balthazar

My wife was in NYC on 9/11. I was driving to my brother's house to work for the day, heard Howard Stern break the first plane's impact. By the time I got to his house, we were watching it burn on TV. It never occurred to me the building would collapse until it did. I tore blindly across 3 counties at high rates of speed, high beams & hazards on, to where she worked normally, and thankfully got quick word they weren't in the usual building, which was # 7 WTC. I didn't hear from her until about 3PM. That'd be my #1. I could go with the Challenger for #2.

By virtue of there being more room for more mains, and there being more harmonics to quell with the longer crank. I mean, a 7 main V-6 would be the size of a V-8. I would tend to vote for the 250- it's so understressed WRT low power levels, plus it's far less complex than the commonly-computerized 231.

Archtype - FF

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger... or some such bullsh!t. Just out of the whole surgery circle (not dental)- all SORTS of wicked-azzd fun. I believe I'm now permanently in the surgeon's 'party stories' repertoire. Good health & fortune to you, Camino. It'll work out.

Covini

Latest news ~ 04-16-10, sienna minivan, rusting spare tire cables could launch spares into traffic, 600,000 units.

'Get the word out' is right- post away!! I would love for a dedicated thread listing toyoyo recalls / service campaigns along the line I started: date of recall, models, quantity effected. The press tends to gloss over- stating partial truths like 'With 4 millions cars recalled recently...' - letting millions of others skate free. If I may make a quasi-reference; I believe most young folk would say 6 million were killed in the Holocaust, because that it the number most often quoted. Why should the other 5 million be unrecognized? In the interest of public safety & education the running total of toyota's quality & engineering lapses should become public knowledge. And that number is north of 15 million, not 3 or 4 or 5 million.

Chrysler experimented with a radial-engined 'compact' in the '30s. I believe in order to obtain 'meaningful' displacement, radials run into a height issue. -- -- -- -- -- Seems to me you have a fork in the road WRT starting development of a V4. The uber-tight angle V4 (ala VW) would seem to make packaging sense in a transverse FWD subcompact, while the more conventionally-angled V4 would for a longitudinal RWD subcompact... but it seems from a cursory glance that there are packaging issues trying to swap those combos up.... limiting such a brand new engine to one configuration only. That alone might be enough of an obstacle... tho I think there are other engineering issues at play in keeping a V4 on the shelf.

Don't anyone for a moment think the list I posted is complete or nearly so. It is not.

Balthazar's aston-martin / ferrari. Love it. Anyone catch the slight angle of the headlights @ 1:05 ? One of a 1000 subtle details. When Cadillac was King.

Another '61 Fowl-coon, 4-dr sedan, primer, missing grille, on trailer, sad.

Jun '00 : camry, weak axle shafts, 541 units. Jan '01 : camry, acceleration/cruise issues, 53,061 units. Mar '01 : camry, improperly welded subframe, 545 units. Aug '01 : tundra, tacoma, faulty trailer wiring, 70,717 units. Jul '04 : camry, twisted side curtain air bag, 128,316 units. Dec '04 : camry, air bag may deploy on infant car seat, 150,061 units. Dec '04 : camry, debris in steering wheel airbag, 19,587 units. May '05 : trucks, lower ball joint separation, 775,000 units. Aug '06 : tundra, excessive frt susp wear, 219,522 units. Aug '06 : sienna, liftgate failure, 393,313 units. Jul '06 : 10 models, faulty steering, weak components, 1 million units worldwide. Jul '06 : RX, highlander, sticky gas pedal, 367,594 units. Jul '06 : prius, echo, defective crank sensor, 418,570 units. Jan '07 : camry, solara, sienna, celica, avalon, ES, engine sludge, class action settlement, 3,500,000 units. Jul '07 : Fj cruiser, flawed tires, 9,434 units. Dec '07 : tundra, RR prop shaft separation, 15,600 units. dateUNK : tundra/sequoia, steering, ball joints, 553,000 units. May '08 : tacoma, frame rot, 813,000 units. Feb '09 : yaris, frt seat belt retractors cause post-crash fires (???), 135,000 units. Feb '09 : sienna, carpet/sticky pedal, 26,000 units. Sep '09 : camry, prius, tundra, ES, tacoma, avalon, floor mats, 3,800,000. Nov '09 : tundra, excessive frame corrosion, 110,000 units. Jan '10 : 8 models, sticky accelerator, 2,300,000 units. Jan '10 : highlander, corolla, venza, matrix, floor mats, 1,100,000 units. Feb '10 : prius, lexus HS, poor braking, 147,500 units. Feb '10 : camry, PS/brake line wear/failure, 7,300 units. Mar '10 : camry, avalon, rav4, ES, RX, 'service campaign', 933,800 units. This is just what I jotted down before utter boredom set in & I had to stop. Most of it is available via consumeraffairs.com. Toyoyo has recalled or issued 'extended service campaigns' for between 15 and 20 million vehicles in the last decade. Without question, the worst quality brand of the last decade.

Didn't own it or drive it regularly {duh} but the worst seats I've ever experienced were a old BMW 3-series convert. They were like thinly upholstered plywood approximations of car seats.

Scrap by me is up 50% from a year ago (steel/iron: $6/100 > $9/100). Not sure what it was at the peak- I started on the downside of the curve ('09). I would welcome seeing one or 2 of these on the road- been a long long time. Not that I have a soft spot for them- I don't, but they are rare now.

>>"shoot, ya beat me to it"<<

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=SbuDRA4zNbw What's the backstory on this? Awesome driving, & pretty cool seeing a bunch of Asians flashing the Cadillac 'V' symbol.

Hey- that was quick!! Pop in regular- doesn't have to be daily in the least if 'life' is continually calling. I kno I myself waste far too much time here, for reasons I don't understand.... BTW- if you are still in need of a H2O pump for the B-59, I've got a great NOS guy- have his flyer right here. Welcome back!

Ocnblu- could not disagree with you more WRT bettering Pontiacs of the era. Both here are F/S, with 2-tier bumpers, but to my eye, the Merc is just dead, design-wise. A host of detail inconsistancies, and it's just so massive & blunt... I keep a mental post-it note in place for the '69 X-100 because someone in the big car Merc studio woke up for the first time since MY1964 and squeaked that unique RR 'tunnel back' treatment out- unfortunately it was pasted on the concept-less blob that was the RPO F/S '69 M.

So in other words, 2 minutes with a razor and this resemblance is just as apropos ?? Interesting appraisal skills, your friends.

That should really scoot with a PMD 400.

>>"...relatively clean w/o opera windows or other mid '70s cliches.."<< And how is it padded vinyl headlight doors aren't, again ??