oldshurst442

Oh...I think Mercedes cares... In Europe they dont. Because in Europe Mercedes has a history of re-building European confidence and sold cars to match a re-building Europe after the war. Hence the W123... Cadillac was never put in a position like that. Well, the idiot CEOs of the 1980s wanted a Cadillac for every American garage with the likes of the Cimarron and look what happened to that Cadillac image... Mercedes tried that too over here... But it did not go too well, they since changed their strategy with the CLA...but its still a cheap econobox. Cadillac has not done that with the ATS but its Cadillac that gets shafted by the badge snobs and the shyte American automotive press... Point being... Luxury cars are just that...luxury cars. Not meant for the masses... Taxis and luxury cars are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Limo service is to cater to the affluent. And they need the Escalades and the S Classes. Taxis are meant for the masses.

Sure, the old W123 was built like a tank. Especially the diesel. Lots of those in Africa and in Europe. But you know what? The 1977 downsized Chevy Bel Air/Impala/Caprice was also built like a tank. The thing is, today's Mercedes is nowhere near that level...

Maybe they do... The problem with the Mercedes Taxis in Europe is that they are built and sold like Chevrolet taxis here. And...there are trim levels of those Mercedes cars that are EXACTLY how the Impala LTs are over here. In fact, an Impala LTZ is miles ahead in terms of luxury where those E Class Mercedes cars of Europe are... Sure, the E Class of Europe is also sold with the same high end luxurious stuff we get in North America. But the E Class is also bought and sold like an Impala LT as well...

I remember a decade ago, when the politicians and the greenie folk were scolding the Detroit Big3 CEOs why do they keep on producing gas guzzling SUVs and the Detroit Big3 CEOs defended themselves by saying that that is what the consumers want. The politicians and the greenie folk all said bullshyte on that and forced FoMoCo, GM and Chryco. to produce smaller more economical cars... This is how Obamas new mileage standards came to be... THIS is how we got small displacement 4 bangers with turbos in our cars. THIS is how FoMoCo. got the name ecoboost from... https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/business/19emissions.html As you coud see, a decade later and the consumers NEVER gave two shytes about what greenies and politicians cared for...

I do not think its the car manufacturers that are pricing the consumers out of new cars. I think its the consumer itself that does it. Why is it that Ford is cutting its sedans in favor of producing and selling CUVs and SUVs? Why is GM almost doing the same? Why are Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords selling at a slight lesser rate than once before and why is it that Toyota's and Honda's CUVs outselling their sedan counterparts? When was the last time you actually saw or heard a suburban wife talk about how she wants to buy (not lease, because leasing too causes the consumer to out-price himself out of a new car) a base bare bones compact car? It seems suburbanites all want the most recent, option filled truck or SUV and who cares how much it costs... There was a time when down and out folk used to buy pick-up trucks, no options pick-up trucks, because these were the cheapest means of transportation anybody could buy... The consumers DEMANDED fully equipped cars over the decades and have migrated to higher priced CUVs and SUVs and 100 000 doallr work trucks to outshine their neighbors... Even if car manufacturers make and produce "affordable" no frill CUVs, the masses will NOT buy them or lease them. America has become a voracious consumer oriented society that just wants to outdo their neighbor...

LOL! Yeah. I was kinda joking. But I was kinda not. There is always a hint of truth to everything I say. Before I got car crazy, I was an airplane nut. During my teen years, I was more into airplanes than I was into cars (and I was car crazy then too). WW2 fighters. Jets fighters of any era. Commercial aircraft. You name it. This makes for an interesting debate. I did say that modern V8s could power WW2 fighters. I was being serious. (Im going by memory, its been a loooong time since I discussed WW2 aircraft. Im too lazy to google or reach out for my WW2 books on airplanes.) I did know that WW2 fighters had a minimum of 1200 HP. Some reached 1700HP. Some even surpassed 2000HP. Some were inline 12 cylinders while others were 18 cylinders in a radial configuration. Some were in an inverted V and some were supercharged. While others used nitrous oxide to achieve superior performance in high speed or to achieve high altitudes and faster climb rates and what not. OK...the part where I think that a modern V8 could have powered WW2 aircraft and obviously achieve the same performance numbers as those war birds. Those Rolls Royce/Merlin V12s that were in Spitfires and Mustangs, those radial 18 cylinder BMW engines that were found in the Focke Wulf 190s and all the others were huge, big, clunky and heavy. Sure, they produced about double what a Hellcat Hemi or the ZR1 LT5 produces, but I bet you that those V8s weigh less than half of what those old piston aircraft engines weighed. They definitely take up less space. Less space means the fighter could be that much smaller. Less weight means that a fighter needs less HP to propel it through the air. So...could a 840HP Demon Hemi crate engine propel a Mustang P51D to be as fast as the real Merlin powered P51d Mustang? (Which the P51D was the fastest piston engined airplane of the war. I do not know how to answer that. But I will try. I googled this part. Although I knew some things about it... The Red Bull airplane race planes use a Lycoming horizontally opposing 6 cylinder engine. Displacement is 541.5 cubic inches or 8.9 liters. Producing about 300 - 320 HP give or take. I knew that these planes go at about 280 MPH. (I googled-between 252 and 265MPH) Its a smaller airplane compared to a WW2 fighter. But it may be a tad more maneuverable. So...no clear answer. But I would simply say that most of the performance specs of a WW2 fighter would be intact if powered by a modern LT5 or Demon engine V8. So yeah. I stand by what I say. Joking or not!

