balthazar

I don't believe anyone is suggesting that 2009 World and 1953 World are the same or even remotely similar (it's painfully obvious that 2009 World and 2008 World aren't even remotely similar). >>"Yes...what was relevant and true 50+ years ago isn't necessarily relevant in the modern world. The US of 2009 is a very different place than it was in 1953."<< Wow. So if General Motors was healthy, highly competitive and commanded a majority of the U.S. marketshare RIGHT NOW, the plants & suppliers were humming full-time and 100s of thousands were employeed ..... how again would this be "bad" in 2009 World ('Good for GM, good for the U.S.') ?????

A bit of 'all-over-the-place', no?? >>"Everyone knows the one about how a former boss of General Motors (nearly) said that what was good for his company was good for America, and vice versa. Today the statement is used for easy irony, but at the time Charles Wilson was voicing a truism. He was speaking a few years after the second world war, during which carmakers supplied the US military with hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of planes, tanks and other military equipment."<< Why 'nearly', why not 'exactly'? Is this information hard to find/ verify ? No. "...for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." --Charles Erwin Wilson, 1953.

The headliner in dad's '77 Safari finally started letting go in the rear sometime around circa '93. Cheapened up the piece; when they were vinyl suspended by tensions rods, the only thing that ever went wrong was the stitching sometimes let go. It finally did in my '64 Catalina, in about 2006.

To clarify- I do not have home delivery because I don't want to tip for delivery. Eating out w/ table service (maybe once every 3 weeks), I generally tip around 18%. If it's pretty bad service (a rarity) it might be about 8%. Pretty sure I've never tipped 0, but I can't say I've had 'terrible' service ever. Then again, I don't evaluate the grooming or attire WRT food service; to me that's immaterial; it's not 'service'.

>>"Government caused this by not being proactive."<< Government has NEVER been proactive, only reactive. Not enough foresight, intelligence or true concern for the welfare of the common man to be proactive.

'63 X-400

A car's 'nationality' is based on where the company is headquartered, not where the product is slapped together in 60 minutes. No one calls mercedes SUVs 'American' because they are assembled in SC, so there's likewise no reason to put 'American' in quotes because a Chevy is assembled in Canada. Let's at least strive for consistancy.

I would never NOT tip for service rendered, but in picking it up, I provide that service. :wink: Other items that were delivered to my house (furniture), I always tip. Mailman & garbage man, however, get nada; they have better benefits & a company vehicle vs. me.

Too cheap to tip- always pick up. Lived here 16 years - not a single home food delivery. Once ate Domino's (medium mushroom) for 3 straight days. Then, from that store (Baltmore), it was excellent. Shop near me makes a killer chicken marsala pie. I must have made an impression- walked in one day this summer, guy asks me 'Marsala?' and when I say 'yep' he says 'It's already in the oven; I saw your truck drive in.'

Cracked open the door on the shop Sat- started cleaning out Bay #3 for an impending... new guest. Details & pics to follow... Decided my shop just isn't... welcoming enough to draw me out there regularly... but got half of that bay clean and I gots that feeling of accomplishment.... a bit.

I 'felt' it when Linden shut down, as my Catalina was built there and cruised past it on occasion. I 'feel' this too, as my Invicta was built in Wilmington. Nothing, of course, compared to those who work there. Still, the roster of traditional long-time plants is almost gone now.

Used to drink 2-3 times a week back in the day. Afraid it would take a pitifully-few to get me rather woozy today...

>>"June 26-28"<< On vaca that week, same week every year pretty much. Would've liked to go otherwise....

Random point of interest: 1958 DeSoto Adventurer frame : 318 lbs 1958 Chrysler 300-D frame : 474 lbs I doubt there's even 175 lbs of 'structural' channel in a '60 Unibody. Not sure I can tell you what my Buick's frame weighs. The guy who did a little chassis work cut the 'K' section out, and that alone weighs 70 lbs and it's no more than 3.5' x 3.5'. I flipped the remains by myself by tipping it over on the floor, and that was a struggle for even me. It's fully boxed FRT to RR, I couldn't guess. Shoulda balanced it on a bathroom scale....

