oldshurst442

It may or may not. It grew substantially from the previous gen. True true. And fullsized offering also grew only to be downsized again in 1977. I havent studied the numbers, and Im intrigued (yes, Oldsmobile pun intended...) to see what dimensions the 1973-1977 Cutlass is in relation to the 1977-1990 Caprice. yes. And another generation after how they managed to get most of their platforms to FWD. OK...I heard that the W-Body was botched in the launching causing GM to lose money the first few years, but, one has got to admit, the W-Body as a FWD platform was a very good one and all 4 brands had great cars from that platform whether we want to admit it or not. I wasnt targeting you. I was just trying to be funny. But yeah. I wouldnt touch a Sentra or Corolla though. But you seem to rent cars often because, Im guessing, your line of work? Now...I feel kinda bad for putting you on the spot like that.... NOT!!! ? (yes...a corny 1990s expression...forgive me)

Sedan DeVille, Eldorado are still You beat me to it!!! But Id say Deville could work for an EV SUV. It actually means "of the city". An EV for the city...an urban vehicle? Its a GREAT name for that niche. Eldorado is a given. Eldorado is a very powerful name in Cadillac's names arsenal. In my opinion, there is no other LUXURY car name better than Eldorado. The name literally glistens with GOLD...and its such an ELEGANT name. Yet arrogant and brash. PERFECT for Cadillac... But the name needs a vehicle WORTHY of the name plate. That late 1980s thing was NOT it... The next and last gen Eldorado was a good Eldorado, but Cadillac should have gone BACK to RWD with it. Elmiraj. Escala. Evoq. Ciel. Cien. All concepts. But names that Cadillac could actually use going forward. EV or otherwise. Id nix Fleetwood. That sounds too old. Too Boomer-ish generation. Same with Brougham. Deville and Eldorado are Boomer names too. But when a very hippity hoppoty hip hop rapper artist does a restomod Cadillac and calls it Snoop DeVille, you just gotta know that Deville still has ballz to keep on ballin' with the Millennial crowd. In other words, Eldorado and DeVille STILL resonate with folk. Young and old. Seville? Id keep names of places in retirement.

I never understood the reasoning behind calling a W-Body FWD Impala a fullsized when 20 years prior, the exact same length, width, height and weight RWD G-Bodys were midsiazed and so forth... But today you have opened up my eyes as to why... PS: Id never touch the Sentra. Nor the Corolla. Even as rentals. If I ever do...that would mean that I have given up on life and Im just one short step in ending it all... ? Sorry if I have offended anybody that drives one or the other...

I said dont BS me... I said the 5.3 liter V8 is reliable and durable... The Land Cruiser engine is probably the one that rivals the 5.3 liter V8 in reliabilty...the others not so much...and to boot, you left it as to wonder what engines you are talking about... In other words...I said to tell me what engine choices and trim levels in hierarchy meaning price tags.......and what HP and torque levels each engine you are gonna hit me with...and lastly...REAL WORLD fuel efficient numbers... You just got random numbers going on... There is a reason why GM is still using the venerable 5.3 liter V8. Money is a reason. But if it aint broke, and it meets and beats the competition in certain areas, and as a middle engine offering...then no need to fix it...in other words, no need to waste money on engineering and testing a new mid level engine when the one you got is just as good, if not better in some areas than your competition, then no need to change anything... Its a middle engine choice.... It doesnt have to be a better than the rest base engine for entry level stuff nor does it have the pressure to be the top dog engine in being the best of the best as the top dog engine.... Middle of the pack is just that...middle of the pack...and the 5.3 liter V8 is as good, if not BETTER than what the competition offers...which is good enough for the 5.3 liter V8 where it stands in trim level on the Chevy big utes...

Name the vehicles and engines as compared to where the 5.3 liter V8 resides in hierarchy in trim levels and PROVE this statement to me with links... But...remember that the 5.3 liter V8 is a very reliable and durable engine and its quite hard to quantify fuel efficiency numbers vis-a-vis endurance and reliability...especially with the possible engine choices in vehicles you are maybe gonna be trying to prove something to me...about...just remember to keep your facts...factual...and real...and no BSing me...

