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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. Still hoping to get an upgrade in this year... but as past history shows, I'm a content tech dinosaur.
  2. Is their plan of getting buyers to sign for a volvo EV also 'evolutionary'?
  3. People say all sorts of things in polls tho, don't they? Look no farther than the '16 Election. - - - - -
  4. 205 mm = 8.1"
  5. Most, if not all, of body designation terms come from other industries, such as architecture, sailing, railroading, etc. Therefore, these terms have no origin, or 'correctness' in automotive usage other than how OEMs have appropriated them. Which has been varied to say the least. Anything less than 205 feels small to me.
  6. Perspective is always relative. Dave is 6'6", I'm 5'8". To me, his 204" Escalade is 'small' ('64 GTO is 203"), when my cars are 213", 217" and my DD is 237".
  7. Wood's the best; it warms you twice. Plus a piece of wood sitting there can't asphyxiate you. - - - - - I really like this pic. I knew a lot of these 'hard' girls growing up- they were tough AND cute at the same time.
  8. Same one customer also gave me a bucket of charocal briquettes. I toss a few into the wood stove also- it's all fuel. Might not work the same in a fireplace; they're horribly inefficient. My stove burns very hot- the fluepipe thermo sometimes reads 325, and according to it's packaging, the air temp in the center of the flue is double that. The firebox must be at least another 100 degrees (750), but I would not be surprised if it hit 900. I should get/borrow one of those laser thermometers. - - - - -
  9. I assume you're picturing roiling clouds of black smoke, like an old steam locomotive. Truth is, you can't tell it's in there, or that it's burning. But it disappears completely.
  10. Sure, but nowhere did I say the coal was being used. The stuff never goes bad, you know.
  11. House is probably circa 1900, but it hasn't been heated with coal in who-knows-how-many decades; no one bothered to remove the old coal pile.
  12. • A customer gave me a bucket of coal, I toss pieces into my wood stove in the winter (wood stove : releasing trapped CO2 back where it was taken from). • On another customer's inner city rental house, there is still a coal bin in the basement with a big pile of coal there, maybe 10 -15 5-gal pails of it. I might grab that later this month for the same end use.
  13. Yep; they're wrong! Nothing pictured above is a true coupe.
  14. Hmmm. Dates of death:: Plymouth: '01, Olds: '04, Pontiac: '10, Merc: '11. US sales only dipped for the recession, they were 16.0m-16.8m in '04-07 and they rose from 10.4m to 11.5m to 12.7m from '10-12. '15-17 have been running at 17.3m to 17.1m. Those stats do not support an 'oversupply' of brands. ONLY if demand is the same and no more supply comes online. You are assuming the other 14 nail companies have no interest/ability to increase production. As with US vehicle brands, one company declines/disappears, others increase their supply. Yes; car prices increase, they ALWAYS increase. Always.
  15. US Steel companies are not precluded from raising their prices regardless of import tariffs. And there's nothing mandating an automatic price increase (from US suppliers) if/when a tariff does hit... unless they rely heavily on imported steel. Are we assuming eliminating 1 nail maker's steel imports would create a supply shortage? As no other companies were named, can I assume all the other 14 companies use US steel suppliers? Look how many vehicle nameplates we lost since 2000- no supply shortage as a result : segments adjust, demand can drive supply, markets change. The claim that all nail prices will automatically increase immediately is without factual support.
  16. These 'computer models' that link together chains of possibilities certainly come off as tenuous on the surface of their claims. I'd like to know the specifics of how a 25% imported steel tax could cost a business 50% (of what- revenue? future orders?) in just 2 weeks. And although it currently produces about 50% of the nails in the US, the article states there are about 15 other companies.... who's to say they aren't in a different scenario and have the capability to take up the slack? What's the cost comparison between imported vs. US-sourced steel? Are these other companies using US-sourced steel, perhaps what used to be more expensive, perhaps resulting in their lower sales? Does the 'Walmart of Nails' have such a huge swath of the segment because it was using cheaper imported steel? Perhaps the imported steel nail makers will simply join the buggy whip makers in finding new industries or simply move to the rising producers. The U.S. is the world's 3rd largest producer of steel- there are other options beside China. Were I interested to the point of dedicated research, perhaps I would pick a side to be on. But it's not as simplistic an issue as some would have it be.
  17. Seeing a LOT of Hummers crawling out from the woodwork- don;t know what's going on there. A 'slant back' circa '78 Cutlass 4-dr with a (single) long, loud, dangling, 'NASCAR-style' sidepipe. Otherwise stock. Circa '60 Falcon Ranchero, super pale blue, restored, rollin.
  18. There are WAY too many models globally, a self-correction not forced by outside conditions would be a good control methodology.
  19. Got to tool around in some vintage (for sale) iron today. • '70 LeMans Safari, 350 Pontiac/350, duals, new front seat & carpet, hard brakes, sounds great, needs some metal repair, $5750 • '75 Malibu coupe, 454/ 4-speed, super clean, great cosmetics, $8500 • '69 Mustang notchback, 302/auto. Even cleaner, sounded & drove very nice, tho again- hard brake pedal. $12500
  20. That doesn't seem possible unless it was comprised of full throttle hill climbs. I got a steady 14 MPG out of a 2bbl 389 CI V8 car with a 3-spd auto, and I used to drive it like a bat out of hell.
  21. I can see discussion on Chrysler as potentially jockeying vs. Genesis, but hyundai has nothing like what Dodge offers. As a dedicated performance arm, Dodge is potentially quite worth keeping on. It's not like Dodge is still way back here and overlapping hyundai :
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