oldshurst442

I posted the video above this post before. I didnt want to ever post things twice. What is done is done. So here is another video to compensate for the lack of imagination and creativity on my part.

I kinda have seen that face too. Like Toyota sometimes, BMW also sometimes uses other brands' design language to establish an image. I understand that the twin kidney grill design language also belongs to BMW, but I find it quite ironic that BMW seems to get inspired by lowly Pontiac sometimes... Plenty of occasions that last 15 years or so this has happened. Also, the new look kidneys take inspiration from the lowly-ier Fisker Karma. Maybe it's an hommage to Henrik Fisker. He did design the Z8. But...the 1970 Catalina was also considered ugly back in the day. Why did BMW think it would be a great idea to emulate that look 50 years later??? I like the Pontiac huge twin grills. I dont really mind the BMWs version quite honestly. On the cars. NOT on the CUVs. Which one I prefer you asked? THIS!!! I dont necessarily want BMW to go back to the small kidneys of decades prior. I think this size is big enough and demands attention and respect BECAUSE one KNOWS its a BMW. BMWs do have brand cachet. No need to OVERexpose. No need to overstyle and risk of taking a page out of somebody else's playbook. Big grills are NOT what BMWs are all about. Big grills only acknowledge the stereotype of BMW's douchbag drivers. There are plenty of other aspects to BMWs than just shytty owners. BMWs are supposed to be cars that dance around corners. Big grills look like the car stumbles over its own feet. Is it THAT image that BMWs want to shoot for? Former Pontiac and current Dodge cars and their owners???!!!

BMW new styling? I SWEARI have since that face before!!! Oh yeah.... About a decade ago Toyotas and BMWs translation: I am not a fan.

Lots of changes happened in my life and in my family's the last 3-4 months. (I still dont want to talk about those changes) But we CAN and SHALL discuss the changes with the car situations. Old cars have come back. New ones have joined. Some have left the scene. And now we are a 3 car family. I had to let go of the Acura. I had a little fender bender with it. Nothing major, but as with the Impala SS, somebody ran into me and so I had to euthanize it. OK...I didnt kill it. But we traded it in for a 2024 Honda Civic LX. Just as with the Impala, way back in 2012, yet another female driver, (God bless these women drivers...) ran into my side. The Impala SS was the passenger front door. With the Acura, it was the driver's side passenger door. I wasnt wanting to repair it, I had to do extensive maintenance work on it as well, so the monies spent on maintaing and repairing and calling insurances and all that, my wife and I decided that I would take over the Fusion, she gets herself a new car. This happened mid-July sometime, when additional family drama started brewing again, on her side and on my side, and the decision to sell the restaurant also was made. We finally got the Civic on Monday with 3 kilometers on the odometer and 3 days later she is up to 80. Not much Id say. What about the Mazda 3? Well, when we bought the Fusion, it was because we had given my then deadbeat brother-n-law, the youngest, my wife's Mazda 3. So we needed to buy another car. Hence the Fusion. He has since then become responsible and very hard working and he bought himself another car 3 years later. We thought he traded it in but he had ALWAYS kept it as a reminder NOT to be a lazy ass person. He drove it once in awhile as an appreciaition of what his sister and I did for him. And when the middle brother passed away in June, and we started grieving for the middle brother and when we mentioned that our daughter may need a car he surprised us by giving us our old car back. Its in very very good condition, other than a few rust spots here and there. So yeah... New car. Internal combustion. No battery electric. Maybe a BEV on the next car purchase when another woman driver rams my Fusion's passenger door... I am NOT being hostile towards women drivers. Just spittin' out facts...

Old Port Clock Tower, Montreal Saint Sulpice Seminary, Old Montreal One of the oldest clocks in North America. Created in Paris and installed in 1701. Before repairs somtime in the 2000s. After repairs

Peace Tower, Ottawa, Canada

Zimmer Tower, Lier, Belgium

Whatever happens. Ill be ready. Ill just turn to the past.

