balthazar

House I was working at the last few days; the owner had his long-time '66 Galaxie 500 convertible in the garage. Red w/ black top & black bench interior, 289 car. Worn, tired, but solid & all there. Last inspected in '04. Nice to see one of the big Fords of this era...

Good luck, man - you only go around once!

Oh nooz! August CTS sales eclipsed July's E-class! Automatic better car: CTS !!!

Oldsmoboi ~ >>"Price, Fuel Economy, Physical clearances"<< Price - buy a 1-yr old F/S truck for the same or better price, get more capacity. Clearances - ??? Have never seen this ever be an issue in any environment (including inner city). MPG - have to give you that one. Cubitar ~ >>"Maybe a very minimal yard service with one small mower that trims postage-stamp yards in subdivisions in the burbs could use this."<< This a fictitious scenario, right? A 1-man, 1-mower business buying a brand new truck? >>"Or someone in a city that carries around cones and barrels or other stuff."<< Private contractors or city services use F/S trucks and up. Again; if the foreman wants to tool around from job to job in a Ranger/ et al, go right ahead. As a truck owner/driver for over 15 years now, privately & commercially... pushing this as a WORK truck just doesn't make much sense. From a OEM POV, a cheap-o conversion on the van is worth the dice roll, but from the consumer side, there's just not a lot there to attract buyers. Maybe the best case scenario is a smaller rental truck, like at the Depot, and make it a fleet-only thing.

What is that lift-over height?? Are those bed sides a full 12" high? There's no way I would consider this mini-trucklet over a basic F/S truck with way more capacity. EDIT: I've said as much (above) before.... and I'm always open to compelling arguments, but the small truck FOR WORK/HAULING argument always fails to convince me. Just like to motor around in a small truck, occasionally grab 3 bags of mulch? -knock yourself out. Want to put an extension ladder & a cement mixer in a truck?? How about a nice, capable, high-bed/low tailgated F-150, and you ALWAYS have extra capacity instead of bouncing off the load limiter. The small WORK TRUCK is the nissan leaf anxiety issue with a bed, IMO.

ChryCo got this generation body styles NAILED (for contrast- fast forward to circa 1951). I looked long at a '40 coupe project, but passed: was REALLY smitten by it's lines and the details (the split hood for one). And a guy I know rodded a 'Scotsman'-interior'd '41 a few years back- I got a hold fo the powertrain to keep it off the scrap heap, but there's VERY few interested in the original there. Looks great so far- get er dun!

Mitsu, audi and nissan all use this sort of 'full-height' grille already.... but hyundai has never been one to create anything on their own.

Bit by bit, the 'argument' that 'everyone else' is sticking to exclusive platforms and all RWD gets chipped away and chipped away. Whatever will be left to crow about when all the lux & near-lux brands are pimping FWD??

On my 3rd tree run, sawing one up on the side of the road with my lil' orange cone, guy walks up to me from the big house across the road; 'Want more wood?' A thick maple and 9 or 10 arrow-straight Locust trees - all mine. I should have enough wood for a at least 4 winters now.... I just need to borrow someone's trailer to haul it all. I'll be doing 'wood work' all week now, but that's cool.

Stopped back in Rancho Balthy to unload another truckload of free firewood. Got a real cozy spot where a county road is blocked off because the canal/stream is a foot over the road, and the toppled trees along that road are (low & ) ripe for the pickin'.

*evilsmirk*

Camino- good to see you made it thru.

^ He expected power to go out, must be the case. If a tree took out a private power line, it's going to be some time before it gets repaired.

>>" An E-class outsells an Audi A6 nearly 10 to 1, so Audi's plan isn't working in that regard."<< Missed here is any given market segment has a finite volume range. Audi is not going to match mercedeees volume without quantity disappearing elsewhere to a large degree- the market just DOESN'T work that way. In other words, in your view, if everyone playing in the low-end lux segment was building coin-toss competitive models, not everyone's volume is going to jump to the e-class's. This is BESIDES the very real fact that not every consumer WANTS a mass-produced car like the e-class; some prefer a different combination of features & attributes with some exclusivity... hence the A6 being at the level it is. The lux segment is not about lowest common denominator, thusly is isn't and shouldn't be about 'he who moves the mostest is the bestest'. You yourself have used the very same analogy with 'camry' substituted in. It's not a relevant metric.

Noon: Storm long gone but still very breezy- no damage observed from looking out, power did not go out. Ground waters already receding. All's well here. Slept some, getting ready to go out & about with the saw- see if any wood/money is to be made.

'59 GMC making a good show as the killer's vehicle of choice :

Watching the radar on the hour, pacing the rest of the time. By the radar pic, should get another hour of heavy rain, then a good bit of clearness.... but the wind has been kicking up. 12:30AM - almost in the 'rip' in the storm... 1:30AM - 'rip' is here; rain stopped. 6.75" so far. May get a half hour of no percip. Eye is approaching, but hoping like hell Irene is getting real tired. More rain will come, but looking at the radar, I may be on the fringe of it, with more to the west of me. Can't sleep.

Has gotten nasty in central Jersey. Rain pouring down, usually calm but 25% of the time gusts blow thru. I hear noises out in the darkness I don't like. U.S. Route 1 power grid still holding.... Hope this passes ASAP.

Lite to heavy rain in bands, wind hardly gusting to I'd guess 15. Chief worry is where all the water is going to go. Exactly 3" of rain so far according to my driveway spackle bucket... but the lawn starting showing large puddles before a half inch had fallen.

Zero wind right now in central Jersey, steady moderate rain. WIll probably sit up all night monitoring...

Watching weather.com every few hours. Noted in the latest vid update off of SC, that the measured wind speeds are much lower than the oft-quoted 'Class 2 = 100 MPH' sound bite. I realize they want folk to be 'better safe than sorry', and I guess an average wind speed in the 30s isn't going to do that. Oops- it just started raining here as I type this... ...OK; radar shows a small few-townships-sized cloud passing over; Irene's northern edge is still south of DE. That's good- I wanted to check the gutters tomm morning.

Camino- will that valley in your driveway go underwater, trapping you in? Has that ever happened before?

Evaluate what they have. Mercedes offers 8 cars and 6 SUVs and the best they can offer is one sedan with average economy. You go down the list at Edmunds and there's a bunch rated below 16. Even Lincoln is blowing up mercedees in MPG in the above list. In comparison, Cadillac isn't that bad. But yes- acura, infiniti, mercedees and Cadillac need to up the numbers going forward.

Better safe than sorry; hang in there, SAmadei ! Camino- my brother lives down a .6 mile driveway, all downhill, and he's in the same trees/private powerline situation- he's thinking of camping out @ his girlfriend's in town instead. Is there a most ideal 'weather location' to live in the U.S. ?? Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, flooding, drought, excessive snowfall- where the least drama?

I'm on the Route 1 power grid; other than 1 time it was out for about 45 minutes, power here has not been out for more than a few minutes in 19 years. That's excellent, because my sump pump will logging some OT. Trees are a concern to a degree. Lots of tall boys around, tho they're well shielded by each other. Gonna have the chainsaw fueled & ready. I think once Irene reached NC, we'll have a better idea what the bitch is up to. Hopefully, she'll lose a bunch of steam between there & here. Right now- the projection is 85MPH winds for Jersey. Don't forget to charge up your cell !