balthazar

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).

I have a 3/8" MAC socket set, spotted it in the back seat of a blue '77-79 Impala in my favorite junkyard. I opened the door & reached in, praying the red plastic case would be heavy when I picked it up. It was (pays to keep your eyes open). I was just a kid, this was circa 1983, been my go-to set ever since- nothing in it has ever broken. BTW- it was notably used in '83. Bought 2 Husky metric sets about 5 years ago in a moment of relaxed standards, and have broken 3 pieces in it to date. Chinese garbage- never again. As I have pretty much all the hand tools I'll ever need, I haven't parused Sears much, but recently I noticed hand tools there packaged on brown cardboard with green printed labeling, called 'evolv" - all made in China. I have never held a Craftsman-branded hand tool that was stamped 'Made in china' - is this true? Ahh well, I have numerous toolboxes full already. Snap-On makes good stuff, plus a hadnful of really neat pieces, but it's all overpriced. The Kobalt stuff looks decent, but I'd like to test it's durability before laying out cash. The stuff I've held there has been USA made - wonder who makes it for them? I also have quite the mixture of hand tools, about 75% are used, older, and built pretty danged tough- no complaints. This past year I came into a large lot of Klein tools (primarily electrical: strippers, needle-nose, linesman pliers, side cutters, etc)- Klein makes a fantastic product that gets overlooked because it's usually over in the electrical aisle. All mine are USA made.

The GTX was driving by in the other direction at about 45 MPH, so the look-see was brief, but I was standing at the crub when the Goat rumbled by 2 feet from me at 5 MPH due to a construction zone. Car was clean enough to lick the length of and not taste dust. Hood tach, deck wing, trimring-less Rallye IIs..... hmmm, did I miss whether or not it was a Judge ?!!?

>>"Lets face it Pontiac only did good things when they broke the rules."<< The only 'rule' PMD broke was slipping the 389 into the GTO and calling the whole thing an option, getting around the internal Corp policy that the standard engined intermediate couldn't have more than 10lbs of vehicle weight per CI. The Engineering Policy Committee did not involve themselves with the specifics of options, so the GTO snuck under the fence as an option. Most of the rest of PMD's "good things" were on the up-n-up & by the book: FI, 3x2, 2+2, Wide-Track, GP, Firebird, RA, etc etc etc. Wangers isn't infallible. Paging thru his book Glory Days, I see a pic that always catches my eye- an 8-lug wheel (page 79). Caption claims "Pontiac was the first to offer a styled road wheel in 1960", yet you'd think Wangers would know that it was actually Cadillac that did this with the Sabre-Spoke of '55-58, esp since it came from the same company (Kelsey-Hayes).

All today: lambo glardo, primer grey ferrari testicleroaster (do you have to ask what color?) '70 GTX convertible, dark green, mint '70 Chevelle SS hardtop, white, mint '70 GTO, f'in flawless, Orbit Orange '69 El Camino, slightly rough but rollin '66 Biscayne 2-dr sedan, med blue, flawless, on a trailer, packing 14's with a 10.45 dial-in on the window (2) 1st gen Mustang coupes '63 Impala convert, bright red, mint 'My' lil Chevy dealer apparently tucks his '10 Victory Red Camaro inside when closed, saw it peeking out the service bay doors this afternoon.

