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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    There's NO MONEY in electric cars tho. None.
  2. balthazar
    I'm still standing here talking, and now you're way across the cornfield talking at the sky. We were talking size, now you're wrapped up in price. All I said is, there's room above the CT6 in size at Cadillac. Do I prefer 10,000 CT6 per year, or 100,000? 10,000 every time, as long as it's profitable.
  3. balthazar
    I know you're super literal, but try and follow the big picture. There's a LOT of room between 204" and 227"- that's all I'm saying. CT6 sold 10,5xx units in the US in '17, which was up 15% over '16 (tho I think '16 was the ramp-up year, right?) That's still positive growth. Thru March, the CT6 ticked up another 3%, still positive growth on a high margin product. If it were showing a 16% or 20% drop, I'd have to look at the bottom line WRT recommending it's continuation.
  4. balthazar
    OK, so you want to combine model lines into 1 total. BMW has a 2-dr, 4-dr and conv in the 4-series, and (2) 4-drs and a wagon in the 3 series. That's 6 body styles. I don't know/care if all 6 were there in 2016, but in 2017, combined, those two lines fell 7%. But the 3 is no longer the small sedan at BMW- that's now the 2-series (2-dr, conv, and wagon) plus I assume you'll want to add in the 1-series (4-dr hatch) to be consistent. 2 series alone was down 24% last year and is only running at 28% of the volume of the 4-series. The demand is weak at best. Add to the pot the much thinner margins at the bottom end and ask yourself why a lux brand would want to wade into the mucky shallow end of the lake.
  5. balthazar
    Simple- the CT6 isn't large enough to be the final range topper from Cadillac. And 204-in isn't 'large', it's just larger than the mid-size cars. A Rolls is 227".
  6. balthazar
    Guess I'm still on Planet Earth while more & more people are being shot into space in a Tesla Roadster.
  7. balthazar
    3-series was down 16% vs. 2016 (70K > 59K) while the 5-series was up 25%. MB CLA was down 20%. The bottom is falling out of small 'lux' sedans, too.
  8. balthazar
    Awesome it went to a good home & is getting used. How about some current pics?
  9. balthazar
    They didn't (in the US) other than this : IF GM had produced these, I'd SO own one right now!
  10. balthazar
    I never ever in my life heard someone call a 6-passenger car a '2-seater'. '70-73 (which are the years I checked) you could get a 455 in all the full-size cars, but the only one available with buckets was the Riviera. No buckets in a LeSabre in this generation from the factory.
  11. balthazar
    It's a '63-ish Bel Air / Impala. Or was.
  12. balthazar
    Ideally, mainline brands in 2020 (Chevy, Ford, Nissan, Mercedes, etc) should build 2 sedans, small & mid-sized. The luxury brands should build mid- and full-size.
  13. balthazar
  14. balthazar
    Dude, you know that's not factory, right? The quoted performance numbers in the above video sure seem way off.
  15. balthazar
    People DO NOT buy vehicles that way. If they did, and the C-class was a"good size", why has it packed on 7-8 inches since? What makes NO sense is a luxury brand offering compact vehicles- who wants to pay premium pricing for a tiny car? If they did, the 1-series would sell more than the 3/4, and it's no where close.
  16. balthazar
  17. balthazar
    So... the COE made 3 trips out on the public streets last summer, but there was an issue. We timed it, and at about 6-7 minutes of running, an increasingly louder, quickly piercing whistling sound would appear. Initially I thought it was the generator, but figured out it was a vacuum leak in the carb. Very disconcerting. So I found a dedicated carb rebuilder in NY and sent it off, tho not until last month. Figured I wasn't going to be driving it in the winter... then it slipped thru the cracks. Got the carb back in a week's time, rebuilder said there was a number of bits incorrect inside, plus he milled all the mating surfaces and test ran it- said he got it running really well. Who knows how many people did what inside a 78 year old mechanical device. Hooked it back up yesterday and ran it in the garage, timing it (garage door open & exhaust fan ducting out behind truck). Went 11 minutes and zero whistling. Idles very smooth, tho it takes a good 5 minus before you can completely take it off of choke. Anyway, this represents the last component to address, so I can begin shake-down runs again; first in the driveway, then down my street, then in a wider & wider radius from home base. There's a semi-truck dealership about 3 miles from my house and there always seems to be 1 or 2 empty parking spaces on the front line- would be fun to slip the '40 in there as if it were for sale.
  18. balthazar
    I question whether BMW EVER made a "really good looking car" (that wasn't a concept... but even there I'm struggling).
  19. balthazar
    Yep; she went out under the sky today. What a literal thrill for me. • Ground welds, wire wheeled & orbital sanded the trunk out- getting it ready for priming/painting inside there. Great progress.
  20. balthazar
  21. balthazar
    Mustang pretty much is writing the template for a successful GT, so it makes sense BMW would emulate some of that formula. But what's puzzling is BMW's recent entry with the very same vehicle, then called the 6-series, nobody bought, so I wonder what sort of business case they pitched to get a MORE expensive version of an unwanted coupe green-lighted? BTW; IMO the Mustang looks a lot more cohesive of a design.
  22. balthazar
    ^ It's easier to make a longer vehicle have lower drag, all else being equal. "want" what? There's nothing there to 'copy'.
  23. balthazar
    Beautiful day here for a ride ~
  24. balthazar
    Jeep Super Wagoneer would be the first luxury SUV, came out in 1966. Mercedes absolutely copied tons of features and types from others. Sometimes it took decades to follow the trends, sometimes they literally had to buy components from other OEMs. And they blatantly copied the 3-series- now it's their highest volume sedan. They massively fudge RE "inventing" the automobile and most lazy ass journalists just numbly nod along. The "4-door coupe" thing is a hoot- it's literally a fastback-esque 4-dr, nothing remotely new. The worst thing about it is the gross inaccuracy of the term.
  25. balthazar
    Only plastic on the outside of that car is the front turn signals, the taillights and the backup lights. Silver Streaks died after '56, quite a bit before this generation. I don't care for the dual Streaks, but I always liked the single, centered Streaks.
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