This is just subjective bullshyte. You are entitled to your opinion, and I WILL agree with you on the last 4-5 years part that GM is bombing in their looks department... BUT...the Escalade is still under wraps...picture is fuzzy and most of the details of the front end are covered up... While if the Escalade really does ending up being a scaled up XT6 in the front, Ill agree with you that the Escalade will be dud in the looks department, but we BOTH cant come to THAT conclusion UNTIL we get the reveal... So...

You only look at the HP and torque ratings? What about the efficiency numbers? Dont those count? I do not know as I havent researched that, but if you are gonna blow your stack bitchin', at least get ALL the numbers so you could REALLY compare and contrast...and when I mean ALL the numbers, I REALLY mean ALL the numbers... The engine is NOT a completely new design. Like the C8's LT2 engine as compared to the C7's LT1's engine... Im not talking about the redesigning certain components for the LT2 to be used in a mide-engined configuration, I do mean the small changes to the cylinder heads and valve trains to improve combustion efficiency and stuff... This new engine under the hood of these new big Utes, If Im correct, use the new LT2 architecture...but they are TUNED to produce the same HP and torque numbers as the previous models...but Im willing to bet that this new engine is MORE efficient in all the efficient ways that are deemed to be...efficient... C'mon, bro...you are NOT THAT obtuse....

Yeah...that is what Im thinking, but Im also thinking at the same time that it was "leaked" by GM itself to cause some sort of buzz...because Im cynical in their ability to actually market their products properly. yeah...you can actually with even more inspection.

True, but its a "leak", right? But the image and lighting is fuzzy, right? Today's smartphones take photos with 4K quality with a bazillion pixels and have digitally enhanced lighting modes to illuminate the darkness of space in the universe all the while correcting sharpness, but with this photo of the "leaked" Escalade seems like it was taken by an 1870s black and white camera held by a dozen people that took pictures upside down and was colorized with 1960s techniques... The point I wanna make is, there isnt any quality details in the grill to really see how it pops and/or shines... Granted, the new XT4 and XT6's real grill is blacked out and this Escalade pic seems to be in the same vein. But Im sure that even if blacked-out, there maybe an option to bling it out. @dfelt I believe that there will be some sort of luminous bling a la XT6 in that area... Fail or not, its the new face of Cadillac SUVs...

If you just look at the headlights just below that chrome trim, you would realize that there is something that is covering up that area. The area just below the headlights and just to the sides of the grill. We do not know what is there, it just looks like a black piece of nothing-ness... But...we like to moan and bitch and complain... I bet you, even if those headlights are not extended by another set of luminous features, there must be something else to "POP" making the front end be more in line of what an Escalade should be... Patience people....PATIENCE!!! The Escalade has ALWAYS been stunning to look at minus the very first GMC badge engineered one...

As far as my personal favorite GM engine from one of its brands? Im too young to have actually experienced true Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Buick engines from that time period. I owned a very tired 1985 Olds 88 but to this day I do not know what was under the hood. It was a Canadian car, did it have a Chevy/GM 305 underneath? I dont know... I read in these forums that Old's own 307 could have been under the hood since Olds' 307 was a go to engine in the 1980s...and it was an Oldsmobile that I owned to begin with. But like I said, it was old and tired by the time I owned it. I did drive a 1979 6.6 liter Trans Am for a good chunk of the day one time a long time ago..... But was it an Olds engine under the hood or was that the Pontiac one? I had the pleasure to drive a very mint 1977 Cadillac Coupe de Ville a couple of years ago, and I believe that it had the 425 cubic inch engine in it. But driving it once around the block does not really help in forming an opinion on a thread like this. In other words, I have no real life experience to really answer this... I have experienced 305s, 350s, from Chevy. I have experienced Northstar and Aurora V8s. I have experienced Buick's 3.8 V6. I think by default, Chevy's 305 and 350 from the 1980s and 1990s but really 4rth gen ponycars from the 1990s LT1 and LS1 wins hands down...

