should be fun for evenings out in the yard...

I made this rack years ago, but in the course of purging & re-arranging things in the basment, this is the first time it's been naked since I made it. Fabricated from an old iron bed frame, it's to store long pieces of lumber/trim. Never know when you need an odd piece.

I went on it. And went off it. It keeps people in high school type dynamics. No bueno. - - - - - In it's heyday: It went out with a bang ... literally ... what a send off ... When they do show you their marquee, it says "No Vacancy." Duh. There was a lot of fire once the implosion got started. The Kingdome stadium was imploded - the only one I've actually seen - but you only saw the flares and some smoke when it got started; nothing like this. The Dunes went down to make room for the Bellagio.

As YOU HAVE STATED, China is going to led the world towards EVs. V8's are Dead and you have even stated that as your favorite brand will focus on Turbo 4 and 6 engines. As such, there is NO NEED to waste R&D dollars on a V8 anymore. They can clearly build Turbo 4 and 6 engines and bring in hybrid and evs now and grow from there. In time they will rival everyone else. They have done so much in the last 20 to 30 years compared to 100 plus for everyone else just about. Livery was XTS never CT6 and the age differences between XTS and CT6 buyers is big for such a small pool of car people since the bulk of everyone has gone to CUVs where Cadillac has led the industry in sales at high ATPs. Now Genesis, this is a valid need for them. Before they do an update to the 70 or 90 car, they need to make sure they have the 70,80 and 90 CUV out first and then as I have stated earlier, use the Palisade and make a uber luxury full size SUV out of it, or at least a 90's luxury version from it. No different than any other auto company out there in using the same platform with underneath identical parts, but the interior and exterior look light years different.

Well Said @balthazar @trinacriabob I will back up the statement about Starbucks. Here many Burger Kings went out over the last 20 to 30 years where as McDonalds, Wendy's and now Five Guys and The Habit Burger Grill are still growing and strong. The Burger King locations seem to have been snapped up by Starbucks and the drive through are crazy busy.

How come it took mercedes 35-40 years to build a better interior than this?

Only badge snobs and those worried about their image go out a buy a NEW Mercedes over a new Genesis these days. Just the repair bills alone would keep me away from "the best or nothing".

If Genesis is such a good deal why did they sell 21,000 last year and they are down Q1 this year? They aren’t that good a deal because they needed better styling, interior and power trains which the G80 addresses. G80 looks nice, but it isn’t better than what exists already. A challenge brand has to beat competition not build “almost as good as”

I saw him perform a few years before he died. I & my friend were the only young folk there; I didn’t think 50-something women groupies were a thing.

^ Last time I bought a headlight assembly from the dealer, it was for an '03 Grand Prix- this might have been around 10-11 years ago. I remember it being $109. Whole entire corolla isn't worth $1100. Busted headlight? Junk the car.

Been a while since I gave an update. Unfortunately this is not the greatest update. The wife was visiting a friend and was parked on a residential street and somebody driving a new Ram truck and not paying attention ran into the van. It is about the widest residential street you will ever see as it is a legit 4 lanes wide so you can easily have cars parked on either side and still comfortably have two cars pass each other going opposite ways. Thankfully (or not, I guess, since it wasn't totalled), there was no structural damage. Unfortunately it wasn't fixed before the state shut down so that added a bit of extra time to the repair. Wound up taking almost seven weeks but we have it back and they did a nice job on it. For the most part it looks as good as new. Other than that, we still love this thing. It had close to 28k miles on it when it get hit and between the length of the repair and the fact we aren't really allowed to go anywhere that is pretty much where it has stayed for the past 2 plus months. The GPS failed a couple days before it got hit and they did check that out while it was in being fixed. They ordered a new radio to fix that issue but it still hasn't come in yet.

Genesis is cheaper to maintain than a Cadillac, has better product than Cadillac but still people aren’t buying Genesis. This new G80 is a step forward but they need to do more with G80 or price it at like $42k. This thing should be CT5 and Lexus ES money, but Genesis will price it like a BMW and the product will fail. And personally I think Hyundai/Kia are really on top of their game. But no hybrid, no EV, no twin turbo V8? If you want to play with the big boys that is price of admission.