oldshurst442

wrong wrong wrong. In Germany either. The E Class is sold at Charger prices in Germany... I guess when it comes to your arguments...you like to play both sides of the fence. But you know... a very IMPORTANT CRITERIA of LUXURY is the contrary of what you say... VOLUME is the very OPPOSITE of luxury. So in THAT context, because THAT is what YOU are discussing...LUXURY...that statement above is... WRONG!!! WRONG... Theis COVID thing will put a damper in E Class sales in the US... Dont be surprised that the E Class might be canceled in the US in a year... 1. its a sedan in a SUV world 2. new vehicle sales will be down drastically 3. Mercedes has to pay its huuuuge diesel scandal fines in Germany in the following months... Cost cutting was well on its way before the Covid thing, and now in the very near future, like in the next couple of months, it will be a very painful reality for Mercedes... 4. Mercedes before the Covid thing was cash strapped...Im afraid to ask what is happening now...

wrong wrong wrong wrong and... wrong

wrong. wrong wrong

The CT5 target market is non-taxi, non-police force agencies. Unlike the E Class... I guess the target market would be folk that could afford its luxury price tag on a car that is JUST luxury. The E Class is sold in its home market to police forces and taxi cab companies....much like the Dodge Charger is here in North America. And the E Class, much like the Dodge Charger, has got expensive versions to sell to those that want a little bit more speed and style than the taxi cab and police car versions... Also...the E Class has plebeian models too, that sell to Average Joes in the mainstream market. Much like the Charger... The CT5, does NOT have mainstream versions. Like at all... So there is that...

wrong A Mercedes E Class... But not really. A CT5 is truly a luxury vehicle. Unlike the E Class... The thing is...the CT5 is NOT a mundane, mass produced, plebeian, every day Average Joe, utilitarian taxi cab sedan in its home country like the E Class is in its home country... So...what do we compare the E Class to? A Dodge Charger? Yeah...Im comfy with that comparison! You know...the Charger reaches high dollar price tags...JUST like the E Class. You know...the Charger is also a mundane, mass produced, plebeian, every day Average Joe, utilitarian taxi cab/police car sedan in its home country... JUST like the E Class in Germany... Both are RWD. AWD. Both have adequate horsepower V6s. Both have high powered V8s. Yeah....an E Class is a Charger competitor. Awesome!

A Mercedes E Class... But not really. A CT5 is truly a luxury vehicle. Unlike the E Class... The thing is...the CT5 is NOT a mundane, mass produced, plebeian, every day Average Joe, utilitarian taxi cab sedan in its home country like the E Class is in its home country... So...what do we compare the E Class to? A Dodge Charger? Yeah...Im comfy with that comparison! You know...the Charger reaches high dollar price tags...JUST like the E Class. You know...the Charger is also a mundane, mass produced, plebeian, every day Average Joe, utilitarian taxi cab/police car sedan in its home country... JUST like the E Class in Germany... Both are RWD. AWD. Both have adequate horsepower V6s. Both have high powered V8s. Yeah....an E Class is a Charger competitor. Awesome!

wrong wrong wrong bolded part is... wrong

So...is the plural of house, hice? Im Canadian you know... We English differently than you Americans. Then there is the English English. I really dont know what language they speak.

*oxen* I had a slight brain slip up. Stupid English language. - fox >foxes - ox >oxes? HELL NO! Lets phoque the minds of people... Ox >Oxen Ive got a mouses problem in my house. I wonder how many hice have mouses problems in my neighbourhood? Or would that be a RATT problem? (like the Geico commercial)

1.5 to 2.5 hour airplane ride? From Montreal, that would land me where? North? No thanx. I could drive up north. No need to take a plane. East? Just as with going north. Id rather drive to Gaspesie or the Maritime Provinces. South? The US? That take me to NYC about? Yeah.... I LOVE New York. But now may not be the time to visit NYC. Montreal is faring better than NYC, but that aint saying much... No thanks. I am not about to cross the border. Closed or not... West? Past Toronto? There isnt much past Toronto... perhaps a longer plane trip west would be good. Id go to Banff or Northern British Columbia but that is longer than a 2.5 hour plane trip. So we are looking at about Toronto and a little past Toronto. Well...Toronto as with the NYC/Montreal comparison. Toronto is faring better than Montreal, but that aint saying much also. Toronto could easily have a deadlier 2nd wave as much as Montreal could. Past Toronto and Id rather just be locked up in my basement. Id rather just stay put. So yeah. Montreal aint so bad in other words.