Au contraire I believe. I personally think that one contributing factor in the demise of Oldsmobile and Pontiac was BECAUSE GM went with the "corporate" engine route. Many loyal Pontiac and Oldsmobile fans and buyers never forgave GM for eliminating Oldsmobile's and Pontiac's right to produce their own engines. There were many loyal Pontiac and Oldsmobile engine fanatics that never really wanted or loved Chevrolet engines. The corporate V8 to this day is a Chevrolet V8... At least Oldsmobile designed the Northstar V8 and had its mark on V8s for GM, but the Northstar was touted and marketed as a Cadillac engine. The Aurora V8 was Oldsmobile's V8 which was a smaller displacement version of the "Cadillac Northstar"... it lacked cubic displacement, horsepower and torque in the road cars to actually make Oldsmobile fanboys happy and proud and ultimately keep them as clients. At least the engine had success in racing, but GM was using mixed marketing signals and wasnt clear as to which division the North star/Aurora really belonged to and which "version" had success in the racing programs of the 1990s. At least Oldsmobile also had a hand in GM's 4 cylinder development in keeping up with the times in the 1980s and well into the 1990s with the Quad 4...but the engine was ridiculed by the American automotive journalists for a lack of balance shafts and therefore less "refined" than the Japanese counterparts, which was a bunch of bullshyte...and which of course the Japanese jumped on that immediately with their advertisements in the American market... The bad thing about the Quad 4 was the gaskets leaked over a period of time...a problem that the Northstar had too... At least Oldsmobile also had hindsight to see the market perception of the need not only for 4 valves/cylinder DOHC V8 engines, and 4 bangers, but for 6 cylinders as well and the Shortstar was born. Based on the Northstar/Aurora V8... But, GM did not really advertise that Oldsmobile still produced engines for itself and those engines were "corporate" engines in effect... Poor old Pontiac though, had to concern itself in selling copy cat Chevrolet pony cars, it was always like that, but at least in the early 1970s, those were powered by pure Poncho engines, but by the time the 1980s rolled along, with a Pontiac fanboy's point of view, those awesome Firebirds/Trans Ams are not just shytty badge engineered Chevys with shytty Chevy engines underneath... And yes, along with the billions of dollars creating Saturn, and the billions in buying SAAB and trying to sustain both Saturn and SAAB, those 3 things had a huuuuuuge impact in the demise of Pontiac and Oldsmobile. And if we think clearly enough, many fans of those brands never came back to GM to buy Chevrolets or Buicks or Cadillacs. Not only did GM lose market share to the Japanese and Germans, because of the reasons we have discussed ad nauseam, but because of the decision from GM itself to consolidate its brands. GM underestimated the loyalty of its customers and arrogantly thought that just because Oldsmobile and Pontiac were under the GM umbrella, that Pontiac and Oldsmobile buyers were actually in fact, GM customers....for life... In other words, they believed their own marketing bullshyte in that a GM buyer will start life as a beginner and buy himself a Chevy, and as his finances grow, the customer will upgrade or graduate to Pontiac, then Oldsmobile, the Buick, then Cadillac... A good marketing strategy, but not really reality... Not a good thing when you start believing your own bullshyte...and yes...marketing in general is bullshyte...effective bullshyte...but bullshyte non the less... I personally believe, instead of spending billions on the billions they spent on trying to reverse the market share decline on compliance shyteboxes such as the X platform Citation and its badge engineered siblings, on the dumb decision to make a Cavalier into a Cadillac, (Nothing really wrong with the J platform), the crappy launch and the billions lost on the W-Body, the idiocy to develop a new kind of car company Saturn, the stupid decision to buy SAAB... Instead of all those BILLIONS lost and the result was MEDIOCRE to POOR and SHYTE vehicles, if GM had spent those BILLIONS on REALLY engineering GREAT cars INCLUDING keeping the AUTONOMOUS identity of ALL its BRANDS that were Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and GMC, then market share would stabilize and probably grow...

These are nice. Im on my way in liking full sized pick-up trucks from Detroit...but I never really hated on these. Whether the Chevy or GMC or Caddy versions. I always kinda liked them. This new one seems to be refined more than ever before. And this is just the Chevy... The Denali and Caddy must really be awesome inside. The Cadillac really has to show up the Navigator because the Lincoln really really upped its game. And if the Caddy does that, it dont matter what Rolls and Bentley do...the Caddy will remain king of the big SUVs. On the exterior, just your basic Tahoe and 'Burban...and that is how it should be.