Its mind boggling how powerful the engines were in the 1960s and early 1970s only to drop off and then sky rocket back. But with 4 and 6 cylinders. The V8s today? By God! They could power WW2 fighter aircraft.

I may need to take a drive on the Pacific Coast Highway sometime soon.

GT350 for me too over this. I like it, but I aint really wowed by it! Only the Hellcat and Redeye really wow me with the over 700 horsepower club. The Vette ZR1 wows me too, but just a tick above wow. The GT350 wows me more than the ZR1. The thing is... Id take the ecoboosted 4 cylinder convertible right about now and I dont care if its only a 300 horse turboed 4 cylinder!

It didnt make any sense to drop billions into a platform and all that metallurgical technology for it and a brand new state of the art V8 just to kill it off a couple of years later... But then again. This is GM we are talking about. It wouldnt have been the 1st time to kill off a brand new billion dollar project car. Hell, it wouldnt have even been the 2nd or 3rd time either after a short time being sold in the market place... So...anything coulda/woulda happened with the news of the plant closures and certain car models being killed off...

The MkIV Supra was also expensive. The turboed one cost just as much as our beloved Corvette. In 1997, when the C5 Vette came out, both the Vette and the Supra were in and around 40 000 US dollars. Performance wise, from a Motor Trend High Speed edition from May 1997, they tested and compared 7 cars. Dodge Viper GTS, Ferrari F355, Porsche 911 Turbo, Acura NSX-T, Mistisbishi 3000GT VR-4, Chevrolet Corvette, Toyota Supra The Vette was sometimes top of the pack and at times mid pack while the Supra was mostly below the pack. All this to say that with the Supra, then, it did not matter how fast it was as compared to its competition. And it was quite the tally of cars... The Supra was finally compared to a Vette. A Porsche... A freakin' Ferrari???!!! A Supra was able to go head-to head with a Ferrari! Sure it came no where near the performnce specs of that Ferrari F355, but boy oh boy did the Supra come a long way from its humble beginnings to be even mentioned in the same breath as a visceral Viper. Just as visceral Porsche 911 turbo (in 1997, the 911 turbo was a freakin' beast). It did fairly good against its Japanese brethren, beating out the Mitsu all the time and hangin' in there with Japan's top dog, the NSX. Remember, the NSX was a mid-engined exotic while the Supra became a wild muscle car that could handle...(this was 15 years before the Camaro and Mustang did the same thing...) It was more or less on par with the Vette. Sure, the Vette always beat it in the performance categories of these high speed tests Motor Trend conducted, but it did good for itself. You know, dont kid yourself, I think with "only" 300 some odd horsepower, I think the Supra will surprise some of you in its performnce specs... OK...it does not look like it will win any bikini contests. Or any wet T-shirt bonanzas...at least it aint a retro designed car with old Supras in mind just to sell nostalgia... And THAT is refreshing. For me at least. And we all know how much I LOVE the Challenger and Mustang I might add!!!

Very similar indeed!

OK then! Try this young sexy lass on for size ?????

PS: THAT is part of the appeal (to some)... To others... They like to laugh hysterically

GM hasnt done crappy badge engineering since the bailout. I dont need to remind anybody about the FWD J Bodies or the FWD A platform or the W-Bodies, etc. Other than GM dumping their 3.6 V6 and their 2.0T in all their vehicles today without any relevant tuned differences between the models, Id say GM is doing a fine job in creating different driving experiences between their cars and CUVs. Kinda. EVs are a lot more easier to be able to differentiate them especially when it comes to steering and ride and road feel due to the fact that EVs are easier to be programmed by computers. Hence why Tesla does this update software thing... The hardware is hooked up to the computer and voila! The internal combustion engine since the 1980s has been able to be configured by computer. Fuel injection was the start of that evolution...As hard as that was to get the ball rolling, the computer controlled ICE is almost perfected today with all kinds of computer controlled mondules and sensors...ICE has been digitized. And with this, ICE can be configured very easily to make an engine as efficient as possible, or that very same engine, as racy and visceral as possible. An electric motor is almost made perfect for computer controlled configurabilty... so there is that regarding your wishes. As far as silhouettes go, as long as the skateboard platform is scalable, its up to GM and how much money they are willing to spend on different body styles and shapes and you got your wish there. You say that EVs are "souless". But that may be farther from the truth. PS: Electricity does make noise. And its possibly the most eerie sound a machine can make. It may not be a symphony like what we are used to with ICE... But Id like to challenge that argument too... How many Average Joes like to hear a Harley Davidson rumble past them? How many Average Joes like to hear crotch rockets scream past them? Alls I know is that muscle cars and all cars actually were muzzled quite a lot sometime in the 1970s because most people regard ICE cars just too darned loud. THAT is a fact! Motorcycles were left alone but zoom by often enough in your motorcycle in the morning or late at night and see how fast your SOB neighbour will call the cops on you...

