balthazar

Unquestionably, things have NOT improved from the consumer's POV over the years...

Plum-tastic!

'75 Pontiac Trans Am, 400/4-spd car, no powertrain, bad body cancer, stripped. '66 Cadillac Fleetwood Series 60 Special, all black, crusty from sitting but savable. '64 Pontiac LeMans 2-dr post coupe, extremely rough, no motor/trans/title, asking $1500, I wouldn't spend over $250 on it. '61 Cadillac Fleetwood Series 75 sedan, all black, factory air, rough & rusty, interior gone.

I just thought it was interesting that GM back then "encouraged" people to wildly break the speed limit with an intentional, printed dial limit of 110 MPH. The thought that people were not in any way mandated to test the Speed Minder at 110 is, of course, nonsense; everyone was required to touch that speed on a monthly basis, to insure proper operation of the feature thruout it's range. It's there, you MUST use it. Like '10' on your radio dial. Or your peak HP in top gear.

My '59 has a 'Speed Minder' feature : a dial to the right of the speedometer that you set so if you exceed your number, the unit buzzes to alert you. It's range is 30 MPH to 110 MPH.

Radar detectors are not illegal devices and they do not cause anyone to speed. Only VA & DC outlaw them entirely. It's no different than selling a 638 HP car that goes 205 MPH in a land where the max in most places is 65. It's also akin to putting 10-in touch screens into the dashes of cars where for years video screens in view of the driver were illegal & there is now constant focus on driver distraction. Face it, people have gotten tickets for a mere few miles over the posted limit. It's not so black & white as you paint it. The tint thing is also akin to max speed capabilites. It would be possible to program a car, based on GPS location tech, to max tint while in motion to that state's legal limit. Many would see the advantage in darkening windows while parked to deter snooping/ potential theft/ keeping the vehicle cooler inside. It's not just designed for thwarting the cops...

The headlight doesn't "cost" $1500; that's what they bilk you out of to replace it. I didn't think anyone would actually blindly accept that claim as remotely accurate. If 2 headlights alone were $3000, the whole car would "cost" hundreds of thousands ... instead of MB still making a profit on an average price of $8000 under sticker.

Diesel has also not kept pace with gas as far as price goes. Diesel here in NJ was running about 20-22 cents over regular, currently it's running 40 cents over. Hard to believe that's merely demand (I know refining allotments vary, too). Saw the '14 Impala at a Chevy traveling exhibit in MD this weekend. Looks pretty snappy- as far as interior/exterior goes, the car could support $40K, IMO. What's left is the option & powertrain list, and refinement WRT justifying the top sticker.

Ocean City MD Endless Cruise weekend. 3200 registered cars, easily another 1000 there. Overload.

A mild reshuffling of the exterior elements (sans the jettisoning of the Mazda front fenders) - no forward movement design-wise. Interior is a baffling mixture of dated elements and the arbitrary, but folks don't buy these for many other reasons than to telegraph to others how much they spent. The 7-speed trans makes this completely uncompetitive, of course.

Packard worked on radar braking circa '56. Just a historical footnote. Auto-braking is not anything I'd aspire to have on my vehicle, but autonomous vehicles are the way things are going.

Only a 7-spd trans when others have 8???? This car should have been introduced with a 10-spd.

Keep it in mind. I have some other parts left, both new & used.

I pretty much stopped driving mine around '07, and it's been gone since '09. I have a brand new in-tank pump if he needs one.

Ya: 300, or 4.9L. TRQ was 265- not bad. Never had an issue with the rear (over 146K). 3.08 gears. All the domestic trucks are underrated WRT capacity, anyway.

Of course; I was looking more at '2 apples' (base trucks with base engines).

^ With all the emphasis on 7-pass SUVs (assuming there's any legitimacy to that), I would hazard to guess that the same situations occasionally are encountered by sedan owners. Curious that as mankind has gotten so much wider, cars have gotten so much narrower.

I looked at the weight on the 2500HD : RC/LB 6.0L in 2013 is 5788. You have to jump to the Duramax in the same truck to get to 6469 lbs. - chevy website. Looks like I had picked the wrong truck (from the extensive portfolio) in my above post; site says the 1500 WT RC/LB 4.3L starts at 4596, not 5300. That is in keeping with pow's list above IMO, accounting for the strengthening since the Ford I referenced at 3900 lbs.... so I will back off of blaming electronics. The trucks aren't as heavy as I initially thought in baseline. Still, hopefully GM will continue it's newfound 'fitness regimen' and get the needle ticking downward some. IIRC, my F-150 was rated to tow 4900 lbs., and the chevy site says the same 1500 WT (with 3.23 axle) is good for 4700 lbs. Stronger truck... but the added weight takes away from towing capacity, it seems.

Really? Well, it's not overall size, it's not an increase in steel, frames aren't that much different, there's more plastics & aluminum (don't the Silvies had AL hoods?), glass is thinner... ...from a Jeep forum, going from a 15" rim/tire to an 18" rim with identical (otherwise) tire size, same brands in both cases, raises weight only 55 lbs total.... ...where else besides interior (insulation, sound deadening, consoles, 10 air bags, padded power telescoping sunvisors... & electronics? Electronic throttles, parking brakes, rearview cameras, front proximity warning, cruise, NAV, telemetrics, tire inflation, anti-lock brakes, TC, ESC, etc etc is the weight coming from? It's certainly not primarily from the basic structure.

The current SIlverado 1500 starts @ 5300 lbs. I strongly agree this is too heavy, my old mid-'90s F-150 RC/LB started around 3900 lbs. Damn electronic BS- pulling some of that nonsense out would be a good start to slimming down.

^ http://www.falconerengines.com/faq.php?faq=falconer_v12 Thought this one was quite pertinent : Is the Falconer V12 just two blocks welded together? Absolutely not. The block, crank girdle, heads, valve covers and intake manifold are dedicated castings. These parts are cast aluminum, although a cast magnesium intake manifold was produced for aviation variants of the Falconer V12. Only the prototype engine was constructed by welding the necessary components together. For reliable, repeatable results, no production (even semi-production as Falconer) is going to cut & weld anything together. An intake, say, is one thing- no moving parts, easily machined (still more expensive to do it that way). Cranks, cams & blocks (where moving parts are installed) - no. Too inefficient, too high a factor of inefficiency of operation / durability. It's like casting cams & cranks in aluminum, just because all your heads & blocks are AL and you had the material right there. Interesting 2-page message board topic on AL cranks : http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/aluminum-crankshaft-120596.html

Generally speaking; a correctly executed weld is stronger than the steel pieces it joins. Cranks, however, are solid- it would be very challenging to get it re-welded solid, and dimensionally accurate after that. IMO, the slightest runout on the rotating assembly is equally troublesome.

I'm in @ $1000, but above that; no.

Crap: nope. I have 1912-1986, plus 1909-1911 (Reliance & Rapid).