Not quite...accurate. On tractors replacing horses, on cars replacing horses and on EVs replacing cars... Tractors, sports cars, race cars, pick-up trucks, panel vans, 18 wheelers, passenger cars, buses, taxis, etc all replaced horses and donkeys and ponies and camels and oxes etc... Romans raced their horses. Chariot horse racing. Greeks before them, but I digress. So...in THIS caes...race cars replaced rce horses. Car equivalent today? yes? no? Oxes and Donkeys and Clydesdales were replaced by tractors and panel vans and the like... Of coarse horses still exist and are part of our life still today. We humans have been using horses for all our needs since the dawn of time... I forgot to mention...tanks and assault vehicles...war machines...these also have replaced the horse...the war horse. And even airplanes... if you were to believe in Greek mythology ( Perseus and Pegasus) but Im digressing again. The electric motor is just the powertrain that will eventually replace the internal combustion engine (maybe) in cars. The automobile itself aint going nowhere...just like the horse.

I got this far into your post...when I thought about ONLY one thing. LETS GO CRAZY!!! LETS GET NUTS!!!

Same here. C5 Vettes also. I posted some C4 Vettes in another thread 2-3 weeks ago, and ever since then, I fell in love with them again. The early ones. 1984-1989. With the square flat front and concave back. And Ive been loving the C5 for about a week now when I saw one driving around. Saw the same one again just now. Literally. I just came home. I saw it 2 minutes before entering my home. I kissed the wife. She told me to disinfect my hands before kissing her, said hi to my kids and turned on the computer to log in this site, read what you wrote and responded to it with this lame post.

Saw this earlier Laughed a bit. But Im just not feeling it. Im feeling kinda rebellious tonight. So I listened to the non-parody version. And now I guess I mellowed out because of the Ramones...but Ill do the Offspring cover. Idle hands was an AWESOME MOVIE!!! Just to let you you know...I dont DO drugs. Not then. Not now...never will. And now...Im happy again!!!

Them's fightin' words... Period correct fightin' song. (Accounting for both Pontiacs pictured above that is) Id challenge you to a drag race for pink slips if it werent for this Covid19 thing. That and I dont own an F-Body nor an A-Body...just yet. So you lucky!

