G. David Felt

HyperV6, I agree with your whole listed statement of new technologies. BMW is almost done building their new Carbon Fiber (CF) Manufacturing Plant in Moses Lake Washington. They have also built a small test track there and have stated that they will be starting with building CF parts for their M line of auto's and will expand it as cost go down. They seem to be wanting to get their hands on Boeings CF part engineers and manufacturing employees at their CF plant there. I see CF parts becoming more common on all vehicles as a way to greatly reduce weight. DreamAuto in our Futre?

Can anyone comment on the Cadillac badged CB radio? Did caddy actually have this as an option?

Sweet, Looking forward to reading it.

Cubical, I see the point in regards to the customer base, manufacturing facilities and peopl with experiance building midsize to small size FWD auto's. Yet, will the Unions be willing to give up pay/benefits and scale back the number of employees to make it profitable? Big if here I think. Dealers as far as I see on the west coast are all closed and gone. The two that I would drive by in Washington are boarded up, no product to sell, no customers. History, so I do not see any value in the dealer base. I am sure some dealers are still open more as a used car lot, but I again wonder if there is any real value there for BMW to get. Like I said I could be wrong here, but I get this gut feeling that this is not a road to success for them.

I can only imagen the insurance premiums on a E-Superlight MB.

BMW has plenty of spare cash and really needs a brand that would allow it to sell more small to medium-sized front-wheel drive cars without diluting the brand image of Mini or BMW and without over-crowding the BMW portfolio. Saab could be that brand at a fire sale price, provided BMW presents a solid buisness plan. Medium-sized cars aren't a good fit for Mini and small front-drive cars are a bad fit for BMW. In fact, I don't think BMW is exactly happy about their decision to make the next 1er a front-wheel drive model, only making the choice light of new fuel economy regs. I see your point yet, why not pull a Scion then and have BMW badge their FWD auto's on a new name and sell it through the BMW or mini dealership. They could easily have built a show floor within a showfloor for this market. No differance than a GMC/Buick Dealership or Toyota/Scion dealership. I do not see enough good karma in SAAB to buy it up even at fire sale prices and try to bring it back. I see it as a black hole, but then I coud be wrong. Would not be the first time.

Very interesting twist, wonder if GM will finally cut their own staff to get losses undercontrol and then get profitable with the alliance.

I totally agree, people should save up and then if they want to use a special credit card to purchase a vehicle so they get their miles or cash back % and then pay it off at the end of the month. People do need to learn to be better with managing money and living within their budget. My parents allways told me and my sisters, save up and buy something a bit better than you normally would so it will last longer than normal and in the long run reduce your costs. Cars are the worst investment, yet if done properly, they can last a very long time. I still have my 94 suburban.

I agree with what you have said here. My personal thoughts are that until we get battery technology to be smaller but denser and can get electric motors to be stronger with a wide range from very Eco to High performance with rapid recharge or very tiny, less than 1L in size generators, then we will see another evolution with both concepts and production vehicles.

I personally see what people are thinking of in tying up wih BMW, but in reality, This is a company that should die and just let the assets go to a company that is already successful and can grow more. I really do not see any reason for trying to keep this brand alive. The wasted millions it would take to rebuild their image and build out a new dealership, etc. Rather see BMW put it into their own successful Family of products.

WOW,Talk about a big build up to nothing. Seems to cut people into the I love it or hate it camp based on the comments on the web site where the pictures are posted. Over all, Buick has nothing to fear, this car is a let down and I do not see sales going up at all but just selling to existing people who already drank the coolaid. This is NOT a conquest auto. Hyundia and Kia are doing better than this Camry warm over.

WOW, amazing the way people will stick to such an expensive project, hope he is able to send his parents on that cruise.

This would be fun to have body shells that could be swapped out to give it alternative looks. But is it even legal for the roads here. Maybe considering they brought in the coffin smart car.

Yes, the freedoms we seattlelites enjoy are many. Now to just keep the Excessive Liberal freeloaders at bay. Good thing we have rain so often, it keeps the lazy freeloaders at a minimum since it is not that comfy to liveon the street.

I wonder how close we are to getting the price of the hybrid into everything. Is it still a $10,000 delta as stated 5 years ago?

Long Live Heart and Barracuda!!!

67impss, I agee that I do not see this as a softening of the look but a cheapening of it. I wonder just how much their costs are starting to affect them.

This makes sense considering that with Quality you get higher income buyers who wants more in a auto, so the builders and dealers will put more on the cars. Plus with all the new safety features this can truly jack up the price of the auto's. Will be interesting to see who becomes the new Low Price Leader?

Paint Jobs are way better on this Cruze.

I wonder if some of the people on here like to post just to post rather than contribute? I know we all like to agree with others at times, but it seems some tend to be specific in posting stretched info. Comparing Apples to Pears seems to be common place now.

Silver Audi RS parked in front of my work place, very clean and detailed, the rain should muddy it up later today here in Seattle.

Nice, should serve him well. Good luck.

So as the last of a dead bread, Please review it and compare fit and finish of modern cars today to this dinosaur and did they do a nice job being it is night and day between the engineering of this car and todays Lincolns.

This is one car that is more or less ready for the scrap pile.

That baby is in one beautiful shape. I did not know they had Cadillac branded CB's as an option. Sweet Ride!