Now THIS makes sense. Structurally compromising cars & then attempting to judge crash-worthiness is something nutty enough to have come from NBC news. :wink: >>"I also remember that some of the Chryco cars of that era actually would bend due to the power of the monster hemis - early unibodies had some definite drawbacks."<< This would have to be the '64 426s - the 'early' Hemi's ended after the '58MY.

The above-mentioned F-birds are more than familiar to me; my brother has owned his '68 hardtop since '95, my bro-in-law (good friend growing up) has had his '69 hardtop since circa '83. The '68 is currently under the knife getting a back-half done. Here 'tis before surgery: I believe he's run 10.1s as is. If I was to chose a Firebird/Camaro, it'd have to be a 1st gen, as the 2nd gens get too plasticy for my tastes.

And it's 3 for Cort : My good buddy's '71 big block car, black bucket/console interior, 80% original paint, 21K. Sweet sweet car.

Did it occur to anyone that cutting 90% of the roof and removing all 4 doors might have played a BIT of a part in how the cars crumpled and how easily the doors popped open on those with doors ??? We also don't know the speeds- the one toward the end looks like that Ford is doing 80 when it rear end the other & the flames pour out. Duh. This is one of the most loaded 'crash test' vids I've seen- not sure at all of the purpose. And as Camino said- the MoPars were all unibody- Except for Imperial, ChryCo went Unibody for '60. Chrysler used to build some beefy frames, but the Unibody, as evidenced by the production cars-- seemingly was moved to in order to save steel costs... :wink:

I came this close to pulling the trigger on a white w/ red interior '68 GTO with a Hurst His-n-Hers shifter, when the guy unexpectedly sold it out from under me. I always gravitate to the pre-'68s, but that car was slick and it was talking to me.

Camino, 'stang :- thanks for the support; damned decent of you. -- -- -- -- -- Hyper : I never 'met' someone before, whom confronted with specific comments about individual lines they've posted, ignores them completely. Ah well, it is as you say; enough time spent already. -- -- -- -- -- Cubitar -[/b] >>"Speaking of T37s, weren't some of them pretty basic 2dr sedans with dog dish hubcaps and 6 cylinders? Chevy didn't even offer a Chevelle 2dr sedan those years..seems strange Pontiac would have models as or more plain and basic than Chevy, which I think was the authors' point."<< Sure, some came that way- same was true for the other Divisions' As. But this B-pillar by itself (while I LOVE it when it's gone) doesn't really ring true as the hallmark of "as or more plain" IMO. It's not enough by itself. But your point does support mine in a roundabout way; while Pontiac, Olds & Buick were still offering a 2-dr sedan in '71, why was Chevy only offering hardtop Chevelle 2-drs ??? Again, I contend that it was NOT Pontiac who was out of place, it was Chevy. >>"Even 35+ years ago, GM's 4 mainstream divisions competed with each other with similar models."<< I don't believe they competed with each other any more or less than they did with a 'stripper/ dog dish Fairlane or Coronet. Buick, Olds, Pontiac weren't perceived then as 'badge-jobs' or interchangable minions of GM, but as what they were and had been up thru then; semi-autonomous marques with products in the same classes. Just because the parent Corp was one & the same, doesn't mean the product primarily competed against each other in the mind of the consumer... brand loyalty ran much higher then....

Tho ironically I will shipping a.... shipment to Brookville this week, the distance is far too far of a road trip for me.

