Croc

I love the G8, except for the interior trunk release being located in the same nonsensical place as the 1980 Sedan de Ville my family owns. GM's usually really good about ergonomics, so this foible is all the more glaring.

Janet Reno could only dream.

You answered 30 out of 33 correctly — 90.91 % I missed 7, 14 and ironically enough 33...though the correct answers were always the other one I had been debating. I'm not sure if I like the wording to the answer choices on 33, though...IMO the "correct" answer should have the word "average" inserted into it because I can easily think of counterexamples to the "correct" answer.

The Ws were fairly well-differentiated. I wouldn't really call them badge jobs. The G6--you're right--it isn't technically a badge job, but the styling vocabularies of it and the AURA are so similar and poorly differentiated that they might as well be badge jobs. They look as similar as the GMT-360s all did, even though the 360s only shared roof panels--huge waste of money for GM, designing 6 different vehicles with non-interchangeable panels that still look almost exactly the same. I also wouldn't characterize the SKY as a rebadge at all--that thing looks like a mini-Corvette, while the Solstice has an extremely unique design.

OK, I read it. Their lawsuit has no merits, and the damages they're claiming? Frivolous. No way will any judge or jury award them the cost of moving to a new house. Morons.

Ocn, did you watch the Dr. Phil crusade against salvia and decide to try it for yourself before he convinces it to be made illegal? This is by far your strangest thread.

The rep said January.

Seriously? OK that's retarded. Bad GM, and worse Holden, for f@#king that up in the first place.

I hate having my photograph taken, and just the mere thought of my reflection being caught in the glass or shiny black interior plastic on some of these cars prompted me to leave the camera at home. No really, my photos wouldn't be any better/worse than what's already out there on the internet. Go see the damn things in person. And no one has answered any of the questions I posed in my brief impressions. And anyone in LA, I'm down for going again this weekend, just PM me. I had a friend with me on a time crunch so I couldn't stay at the show for more than an hour.

One of my fraternity brothers is the biggest stoner...his questions are more like "What if people had fins and could breathe in the ocean? Then you could spend all day eating seafood." You then point out that it would be difficult to cook said seafood in a body of water, to which the inevitable response is "But what if you could cook underwater too?"

empowah, did you see the Porsche showcase? Did you laugh at the vintage model with the horrible spiderwebbing in the paintjob? I was like, "shouldn't they have fixed the paint up to display at the autoshow?" Ditto with the rusted tailpipe.

First of all, I haven't heard a damn thing about the C7 "not being nearly as exciting." Have I heard of greater fuel efficiency, but lower weight? YES...BUT THAT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN LESS EXCITING! Do you seriously think GM will release a Vette that's slower than the current gen? Go shove it. I was simply asking for more information because I hadn't heard what you think you have. I've never encountered someone so standoffish and rude over being asked to point someone to some information before on this forum ever. THANK YOU SO MUCH SATTY! Even though you don't have links to point me to, this is reasoned and detailed enough to be helpful. Personally, I prefer the cleaner lines o the C6. C5...meh. It's really showing its age now in a way I don't know if the C6 will. I really can't think of any styling improvements for a C7, except maybe a more upright nose...but that's more of a styling trend these days than an actual improvement.

In person, there's very little resemblence.

Other than the Volt, I didn't have time to see any Chevrolets. I do believe I saw a Camaro or two, but I don't remember if they were on turntables or not. Sorry!

Went to LAIAS today. GM impressions: Volt is awesome. Decent crowd around it. Interior looks good, and the exterior is awesome. Taillights look cool, kinda like the neon Lincoln Mark VIII in the way they glow. SAAB had a concept that looked cool as hell, but it won't be produced. The production SAABs with eyebrow headlights look sick. Lots of attention there. Pontiac G6 were the 2009.5 (labeled as just 2009 though), but the upgrades are well worth it. The window sill in the back (at least the coupe, all I had time to sit in) is still Fisher Price, but the other interior upgrades make this car at least presentable. Fascia updates are an improvement. This should sell better. Really, the interior looks worth the price...FINALLY. G8: HOT. I die. D. I. E. Die. Where's the trunk release? Couldn't find one, but the trunk is huge. Why isn't it selling better? CTS wagon was on a turntable, but it looks good. Rear is kinda SAAB 9-3 SportCombi, though. Not necessarily a bad thing, but most buyers will think it's a rebadge, unfortunately. SIDENOTE: where are the door locks? They look auto-only, which is a huge safety deficiency in my book. I demand a manual latch I can open when the power locks fail, which they do from time to time. XLR: New fascia looks fantastic, and the interior update is generally good, but the guages need an update badly. These look like they came from the 80s no joke. NOT IMPRESSIVE. Didn't have time to see the Traverse, but I'm very familiar with the lambdas as a whole, so I'm sure it's just as good as those are. FORD: Mazda3 is awesome in person. The pictures on here don't show enough of the front details, but the grille does NOT look too happy in person. Rear is very dynamic, and the interior is better than the Cruze mockups we've seen. Sorry fanboys, but the Mazda3 kicks butt with a cleaner-looking interior. Buttons and knobs also had great tactile feel. Fusion/Milan. Fusion looks less busy in person out back, but it still isn't what I'd call fresh-looking. The crosshatching on the taillights looks dated in an early-90s Pontiac kinda way. Front and interior are good, though. Milan looks great in person. A real standout. As for the interiors, they are an improvement over the current, but marginally-so. They will get dated very quickly, but Ford is pretty adept at incremental interior upgrades, and these are strong foundations. The Fusion's body-colored interior accents are awesome, and if wood trim is offered on the Milan it should be passable-to-good. MKZ: Much improved rear, par for the class interior. Toyota: Their Venza looks good, and that is the first complement I have ever paid a Toyota. Damn them. Ferrari: The new California is HOTT. Huge crowd, it just looks awesome. I want one. Oh, and the trunk is upholstered in Alcantara. I'd buy some designer luggage just to fill that space up. Not sure if I forgot anything, but this was a quick breeze-through for me as I really only cared to look at new stuff, or things I haven't previously been able to crawl around in.