Long hood, short deck styling. I like it. Sort of... There is something amiss in the styling yet something that attracts me and makes me play that video over and over again because there are elements that I truly like about it, yet I do not know what I do not like about it and elements that I do not know why I like it! Strange as that is, I most definitely welcome it as I cannot stand looking at another CUV reveal. And because this new Supra now exists for us car guys, then us car guys have some little hope in surviving this zombie CUV epidemic we are currently going through. So yeah, this new Supra is my new Trans Am!!!

Shown, like an actual vehicle? Or a rendering of one? Because the picture above looks like a computer generated and pixelated photograph. In just curious, because pictures have a nasty habit of changing how the actual physical concept will look like and from there, actual physical concepts have the unfortunate luck in looking waaaay different than their real life selves that will go on sale a year later... In that picture, the EV in question does look nice. For a CUV that is... Im excited to read about (and obviously actually see) how that platform will be flexible and what vehicles it will accommodate. I also am very excited to see what tech this will be packing. Battery size and range. Performance specs as compared to Tesla and Porsche and Mercedes etc... What electronic gizmos and internet connectivity and internet upgrades GM will be doing (if any) to compete with Tesla, etc. (Not that I personally value those things, Im just curious on how the other players such as GM and Porsche etc, other than Tesla will go about their EV business...) Let the EV games begin.

Apart for this being a CUV and obviously having a shytty name, I dont get the hate for it. 1. Its a 3 row cute ute made to sell in huge numbers a) Because that is what the consumers want b) Because that is what sells. 2. Its a cute ute. There is nothing any designer COULD do to make cute utes...cute. They are ungodly ugly things by nature. a) either they get to be a box (with a hatchback) b) either they get to be rounded off boxes (with a hatchback) 3. Maybe Cadillac Deville would be a better name for this CUV? With that being said, Cadillac really dug into its past to design the rear 3/4 panel area. I give you late 1960's Cadillac rear window designs 1968 1970 2019 The 2019 looks like a combo of that 1968 and 1970 design rear window... I think it looks the part of a modern soccer mom station wagon. I think it looks OK for what it is and I think it looks good for a Cadillac CUV. No...it will NEVER be a classic Cadillac car, but hey, North Americans want to be able to sit their old fat asses (even if they are not old or fat or both) in their CUVs with ease... You reap what you sow... Dont be complainin' about how crappy lookin' transportation pods have become, because ya'll be buying them by the boat loads, these fancy cute ute vehicles you be buyin' because you be favorin' how you get in and out of them...

Like I said..take a plane. Take a train. But now...you are just trying to FIND a kink in the EV thing. Giving me hypothetical problems...that is why Im giving you hypothetical solutions... And...if you and your spouse WORKED ALL DAY... The BEST thing to do is NOT DRIVE AT ALL... You wouldnt want to endanger the lives of your kids while traveling...battery powered or gasoline powered. Driving while being tired AND on a stressed scheduled is just begging for disaster to strike. There is NEVER a good reason to put you, your loved ones and others in danger just for the sake of making "good time". That is why a plane ride is the way to go if you feel the need to get to where you are going in a limited amount of time. Money problems for taking a plane... You know what? Take a good night sleep and leave in the morning if you really need to drive...EV or not! But stretching out different scenarios to prove me wrong...like I said, in reality, it aint a problem unless you want it to be... And that is fine. It is your opinion for 45 minutes of charge up time too long for you. But in reality, it aint...

You could think its unacceptable...I wont argue with you. I aint here to tell you how to think or how to live your life. You could live your life the way you want to. But in reality. It aint a problem...

I agree with you on this too. I more on the 'lets see what the Joe Public wants' on this EV thing in North America. But, something in the back of my mind tells me that the US will follow suit like the rest of the world sooner or later. Maybe not by governmental banning of ICE cars, because in America, we like our so called freedoms and we certainly do not want big government telling us what to do and meddling with our lives...but by sheer peer pressure. Truer words were never said. ?

Closer to a 4 hour trip...but that 3 hour statement was to make a...point....in a jokingly fashion. But there was a point being made... Point being, when traveling, 4-5-6-7 hours by car. Its exactly THAT...4-5-6-7 hours on the road. If you are in a hurry. Travel by airplane. If you dont want the hassles of stopping to pee, or charging up...travel by train... If you take the bloody time to travel by car...4-5-6-7 hours, you invest 4-5-6--7 hours of your life on the road....45 minutes to pee and/or to charge up/fuel up is a NON-ISSUE! You could make up all kinds of deterrents in your head, in reality, there are none! THAT is the point. Where do you need to go and that quickly for 250 miles that a 45 minute piss stop or charge up would be an issue for you? You are already on the road for 4-5-6-7 hours...obviously an extra 45 minutes to piss, or to charge up aint a big deal... You could make into a big deal deterrent, I suppose. But it really aint!

I dont want that shyte on my windshield. I hardly tolerate GM's wonderful HUD system on my windshield. This is just a big NO WAY!!!