>>"I find it funny how you feel everone else is wrong..."<< As I already stated, I don't 'feel everyone else is wrong' and I never said that, but at times I know stated facts are incorrect, regardless of who or how many said them. Gotta learn to separate the two. Just because a correction doesn't please you or echo your heros, doesn't mean it's not correct. For the record, I have corrected numerous magazines & websites WRT automotive-related info, but never once was it anything I came up with out of my own mind. It has also almost always been appreciated (manners are never unilateral). "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." -- TR What am I supposed to do with this ?? : >>"Production for the GT-37 the rival for the Heavy Chevy was less. You're 20K quote also included the non performance T-37."<< I suppose I could just ignore it.... ...... nah: While true, note should be made that the Heavy Chevy package did not include a specific engine, so unless a performance engine was optioned, the Heavy Chevy was a 'non-performance' car, too. They weren't all 402s. Discussion on a Chevy board logged much initial disbelief a big block was even available in the HC (it was). I didn't make this up, GM did. Perhaps it's GM that thinks everyone else is wrong. -- -- -- -- -- Want to know what's REALLY funny? That such supposedly-perfect people could so royally f**k up Pontiac. -- -- -- -- -- Wangers says the '60 8-lug is the first styled road wheel, even tho Cadillac offered their styled road wheel a half-decade earlier. You suck it all down, hook, line & sinker, because Wangers said so. You dismiss the Sabre Spoke because it doesn't meet your criteria for volume (like the 8-lug was any kind of high volume option). Cadillac, history books, the cars themselves are all wrong, and Wangers is right 'because he was there'. You would hold a 1955-coded Sabre Spoke in your hands and call it & me a lie. It defies logic. -- -- -- -- -- Tell you what, hyper; I'll pull up verbatim quoted lines from Glory Days, claim they are incorrect, and bet you money on that. You verify it, and I'll pay you if I'm wrong. You pay me if I'm right. $5 a fact, let's have a little competition.