Government subsidies. A necessary evil on many levels. In a perfect world, government subsidies should not be. But as we all no, there is no such thing as a perfect anything. For starters, in a global economy to which many American companies compete in, is most of these global countries, many governments subsidize their national industries and subsidies their national manufacturing. For starters, Japan subsidizes their automotive industry to levels that seem insane to American minds. The Chinese even worse. GM, Ford, NEED American taxpayer money JUST for those two reasons alone... Secondly, even if you dont think American taxpayer money should go to GM/Ford, American taxpayer money goes to foreign automobile manufacturers let alone GM and Ford. All those Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen (Porsche and everything thing else VW...), Hyundai/KIA manufacturing plants...IN THE USofA...ALL GOT some sort of American governmental level of tax breaks, grants, loans on guaranteed low low low interest rates and the like... You think that is fair for GM and Ford NOT to get taxpayer money when American taxpayer money goes to everybody else? OK...we eliminate ALL taxpayer money of all sorts to ALL companies... THAT only solves what happens on your land...THAT does NOT solve what GM and Ford face in the global market when all other nations subsidize their industries... Example with the aircraft industry because it happens in the automotive industry too: Boeing gets taxpayer money in very loopholey ways. Fine! Boeing complains that Bombardier Aerospace is subsidized by the Canadian government! Fine! Boeing's subsidies stop. OK... Canada WILL NOT stop subsidizing Bombardier Aerospace. (OK...maybe they will now even before this COVID19 thing happened.) Problem is...Brazil will NOT stop subsidizing Embraer. Bigger problem than Embraer and Bombardier Aerospace is that Airbus will continue to get government support by not 1 country. Not 2 countries. But 3 countries...(Germany, Spain and France) How can Boeing compete with that? Boeing NEEDS the American government and the loopholey ways of subsidies...that is how. (I dont like the lies that Boeing done to try to undermine the CS100/Airbus220, but that is for another time) There are things that need to be more in check. I agree. Example: Bombardier, JUST before the CS100 (now Airbus 220) was being certified by the FAA and the TCCA(Canadian equivalent), Bombardier needed billions of dollars of loans from the Canadian Government for reasons. There was an uproar by Canadians. From Quebec and the rest of the country. Canada gave some interest free loans and the Quebec government said they will give money, but they need to partner up wioth the Quebec government. Bombardier agreed to those terms. ONE YEAR LATER...Bombardier LAYS OFF people saying they are bleeding money. What about those billions of dollars they got a year earlier? WELL...the family that owns Bombardier (like Ford) have a controlling interest in the company...and they got a very very healthy end of year raise in CEO salary and bonuses... Let me tell you, they had to answer to the Quebec folk as there was an uproar. The link below...the green sign reads... "steal from the poor to give to the rich" The red sign reads "Bombardier and others, old or new aristocrats, same insensibilities, same arrogance, same justifiactions" https://business.financialpost.com/transportation/bombardier-inc-executives-defer-half-of-their-32-6-million-compensation-after-uproar-over-pay-hike https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bombardier-defends-pay-structure-after-public-outcry-over-executive-pay-increases-1.4051413 So yeah...while government subsidies should not be, they also should be.

When one has a certain narrative stuck in one's mind, one will invent all kinds of theories to justify one's opinion. Reality says otherwise.

I googled Cavalier, Cobalt and Cruze US sales The Cavalier in 1985 had 400 000 units sold. In 1986 had 350 000 units. 1987-1990 had 300 000 units per yer sold. The Cavalier also had 300 000 units sold constantly in the 1990s but also had many 200 000- 250 000 units sold too. The Cobalt had two or three years of 200 000 units sold The trend of 200 000-250 000 units sold per year sold for the Cruze continued. Id say, 200 000-300 000 units for econobox small FWD Chevys are the norm. Is that a big enough number to say Chevrolet conceded to Honda, Toyota, Kia and Hyundai? Well...I googled Civic, Corolla, Elantra and Forte US sales figures... If I made a mistake somewhere, the Civic and Corolla figures always stayed relatively constant in their sales in the US. And that would be surprisingly as much as the Cavalier/Cobalt/Cruze sales figures. Like I said, unless I made a mistake... And there was never any huge bumps in sales for anyone of these cars. Not for the Civic, not for the Corolla. The Civic and Corolla always sold in and around 300 000 units. They dipped in the 250 000 units and had some 400 000 units sold, but their sweet spot were always in the 300 000s. The Cavalier did see a few 400 000 units sold, to 350 000 units to many more 200 000-250 000 units. Id say, Chevys sweet spot would be between 200 000-250 000 untis. The Elantra went from below 100 000 units to selling constantly in the 200 000-250 000 untis sold so I think the Elantra has become the Cavalier/Cobalt/Cruze. But to say that Chevrolet conceded market share to Honda, Toyota and Hyunda/Kia I think is false. Maybe a tad to the Elantra as the Forte still sells like shyte. I think its more accurate to say that BECAUSE the market has shifted to CUVs that GM is just cutting ties to the small FWD econobox car and just wants to concentrate on producing and selling small FWD oriented AWD econobox equivalent CUVs... The CR-V in the late 1990s has gone from 100 000 units to close to 400 000 units in 2019. 200 000 units in 2010. 300 000 units in 2013... Same pattern for the RAV4. Except the RAV4 has eclipsed the 400 000 units thrice the last 3 years. The Equinox is a slightly larger vehicle than any Cavalier/Cobalt/Cruze and CUV that Im mentioning, but the Equinox barely hit 100 000 units prior to 2008 and since 2008 has gained a lot of sales going to 200 000 in 2011, 300 000 in 2017 and in 2019 350 000. When one has a certain narrative stuck in his mind, one will invent all kinds of theories to justify one's opinion. Reality says otherwise. In response to the usual ad nauseum anti-EV rhetoric... Although the Bolt sells like shyte as compared to what a FWD econobox Chevy done, Chevy doing away with these cars has NOTHING to do with the BOLT and EVERYTHING to do with CUVs...and NOTHING still to conceding sales to the Japanese (maybe Koreans though) but maintaining and possibly growing market share... https://carsalesbase.com/us-chevrolet-cavalier/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-chevrolet-cobalt/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-chevrolet-cruze/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-honda-civic/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-toyota-corolla-sedan/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-hyundai-elantra/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-toyota-rav4/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-honda-cr-v/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-chevrolet-equinox/ PS: I dont think the Citation nor the Chevette done damage to future Cavalier/Cobalt/Cruze sales. I dont think those cars even done harm to Celebrity/Lumina/Impala sales either as all these other cars still sold well DESPITE the shytiness pf the Citation and the Chevette... What I think done more damage is the constant name changing... Vega to Chevette to Cavalier to Cobalt to Cruze. Citation to Celebrity to Lumina to Impala.

