balthazar

Penske is not a manufacturer, he's a distributor/importer, right?, so no.

No; no Co. will ever gain 50+% of the U.S. market again- but that's not necessary on GM's part to contribute to the betterment of the nation.

Just wanted to point out: >>"the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- "<< 'Planned obsolescence' was STYLING oriented, not reliability/longevity oriented. When it came into fashion, American cars had excellent reliability. What a dumb douche.

Plenty of people said that about toyota circa 1965, and look how that turned out. Plenty of people said that about Ford circa 1905 and look how that turned out. In a business where a given product usually lasts only a few years, potential is constantly being re-evaluated. The parallels between automaking & -say- baseball are interesting- the 'team' gets renewed every X-number of years. Sure; many things are different, but we were talking about one specific statement. And the point is; time has not eradicated the ideal that Wilson stated in 1953. WERE General Motors to be performing in 2009 as it was in 1965, 'what was good for GM would be good for the country'. BTW: GM has already 'undone' a huge amount of mistakes it did as SOP decades ago. Or to borrow from your post, Cubitar: >>"What was relevant and true 30+ years ago isn't necessarily relevant in the modern world. The US of 2009 is a very different place than it was in 1979."<<

'57 210, $6K: '62 New Yorker 9-pass wagon, 693 built, $6K: '63 Meyers Manx, $6500:

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....