>>"I thought you knew your history? The GTO was a broken rule."<< Circumvented, but OK. >>"THe Trans AM Chicken...approved. The Fiero... the Firebired... The OHC...THe FI engines ...The disc brakes... THe radials..."<< These are NOT "broken rules"- how is getting disc brakes approved & produced a mere few years after proposing them a "broken rule" ?? What was the GM 'rule' against disc brakes? Refusing an engineering or marketing proposal is not established a set rule, and turning around & approving it a few years later is not then 'breaking it'. Neither is re-submitting an idea for approval. If you want to go back farther on wheels the Skylark has special wire wheels in 53."<< Skylark had wires, Eldorado had wires, Henry's Quadracycle had wires! But wires are not a 'styled road wheel'!! A 'styled road wheel' is a cast (or stamped) rim with a specific 'display' design... replaces the styled hubcap; something pretty much every car today offers. 8-lug, Rallye I, Rallye II, Tempest 8-lug, Honeycomb, Snowflake, Turbine... you get it, right? 8-lug was a styled road wheel, so was the earlier Sabre Spoke. This is unquestionably a mistake on Wanger's part... no big deal, just pointing out that a guy who 'was there' is not infallible. 8-lugs are not all that common, either, but commonality has nothing to do with a discussion on whether Pontiac offered these types of performance options or not. They did. >>"Unless you really feel you know more than the guy who lived it first hand?"<< I do not, but as with any deeply-involved POV, the question of objectivity rises right to the surface. You don't think everyone who was ever 'there' is dead-on accurate? Ever read of 10 people giving individual descriptions of a criminal to the police ? Last direct involvement Wangers had with PMD was in '70, the height of PMD's performance engineering. You think he was happy about no longer being directly involved w/ the marque that realized his childhood dream???? This is basic human nature, confirmed by what we both readily know about Wangers (& his hobbyist involvement) since PMD right up to today. >>"The T-37 was a decontented GTO for all intents. Also it was a way to cut the insurance cost for many. "<< That would be the GT-37, which you did not mention. Tempest did not have insurance cost issues ALA the GTO, so the T-37 was NOT the 'answer' to that charge. >>"Chevy had no need for a decontented car since they were cheaper to start."<< But they thought they did- hence (as usual; Chevy gets whatever it whines for) the decontented Chevelle SS; the Heavy Chevy (yes- for insurnace reasons). >>"You had better accept Delorean inherited many cars he did not want at Chevy."<< Point was, Chevy -according to your post- is the volume / value leader. Yet every model had either an SS or RS or GT or whathaveyou performance package, both before & after DeLorean, and those ate into Pontiac's mojo- no question. Vega GT ?? Cosworth Vega ?? WTH ??? That should not have been Chevy's place, according to your 'one trick pony' heirarchy of GM Divisions. >>"Low volume V6 TA Turbo, 455 HO and 455 SD Completely immaterial??????? Please you make me laugh."<< hyper, quell your laughter & try and follow the discussion: hyperv6 - . The VOLUME is immaterial, but the HARDWARE was in fact there, and that is the proof of what I'm saying: Pontiac DID offer the performance, the engineering programs, the features thru the '70s and later. The insurance regs and low-octane fuel put a crushing damper on performance cars in the early '70s- geez; AMC had a small stable of performance cars in '70, they were all gone 4 years later. Almost ALL the performance cars & engines were gone, Camaro: 350CI, Z28: dead for 2 yrs, Mustang: Mustang II, Cuda: gone, Challenger: gone, AMX: gone, GS: gone, 442: emasculated, etc etc. Pontiac: Firebird/ Formula/ T/A: 400, 455, SD-455. RA V, VI, VII programs worked on (but denied). But the market demand was ebbing fast for this type of car, and that had more to do with it IMO than "GM failing Pontiac" in this period. >>"You are trying to say if you build a few hundred to just over 2,000 cars that make you a serious player in the performance maket? This is not Shelby!"<< By your criteria, any 'performance' manufacturer had better have the volume of Chevy or Ford or they're not 'serious', eh? When AMC was factory-backing & winning races, developing all sorts fo packages and standing convention on it's ear in '68-70, I supposed they weren't a serious player because they only sold 30K Javelin/AMXs vs Chevy's 350K V8 Chevelles & 112K V8 Camaros?? Those cars were there for those who wanted/could afford them, no different than Pontiac. >>"Lets face it other than these rare engines the stock 400 Pontiac may have been better than most back then but were far from what Pontiac offered only a few years before."<< Again- if you care to include the market/ consumer atmosphere, you must compare Pontiac of -say- 1974 vs other makes of 1974, not Pontiac of 1964. Believe me, I understand the frustration of PMD's 'fall from grace' as well as anyone, but times changed and we can't ignore that here. NO ONE was much of a performance brand in the mid 1970s and later. Ferrari was pulling down 15 second quarter miles in 1980 ! BMWs were getting outrun by Beretta GTZs ! The times, they suxored !!! >>"...the GN. ....I love this car but did Buick need to be the one selling it?"<< >>"Hell Chevy has a Cobalt SS but Pontic has a G5 with a what? I did not hear you!! Did you say a 2.4 4 cylinder that has no performanc about it?"<< Completely correct- this is ass backwards, still. Chevy above Pontiac, yet again. But this is the '00s; we all know how well things have been running this millenium (and in the '90s). Your points on the '80s Pontiacs I'll not take issue with. By then, yes; PMD was getting the cold shoulder.... but as you point out, to the betterment of Chevy. Whether that was PMD's fault, or GM's, I don't have the internal memos to determine, but again, if Corp was calling the shots, the MC SS should have the weaker engine, the GP the stronger. Got kind tough when GM killed of the Divisional GMs and the Divisional engine programs, tho... tends to point the finger right back at Corp, since Division was mostly a shell by that point. My points remain grounded in the WHEN, the facts -- depending on WHEN-- do not support these grandious, revisionistic extrapolations of Corp's problems, hypothetically stretched back thru the '70s, thru the '60s and into the '50s. >>"Sometimes they can tell you things you may not like but just because you don't like them does not make them wrong."<< Quite true. If I was disagreeing about -say- what the Board & DeLorean or MacDonald argued about, or who said what to whom and then who went behind who's back and did what... yes; that would be (in this case) uninformed arrogance. But if someone is going to say 'Pontiac didn't do "anything" WRT performance in a given year, yet there are specialty models, big blocks, european sedans, manual trans, movie placements, whathaveyou.... these aren't opinions, these are facts via product- inarguable. Could Pontiac have had higher performance in the 1970s? Sure, couldn't every car possibly named at a given time?? Chevy was sliding a 190HP 350 in the Corvette in '73, not sure it could turn a sub-8 sec 0-60... all from 'America's Sports car'. Was that the best they could do there ?? >>"Either case this story was his opionion and he has a right to it. And as such, is open to discussion. Facts, I don't argue.

Craigslist for a used one- get a better vice (if it's old enough) for much cheaper.

The Porsche 911 Carerra has always been slightly intriquing (GT is far too boy racer).