I like...cars. I like 1920s and 1930s cars. Some of them. I like some 1940s cars. I LOVE 1950s cars. I LOVE 1960s cars. I LOVE some 1970s cars. Others from the 1970s, not so much. I like some 1980s cars. Cars from my teenaged to adulthood years will always have a special place in my heart just because that is how it is. I like some 1990s cars and 2000s all the way to today. But the art of designing beautiful lines is all but gone. Different times. From how we as a people and society view the automobile all the way to how engineers and designers have to comply with aerodynamics for fuel efficiency and for safety. Design could still be beautiful, but we as a society appreciate that aspect a lot less as we as a society now view the automobile as a nuisance but necessary appliance. We dont value it more than we have to. We use to see it as freedom, now we see it as a burden. I love older cars because one could see and correlate the sign of the times in those older cars. As I LOVE rock-n-roll, I could see rock-n-roll in those 1950s fins. As I love airplanes, one could see the rise of the jet age in those 1950s and 1960s cars. The streamlining in the 1960s cars just gives those cars such beautiful, sleek lines. When designers got away from the fins and the bulky fenders, the cars got so low and wide and lean and long. Its the opposite of what is happening today. Cars are becoming massive, and tall and high. Ive said in the past that our SUVs and CUVs are starting to resemble late 1930s to 1940s cars. Only that they are not as long therefore this current crop of cars look frumpy as compared to the 1930s and 1940s cars. @Robert Hall said that the 1940s cars look like a bar of used soap. Well, he aint wrong, but that trend started in the 1990s all in the name of aerodynamic fuel efficiency's sake. And its gotten to where our current crop of cars resemble one another because computer calculated aerodynamic efficiency anywhere in the world will always come to the same conclusion as to which shape is the most efficient whether it be at GM in Detroit or GM in Korea or Tesla in California or Mercedes in Stuttgart or Nissan in California or Nissan in Japan... The artist designing cars gave way to a generic computer program. Not that there arent any interesting designed cars nowadays, but you got to admit, there were far more intersting designs back in the day... Kinda like music. Over the radio waves nowadays, its all formulaic sounds that rule...gone is the musician. Enter human psychology sound engineers with marketing executives with a computer background deciphering what set of musical notes will please the general population the most and voila...superstars with no ability to play any musical instrument, nor sing, but they look good, and sell "music" to folk, but also peddle their faces and bodies to other useless commodities that are marketed and produced in the same vein as their "music"... and those "celebrities" last a little over 6-7 years until the newest, freshest, cutest face comes along... So yeah...we could move forward...as fast as we could. @dfelt But that does NOT mean that moving forward actually means we as a species are actually moving forward, if you know what I mean...

About lead. He prefers lead sleds over EVs. We all know that. I prefer what came after those lead sleads...factory hot rods...aka Muscle Cars. And BEFORE those lead sleds. T-Buckets, '32 high boys (or low) and '33 roadster (or even 3 window coupe ) Ford Hot Rods. But...the new Mustang Mach-E seems quite the perplexing decision for a possible future purchase....for me that is... Well...first and foremost, its a CUV. A yuuuuuuge negative. Gargantuan I might even say. But its a "Mustang". Ive always (maybe not always) wanted a Mustang, but I dont really yearn for a high, 4 door Mustang. I yearn for a low, 2 door Mustang fastback coupe. The Mach-E is sorta a fastback though. But I want a V8. But...I could settle for an ecoboosted 4. But hey...the Mach-E has very fast electric motors in it embarrassing an ecoboosted 4....and that ecoboosted 4 toots along with more horses than Vanilla's five point oh... Electricity is quite a motivating energy source Id like to mention. Like I said....perplexing. Ah.....the joys of living in the 1st world when life altering decisions are about consumerism...wants versus needs... I think Blu is quite deAD sEt in his own little world to continue buying dino juice. Which is OK. Change might not be heading his way where he lives. At least not in the near future. I dont mind dino juice. It works quite well. I dont mind Zeus juice either. That too, works quite well. It is what it is.

Many Italians live in Corfu. Not far away from Brindisi, hence a ferry route between Brindisi and Corfu. My mom came from the island just below, the biggest in the Ionian. Kephalonia. I had a friend that came from Corfu, (his parents) and he often visited Italy when he went to Greece. Ive only been to Greece. Many times. But Im dying to visit Italy. My daughter has a Eurotrip in a couple of years, and guess what? Her trip for her graduating year is...Switzerland and...ITALY!!! She is sooooo happy. And I for her!!! If you havent seen the movie Captain Correlli's Mandolin, I suggest you see it. My mom's parents knew of the family (see it and you'll understand) and I have a friend or two that were extras in the movie. Thanks to the Romans, the Greek world survived. Rome conquered Greece, but because Rome wanted to model their empire along Greek culture, art, architecture, politics, language in trade routes, etc, the cradle of Western civilization has been credited to the Greeks, but 'twas the Romans that spread and KEPT Hellenism around more than the Greeks themselves could have ever imagined. So who conquered who??? LOL I guess both cultures realize this and both of our cultures greatly respect one another. This is what I adore. 1000s of years later and Italy tries to conquer Greece again, this time they lose, but because Germany had other plans, Greece fell to the Axis. When when the Italians became enemies of Germany, Greece and the Greeks protected the Italian soldiers from the Germans towards the end of the war. Una Faccia, una razza...1000s of years in the making... Sicily...if Im not mistaken, Poseidon's son Polyphemus, from the island of the Cyclops, from Homer's Odyssey, is said to be, Sicily.

