Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close

balthazar

In Hibernation
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    40,855

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    583

 Content Type 

Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    Jersey is worse than Mass- look again.
  2. balthazar
    Oh God- look at Jersey's numbers. Revenue per capita... why am I still here??
  3. balthazar
    '64-65 El Camino, white, very clean survivor, rollin'
  4. balthazar
  5. balthazar
    Same DLO, same doors, same hood, same fenders, same wheelwell black plastic... it's basically a 'rebadge'. I would agree it looks more 'gee-whizzy' and thus; more appealing, probably, to those shopping this segment, but it's not "likely related", it's the same base vehicle. What catches my eye is the cutline of the rear hatch- to maintain uninterrupted neon tails, the cutline jags noticably into the opening... that's not going to see production with 2 arm-bashing protrusions into the cargo opening like that. Going to have to 'break' the neon there and square it up. Also, I find this line visually jarring :
  6. balthazar
    'Very similar'? It's literally the same vehicle with a different front bumper.
  7. balthazar
    Taxes are going to explode here under Murphy. I'd not be surprised to see the property tax cap undone, also. Moremoremoremoremore, always more. Regular today is 2.63 here... picture it being 2.40 instead.
  8. balthazar
    My approach is one of severity or if the vehicle cannot be safely operated. If OEM A has a recall of 1 million for a missing owner's manual page, and OEM B has a recall for 1 million for engine sludge - no; those cannot be put on an even level with each other. - - - - - A tailgate fails/falls with a person standing on it, and they are dumped 3 feet to the ground. If it fails/falls with a heavy object on it, that object is pitched directly at a person standing there's knees/legs. Both have a solid potential for injury. Yes- that should be a safety recall.
  9. balthazar
    So; yet another reality check to the 'coming sooner than you would think' retort. I'll say it again; the transportation market is like an oil tanker, slow to react & slow to turn. 'Hype' likes to think it's manning the helm, but it's in a life raft on a tow rope, bouncing around in the tanker's wake.
  10. balthazar
    It will certainly be interesting to track the effect of the pare-down of the tax credit. I'm tending to think it won't have a huge effect due to the nature of how the credit works, vs. it being money off at sign-time. Most consumers seems to gravitate toward 'instant savings'/ the short term. It's a big factor in the steady rise in leasing, IMO. That said- what will be even more interesting is if any of the brands do what they're 'threatening' to do, which is quickly shift to all EVs. THAT is going to throw some major sparks in the near term (if any actually try it). Remember- for all the incredible hype around Tesla, they only sold 50K vehicles in the US last year, and as the poster child king of EVs. Volvo is one brand threatening to go all EV- they sold 81K in the US in '17. I have to wonder what their internal volume projections are after their switch- they can't possibly be expecting to be at even 50% of that number. The best yardstick is overall EV marketshare, which is 1%. 1% of 81,000 is only 810 vehicles. Even 25%, for which there is no indicators that it would be so high I know of, is 20K vehicles. What is the business plan to deal with such a drastic downturn in volume?
  11. balthazar
    BMW is, like, 25 years past due for a new design language.
  12. balthazar
    Current LaCrosse has had available wood since 2014. "Everybody" knows that. And:
  13. balthazar
    The issue with the chart above & toyota, is well over 40 million are ALL in the last 10 years or so. They were very solid prior to the early 2000s. That's either an unlucky roll of the destiny dice or a marked change in corporate mindset.
  14. balthazar
    No doubt the Euro car forums are choked with threads of 'Cool big cars & trucks we don't get here! There's an S-coupe too, or weren't you aware?
  15. balthazar
    That has GOT to be a wildly unprofitable approach- to build 2 cars a mere 2 inches apart, and go thru all that engineering, testing, certification, different parts, etc etc, instead of just building the L. Who considering a car 178" long would just balk and declare 'Oh, if ONLY it was 176" long!'
  16. balthazar
    " A few" ? Is there a volume level where you'd question the companies willingness to put engineering above profit? And there's a real difference between the cosmetics of surface rust vs. crushing the vehicle due to being wildly unsafe to use on public roads. I'm in a salt-da-roads-at-will state with an un-garaged GM wax-coated frame with 180K miles on it. It BARELY has any surface rust on it and it's older than the recalled 'comas.
  17. balthazar
    Right: 181" vs. 182". And the 181" 'L' is the longer version. Base A must be in the size tier of a Sonic! WTF is MB doing down in these classes?? What is this doing to build / maintain their reputation? CLA has poor packaging relative to others in it's size class, so the question remains; wonder if they improved the packaging for China, a market which prefers roominess? - - - - - $32K is below the average price paid in the USDM for a new vehicle, shouldn't mercedes be above that bar?
  18. balthazar
    Maybe- this 'L' is the same length as the CLA. Maybe the non-'L' A has LESS than the CLA.
  19. balthazar
    • OK, so this is a China-only model that's the exact same size as the CLA. Did they fix the catastrophically small back seat? • Any pricing info yet? • Shame that MB again pasted the S-class nose on another dirt-cheap compact car. Dilution for dollars.
  20. balthazar
    You know the circumstances there- the Gov't sold off it's stock holding as early as possible, and well before it climbed to the point they may have broke even or even made a profit. That was on the Gov't, not GM. Money management has long been the Gov't's Achilles heel. Agreed that there will always be assembly mishaps. At least on the Silverado, et al, there was a frame to bolt the control arms to.
  21. balthazar
    • Some people aren't, that's true, but that is what it is. Respect it... or not, then move on. There are still people calling GM 'Government Motors' tho the debt was paid within a few years. • The ignition switch thing is bad, but in the grand scheme of things, the engineering is far more questionable in light of toyota's recalls. Building a car frame/steel metallurgy should've been settled science sometime around, oh, 1925. It's like a home builder, after 50 years of experience, suddenly has a rash of cracking/heaving footings- you going to still invest with him to build your house with the same peace of mind? • The "70s-80s" isn't remotely applicable Moltar : your example compares 45 years ago with 6.
  22. balthazar
    Talking about the company's recent history overall- the level of recalls to fix poor engineering is just mind boggling. Frankly, as a wandering consumer, the recent 'coma rotting frame thing would turn me off to the brand permanently all by itself.
  23. balthazar
  24. balthazar
    All a so-called '3-box SUV' is, is an SUV with purposefully less cargo space. Whoo-hoo. It's like the whole '4-dr coupe' naming fallacy all over again- trying to force a definition that strains against both convention and common sense, for marketers.
  25. balthazar
    Got to drive the aforementioned '68 Catalina convertible about 5 miles today. Front end was a little squirrely- needs some bushing replacement IMO, but the 2bbl 400 easily spun the tires from the stoplight. Nice, wide & floaty. :)
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search