Stellantis is going I6 too though. Stellantis is doing this for different reasons. The French group part HAS EV technology and has seen success selling them in Europe already. This R&D technology was created and existed BEFORE the French Group bought out FCA. So for Stellantis, R&D for EVs has been invested and continue to do so. And with the advent of Chrysler engineers, the SRT guys, more engineering brain power has entered the fray. There are plenty of Stellantis brands with an already established performance image with a plethora of performance vehicles to make a good business case in introducing as a final internal combustion engine offering in their line-up. Couple that Stellantis ALSO has a bevy of luxury minded brands as well, an I6 for smoothness is yet another good reason to engineer a last internal combustion offering ever as an inline 6.

Yes. That is EXACTLY why I mentioned the Typhoon and Syclone with the same breath as hinting at battery electric technology and why I think that Mazda offering an inline 6 at THIS point in time to change image is too little too late. I am not at all surprised at GMC never again revisiting a speed performance smallish SUV and pick-up truck. The Syclone and Typhoon were not well recieved by the public back in the day. The concept of zero ground clearance and no hauling capacity on utilitaerian vehicles confused people. And GMC as a brand wasnt coveted either. But like you said, today is a different time. GMC has brand cachet where GMC could re-enter the realm of speed oriented CUVs and pick-ups and join the ranks of Porsche Cayennes, Lambo Urus and the like with Battery Electrics. As you said. I think inline 6s are OVERrated. Smoothness is just about the ONLY advantage I see in the world that consisted of stringent CAFE measures, downsize-ment and fuel economy. From the 1970s until just about the 2000s. The V6, in longtitude form in a RWD config but ESPECIALLY in tranverse form for FWD was just about THE only way to go. For packaging purposes because cars did get smaller but I6 were also gas guzzlers... Inline 6s made sense again from 2000s up until today because of new technologies making I6s more frugal on gasoline consumption. Couple that with turbocharging and these engines were beasts. But then again, supercharged V8s not only come in smaller packages as compared to I6s, especially in OHV form, may make similar power, but a whole LOT more TORQUE... And... in the freewheelin' days of the 1960s, when gas mileage was not an issue but huge horsepower was, big cubed V8s were the answer. Because NO I6 could even come CLOSE to the horsepower those big block V8s produced. And...when big crass noise exited the huge ass muscle car when revving up the big V8 and the whole road shook, never mind the car itself, smoothness was NOT a factor... And...472 and 500 some odd cubic inched V8 Cadillacs and 460 cubic inched Lincolns tuned to be revving up lazily just as smooth as an I6. Couple those Caddys and Lincolns with that pillowy suspensions they had and smoothness was unparalleled. Only French cars were smoother. And the DS from Citroen had a buzzy I4. The SM had a V6... Answer: hydropneumatic suspension. Engine smoothness is cool and all. But where I live, shytty road surfaces are a thing and honestly, I6s are a moot point. So yeah... a better suspension ABSORBING potholes is a much more appreciated asset than an I6. So yeah, these are just a few reasons why I think inline 6s ARE overrated.

If battery electrics have their batteries under the carriage and are in a skateboard platform and the weight of the battery is between front and back wheels, then THAT weight is distributed equally along the length of the vehicle. Forgetting for a moment about the dynamics of pushing versus pulling. Winter driving should technically be the same whether FWD or RWD. In a RWD only BEV, the motor driving the rear wheels is in the back and on TOP of the rear wheels so the the weight is... on the wheels that do the propulsion and therefore no different than a FWD ICE car regarding weight on the driving wheels...and since the weight of the battery is more or less equal across the length of the vehicle, a RWD only BEV may not be that much of a nuissance in snow as compared to a RWD ICE vehicle.