Where have you heard the C7 is set to be the Debbie Downer of Corvettes? I haven't heard ANYTHING about it yet, so please link me to some articles. I think the C5 will be pretty collectable as a) it doesn't suck, and b) it's the last with retractible headlights. C6 will be fairly collectable because it is the most gorgeous Corvette to date.

Nice! The most thrilling ride I've ever been in was when one of my fraternity brothers drove from San Diego to USC in 45 minutes (mostly along the 73). He told us he needed to drive at 125 to "clean the carbon out" of his 80s Mercedes diesel because it had been a while since he'd done it and that is was just "routine maintenance."

Neither. Lots of little hassles throughout ownership that cost time and money. Nickel and dime, indeed.

That's funny. In LA, the only real winds we get are the Santa Anas, and those are hot desert winds. Only along the coast do you get a cooler seabreeze.

This is a very valid point. The question, though, is more of an issue with quantifying effects than the existence of effects. What we know: the earth's climate has been increasing gradually over the past millenia; we are, geologically speaking, still leaving an ice age. That said, corresponding with the industrial revolution, the average annual increase in global temperatures has been escalating at a faster rate. The ozone layer is earth's natural defense against increased UV radiation, which causes warming. Since the industrial revolution, the amount of greenhouse gases as increased dramatically, leading to massive ozone depletion. Since legislation in the 1970s and the banning of the use of many CFCs and aerosol products in the 1980s, the ozone hole has begun to shrink. Logically, there is a relationship between the hypothesis that CFCs and other pollutants may have had a deleterious effect on the ozone layer, to legislation being enacted to combat this, and then a subsequent reversal of the deterioration of the ozone layer. With China's (and SE Asia in general) industrialization in the last decade, though, this may no longer be the case. Jury's still out. We may not yet understand the exact mechanics of what is occurring, but scientists do see the relationships between some human activity, and some climate effects. It's kinda like hurricanes: we know a lot about hurricanes...what causes them, what feeds them, and what kind of damage they inflict. But we still don't quite understand how they move. We cannot yet predict with any certainty where and when they shift direction, or where they make landfall. We don't even know exactly when they will gain or lose strength. But we still know, despite that, that hurricanes exist, and what their effects are on the territory they pass through.

Well, what do you think? Burning forests, sparked by humans in the vast majority of cases (Tea fire was caused by a smoldering campfire that was not properly extinguished), put a $h! ton of carbon in the air, just like wood burning, volcanic eruptions, coal-powered factories, and any other method of combustion.

But there's nothing natural about all the pollution we pump into the atmosphere. Did you know that the ozone layer is a lot less effective than it used to be (excluding the hole)? Baby boomers had much less UV intensity back in the 50s and 60s. Are you going to tell me that more intense global UV light exposure won't have any climatic effects? It isn't natural.

Clearly. You can feel it when you breathe, or even when you're just outside and your eyes burn. That isn't good. The wildfires made the whole damn city smell of smoke last week.

I'd make a Miley Cyrus/Jonas Bros./purity ring joke, but I think I'll just link to this video instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DVT9hP3s-0

Although your language was polarizing, I have to agree with you. I found very little substantiated facts in that article, and it was written with an obvious slant. Doesn't pass my BS detector. Knowing what I know, and knowing what the climate has become over the past 100 years, the trends of the polar ice caps, the issues with water currants along the Pacific coast leading to decreased seafood harvesting, and the more extreme weather that has occurred...Hello, global warming exists.