snow and road salt and old Chevy got my attention. Then I read...Texas. I got jealous. I wanted to share a Montreal pic with you folk. So I googled vintage Montreal and winter in Montreal and all that... I wanted to somehow match Balthy's pic. This is what I got and Im very happy about it. I got a classic Montreal street, got the snow AND I got not 1 Chevy, but 2 in the pic. Im so proud of myself!!!

It looks sharp. I rarely like silver or grey on vehicles but the way yours has the tinted windows up front, the black roof and the black mags...they contrast amazingly with the silver body. In not so many words, your Flex looks great. Ive driven a loaner Flex before...on one of those many Fusion recalls, and Acura I think had given me a base Explorer (go figure...) on a TL recall, and I soooooo preferred the Flex for ride, handling, space. If I remember correctly, both had the 3.5 liter. Which I am familiar with as I owned a 2009 Edge at one time with that 3.5 liter 6. I liked that engine. Wish it was in my wife's Fusion. But Ill be honest, neither 3 were my cup of tea. But between the three, in looks I do prefer the Edge, but the Flex has kinda grown on me over the years. I still wouldnt own one. But I do like them. And if I had to own one...Id take it like in the pic below, but chrome delete. I would prefer if the door handles were either body colour but better if they were black. Your mags would be cool on it, but with red instead of the silver. Thinking about it, and googling the 2009 Edge to remember myself how it looked, I think I prefer the Flex over the 2009 Edge. Hmmmm. Weird how this turned out. PS: I prefer your Flex without the pinstriping as well!

Ill answer you this with someone else's post...that answered you but you decided to ignore...

@smk4565 You know what is funny and you havent realized it? You...yourself...keep on comparing other cars to the Corvette. Do you know what that signifies? Do you know what that means when you...yourself, keeps on throwing all kinds of cars trying to take down the Corvette? Its not a bad thing, for the Corvette, to be compared to cars costing thousands upon thousands of dollars...and thousands more than then the Corvette... Its not a good thing... for the other cars you keep throwing at the Vette to try to prove a point... The only car consistently mentioned in your rants...is the Corvette. Think about it...

*SIGH* The thing is... THAT bolded what I quoted...is what THE Corvette is all about. THAT is the VERY definition of Corvette. THAT is why its a...CHEVROLET and NOT a Cadillac. Funny...you are the one to be pushing for a mid-engined Cadillac to have all that high horsepower and for the Corvette to sgtay neutered. YOU are the one to be confused as to why GM uses a Chevrolet as its halo car. Well...THAT right there is one identity marker in what makes the Corvette a Corvette and what makes Corvette special in the car world and why the Corvette sells the amount it sells. The Corvette does have trims that are double. A 2019 ZR1 was 135 000. And you are right. The ZR1 was not the volume seller. But the ZR1 is not what Chevrolet banks on to sell on volume.... Chevrolet has a business model for the Corvette. That business model has been a success for Chevrolet for the last 50 years plus.