OK...now Im all in.

I havent heard this song in like...4 ever!!! I had forgotten about it. THANK-YOU ENDLESSLY for posting it!!! And now, I am dancing with tears (of joy) in my eyes reminiscing about my youth. @trinacriabob If I wasnt Greek, and I didnt love being Greek so much, then my second choice of what Id wanna be, then Id wanna be Eye-Talian. Una facia, una razza! Ill double down on Send me an Angel

All cars are as posted. 1. 1970 Olds 442 W-30 with those rocket wheels instead of the Magnum wheels and preferably no wing...and no vinyl top either... 2. 1969 Plymouth Road Runner or GTX...preferably a Road Runner so I could honk the horn to hear it go...meep meep. 3. Dodge Challenger Hellcat. Redeye is optional. I dont care as long as its a Hellcat... 4. 1973 Pontiac Trans Am SD455 with white vinyl interior. 5. 1933 Ford Roadster Hot Rod with Ford's latest 5.2 liter V8. Not the Voodoo, but the new GT500 V8. An Ancient Greek mythological themed motif to compliment the Hot Rod look to it instead of the stereotypical flames and/or skulls... These would be numbers matching garage queens. Not babied by all means, they'd be driven, but not hard miles. I wouldnt pamper them too much, but Id be careful as well. If I was to replace those with clones and restomodded/pro-toured with modern set-ups, then Id daily drive all of them. One week one car, the following car next week and so forth.

Its gots to be all those residual checks that GM cashes in from movie royalties... The Chevy Suburban just got its Hollywood Walk of Fame Star a couple of days ago.... It is said that the Suburban has had a 60 year career and been in over 1750 movies...so...11 billion dollars/per year profit The year GM went bankrupt, there was a conspiracy against GM and Hollywood stopped re-running Smokey and the Bandit, The A-Team, Knight Rider...

I always listen to Dean Martin's version or Annie Lennox's

My dad HATED Bing Crosby. He told me he was a lowlife, drunken deadbeat dad, and wife beating husband. He never wanted to hear his songs in the house. But....I on the other hand, LOVE, LOVE his voice. I do NOT condone his behaviour, but his voice is just...so XMAS-y... Another voice that I love listening to during XMAS

Yes. Roberta Flack. Her version was a staple on the (Montreal) radio well into the late 1970s and very early 1980s. I think I saw the movie Play Misty for Me, although I do not remember if I saw it or not...and Fatal Attraction? With Michael Douglas? I saw that movie thrice. Once on VHS when it came out. Another on DVD sometime in the late 1990s and last year I got my hands on it again. But I do not remember hearing the song in the movie... But yeah...I LOVE this song and her version!

^^^ Not bad... good and powerful voice. Nice and soft, as it supposed to be sung. I still prefer the original, though.

Many corporations today, rely on shytty social media and even shyttier comment sections (I have come to an understanding, corporations have been doing this kind of marketing for at least a decade now...) to see where public perception is heading...) Focus groups and internet comment sections seem to direct CEOs nowadays on what and how products are to be launched... Its just a theory that I have. Oh...I KNOW that corporations have social media marketing personnel on their payroll...and I also know that they rely on the internet for data... GM on the C8 for instance, when they launched the C8 in July, Tadge DID mention how that online reveal had a million views, or whatever the figure was and how for the days following, the Chevy website nearly crashed because they had a record amount of visitors playing with the C8 price build... So its kinda logical that these internet marketing people also look at the comments sections to get a feel of what folk are saying about GM's image and the C8 and V8s and EVs and shyte!!! Call me crazy, but I KNOW I am unto something...