Since GMC went Hummer Since GMC is serious with AT4, GMC may NOW need to dip themselves into this realm. and then maybe revisit this

6. There is a reason why inline 6s went away m at the end of the 70s mostly in favour of transverse 4s and 6s. Because in MANY aspects, it was NOT the superior drivetrain. V8 with RWD for performance and transverse V6 for packaging. Sure inline 6s are smoother, but there are many negatives attached to the inlline config. VW had MAJOR success in combining V and Inline. Quite a good engine. Sporty cars too using that set-up WITH FWD and AWD. BMW does inline 6s good. THAT is their thing. Just like GM does pushrod V8s good. That is their thing. But an inline 6 is NOT the end all be all.

I like Mazda. (I thought Id start off by saying to let people know about how I feel about Mazda) But Mazda done inline 6 with a turbo on a RWD theme to go upmarket. Commendable Id say. If this was 1999. GMC started going upmarket about that time and coincidentally, offered an inline 6. Ironically, Mazda almost introduced a brand new luxo brand 10 years prior but the leaders that be didnt have enough confidence to pull it off like their crosstown rivals Honda, Toyota and Nissan done... But they did sell that one car they enginnered as their first luxo brand vehicle into a Mazda but it didnt quite hit the sales mark so the leaders were quite correct in the fear and assumptions of a new luxo Mazda brand not succeeding. Also, Lexus SUCCEEDED with a TON of transverse V6, FWD sedans and CUVs without the dumb moniker of ultimate driving machines and right wheel drive---RWD. What Im trying to say is that 1. inline 6 turbos in 2024 at the dawn of the EV era might just BE too little too late for an image boost and market shift for Mazda 2. GMC has succeeded going up...UP market WITHOUT the use of an inline 6. Their big models use V8s, but their smaller offerings use, since the last 40 years, the tried and true transverse V6 WITH FWD bias AWD. 3. I may bitch about CUVs quite often, but a transverse V6 and FWD is not necessarily an inferior drivetrain to a RWD set-up. It depends what the vehicle is set up for and what the driver needs of his sedan or CUV. Ill argue that an inline 6 ON TOP of the front wheel axles would ALSO be a shytty set-up REGARDLESS of the rears pushing the car forward. As much of a shytty set-up as having a shytty tuned transverse V6 with the fronts pulling the car. BMW CUVs with inline sixes are nothing to write home about. And I would bet the Mazda CUV would be the same shyttyness as the Bimmers. And what is also tricky is that inline 6es tend to be quite long making them NOT ideal in certain packaging criteria regarding...well, comfort for the passenger in the cabin. And being RWD also cuts into that said comfort. You know...for luxury purposes. I could be wrong though, with my assesment of things. But probably not since I have NEVER drank from the BMW fountain and their so called definition of luxury. With driving dynamics. Yeah...I never biught into that hot garbage either. At least not with their econobox offerings. 4. Mazda made and continue to make some pretty cool and sporty, small FWD cars with transverse 4 pots. 5. GMC need NOT learn ANYTHING from Mazda. Not even BMW. GMC done success their way. They need to inspire to Frank Sinatra and continue on doing what they do.

I get the appeal of CUVs as well. I really do. No! I absolutely do! Really. Sedans...our beloved American sedans have been downsized, shrunk, made smaller in EVERY metric that CUVs HAVE become the defacto quintessential American land yacht. Well...pick-up trucks have almost taken that role in some parts of both of our countries, but in most areas, 'tis the CUV. Ingrees, Egress, headroom and everything else you described... and our beloved American land yacht ALL had those qualities but were taken away. What I lament is the loss of the unique styling those old barges had between the brands of the time DESPITE them being ancient 3 box designs. What I also lament is the loss of what cars used to be to people and why cars like coupes and convertibles existed and what cars have become to people and whay expendable CUVs exist today. I think THAT is what is ailing me more than the CUV itself.

Post some pics again when you get the right rims.

What I wanted to say. Short and sweet. Im glad you said it rather than me. I would have added another paragragh or two.