balthazar
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Everything posted by balthazar
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In our last Trivia Tuesday, we had a car painted with tiger stripes. This time around, we have a Thunderbird with a gigantic hole in its side! Can you answer our Trivia Tuesday questions? The 'Farm-O-Road' utility vehicle was produced by which automaker? All the GM car Divisions reached their V8 displacement zeniths in model year 1970… except for one which did so 2 years removed from the others. What nickname did Buick have for it's straight eight engine of the 1940s and 1950s? What decade in automotive history saw the largest leap in rated horsepower within a single brand? What was the first model year for the Chevrolet Biscayne and the last model year for the Bel Air? What is going on with the Thunderbird in this pic? Answers to the last Trivia Tuesday: International Race of Champions 1967 Lincoln Ranger (Ford), Citation (Chevy), Pacer (AMC) 1949 2-dr hardtop body style Mercury Cougar Tiger Balm -
The A6 isn't quite $400,000. Neither is any Cadillac. No earthly possibility Rolls is going to fit a Corvette engine into a $400K or a $260K car (tho they had zero issues putting a GM Powertrain automatic in their cars for 23 years because they lacked the engineering know-how to build their own, strong-enough). No earthly possibility we're going to see a $400K or a $260K Cadillac ($150K is right around the corner, tho). Try and keep your conversational feet on the ground, hmm?
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Cadillac is about the ONLY OEM doing LEDs / light pipes that actually look like someone thought about it. All of the Germans makes just hot glue off-shelf LED strips inside the light assembly; looks tacky. BMW is one that has done lighting nicely at times, but as soon as they hit on a great light design, they change it. Cadillac has been running vertical lighting (tails, but now head lighting, also) for like 50 years. Meanwhile, most mercedes have very generic lighting designs, easily confused with pedestrian makes.
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^ '15 650 HP 6.2L Z-06 starts at $78K. Prior to that, the 638 HP 6.2L ZR1 started at $113K. RR starts at $263K but only delivers 563 HP in a car that weighs 5500 lbs. No one buys a Rolls for the power train anyway- as long as it moves out decently, no one in this demo cares what's under the hood. And yes, it absolutely could be a 6.2L GM engine- car would move out with even better authority. No Cadillac in our lifetimes is going to sticker at $400K. Now, $150K, that I expect to see. In a perfect fantasy world, Cadillac would build a modern equivalent to the Eldo Brougham and bury Rolls once again. Put that in the Ciel body and your half way there.
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Ellinghaus has got to start talking like the leader of an aspiring top shelf luxury builder, because his public statements so far have been a very mixed bag. If he does not get on a single image-building track, we are looking at further delays for the renaissance.
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A crap-ton of superlatives & intangible adjectives… we'll see how things pan out.
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It's truly a bizarre piece. MB shuffles the interior details, gives it a wheelbase stretch, then cuts the price IN HALF from a few years ago. Oh yeah; and they keep the name of a failed brand launch, but add another name no one remembers, assumedly to temper the situation. Some of the changes, like the diamond-quilted upholstery, the tacky accordion-fold curtains (no smart glass here??) and the stand-up hood ornament strongly evoke the tastelessness of the 1970s. But overall, it looks pretty snazzy. I don't expect a single repeat sales from Maybach 1.0, and I hope MB doesn't either. Those buyers got royally F'd.
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No profit; 108 million loss for Q4. They had, IIRC; in 2013, a single profitable quarter where they made a whopping 16 million. Stock is highly overvalued based on the fundamentals.
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Thanks. I'm going to slog thru the wordpress site over this week (I did see some features I liked); try to gell something together.
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Writing is not an issue for me, have done quite a bit. Have already written on this topic, also. I envision something along the lines of a forum thread in that I wish it to progress/build, rather than be a series of un- or semi-related topics. But I know what my problem is after looking at the wordpress link Fappy provided; I am well behind the curve on this stuff. I'm not surprised. >"A blog is a type of website that shows newest content at the top of the page. A blog can also be one part of a website with multiple pages."< That the basic 'split hair' difference vs. a website? I'm going to spend some time on the link & see if I can gleam a direction.
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Driving more than ever this year; my one big job is 1.5hrs round trip. That's too much for my book.
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Never done it, haven't looked at many. I have a area of interest that I would very much like to share with others. In fact I am, to a degree, driven to do so. I am still considering publication, but with friends having gone thru that (successfully), it's an arduous task. Websites get lost in the oceanic shuffle, relevant pre-existing sites either disappear or have a self-imposed system that precludes the type/source of my interest (Wikipedia). What's the scuttlebutt on the blog universe, and does anyone pay any attention??
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Cadillac debuted 'set & forget' Climate Control (in obvious addition to coining the term) in 1965!
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Phaeton did post good rear compartment numbers. Legroom- frt: 41.7, rr: 43.1 for a total of 84.8. Not as good as my B-59 coupe, but close. The product planners who green lit a car squarely in the upper audi range clearly didn't know what they were doing. Ego has probably had a higher cost in business than most other causes.
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That is hilarious. 2015 – 30 = 1985. Here's the interior of an '85 s-class : Giant black rubber steering wheel, mouse fur upholstery, horrible unpainted plastics, it just REEKS of cheapness. Mercedes interiors in the '80s were horrible, horrible, horrible; SL is in a dead heat for the barrel bottom here, too. It was only by benchmarking Cadillac in this era that MB was able to move ahead. You're a full decade optimistic on this claim.
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Tesla lost a total of 308 million for 2014. They only managed to move 120 vehicles in China in January. They need billions to continued to even tread water. People are -inexplicably- going to just be SHOCKED when dire financial situations rear up (not excluding bankruptcy). That happens and Tesla finds the mountain they're climbing just quadrupled in size. - - - - - Just learned Teslas are NOT sold in my state, yet I still see them just about daily. I don't have anything like a 'regular commute' (either time slots or routes), so I'm sure I'm seeing different cars. Saw a red S this morning.
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So BMW already shares the platform between the 5 & 7 (stretched), not sure how a "stretched 5-series platform" ISN'T a "7", but OK…. … but now BMW is proposing using the same chassis under the 3, 4, 5, 6, AND 7?? Career General Motors bashers are going to be eating a TON of crow on THIS parts-binning of a (for some) hallowed brand! Not to mention, but………. The current 7-series is the same stylistically as the last 3 or 4 generations, (also; a complete snoozefest), so the next gen is so very likely to be a continuation of the same old, same old. This has 'dud' written all over it.