>>"Jims point on the T-37 is if Pontiac was to be a upscales performance division why offer a decontented car? That was the job of the almost forgotten Heavy Chevy Chevelle. Chevy was your value leader. If you bought Pontiac it needed to be a step up from Chevy not down."<< When did Pontiac ever push it was "upscale from Chevy" ?? Pontiac always stood on it's own ground in the '60s & '70s (and into the '80s). And they've always traded on & off w/ Chevy WRT features over the years : the only 2 lines to get FI for '57-58, if you recall (Corvette continued it into the '60s). Mid '71 'Heavy Chevy' was NOT a decontented Chevelle- it added just over $100 MORE to a base Chevelle. It was a decontented Chevelle SS. Not comparable to the T-37, sorry. Car was a complete sales flop (6727 in '71, 9508 in '72 -- T-37 was 20K units in '71.5 alone) and was still less expensive than the T-37, tho they were quite close. But again; the Tempest was only 2% higher in price than the T-37, and the Tempest & Chevelle were close to begin with. Splitting hairs. But in this era, there was not much cross-divisional shopping at the showroom level. T-37 absolutely was a step UP from the Chevelle & awkwardly named Heavy Chevy Chevelle (an appearance/equipment package by itself), and the enthusiasts were drawn to the performance package the GT-37 represented, whereas before there was no Tempest line package (GTO = separate series). T- & GT-37 = success. Heavy Chevy = failure. >>"The Grand Am, 455 SD and 455 HO were too rare to really make a differance. "<< What the hell is this ?? Completely immaterial. It's a shield to deflect the fact that these performance offerings were there in the first place. Proof Pontiac was still building performance/sporty offerings, and it cannot be swept under the rug. BTW- GA sold nearly 71K units over it's initial 3-yr run. Ferrari sells nothing compared to everything else, it makes a difference to most. Immaterial. No- the blame is not with Pontiac, IMO; it's with Chevy. DeLorean was over at Chevy after Pontiac- he continued to push performance there, and it undermined Pontiac from below. Remember, if you accept that : what the hell were they doing with all those SSs and RSs and S-3s, etc ??? >>"Then the Tubo V6 TA [ You need to not confuse it with the 301] was a great car but again how many were made? "<< I was referring to the '80-81, not the '89. 'How many were made'?? Again- you are confusing Pontiac's focus with Chevy's- where crushing volume is the core focus. Doesn't matter how many of (either of) the Turbo T/As were built, the fact remains there WERE THERE for those who bought them. >>"GM spent too much time selling the tubo in the GN and GM let the TA just be another Chevy. Buick should have been a luxury car not a performance car. Pontiac should have been a performance car not a luxury car."<< Right- what a bunch of wasted time, effort & money building those thousands of GSs, GSXs, 442s, Chevelle SSs in this period - no profit or brand cache there. While I'll readily agree than Pontiac has been under-funded WRT advertising since the late '80s, you are still comparing (and condemning) Pontiac of the '70s & '80s by comparing it to Pontiac of the '60s. Interesting, but invalid. You & Wagners) also still fail to see Chevrolet's part in squeezing Pontiac out and bleeding over into most of the other divisions (including adapting Cadillac design cues for their '77 B-Body), all in the name of volume. Unfortunately, 'the same thing badged as a Chevy' will never ever come close to equalling the volume of everything else it has buried throwing it's weight around. Wagners has been bitter since being rebuffed by PMD / GM. By the late '70s, the company he was associated with (Evans) was primarily concerned with vinyl roofs. You can imagine his crushed pride....

>>"Performance built Pontiac in the 60's and 40 years of too little performance killed them."<< 40 years from now is 1968. Too long a span to claim performance was not given the proper attention. Try 30 and live with it. >>"Gave us decontented Chevys as a T-37."<< Wangers (or anyone else) cannot rewrite history. T-37 was in no way a 'decontented Chevy', and continuing to state such lies only perpetuates the myth that GM products have ALWAYS been 'badge engineered'. It's not accurate and it must stop. T-37 was only $67 cheaper base price than a Tempest- that was only 2% lower. It's meaningless, and does not belong in a list of 'where PMD went wrong'. If anything, the 455 GT-37 added performance image to the Tempest line, not subtracted it. However, MacDonald was not the firebrand PMD had had or needed. The rest of the PMD GMs were not as dedicated to the marque as those preceeding them, it's true, but PMD still was the premier performance division thruout the '70s- SD455, 455HO, W-72, these engines and a few others were still the go-to for performance & performance potential among GM. Camaro was struggling with only a 350 while the T/A was offering a 455! PMD is still not getting the credit due for the '73-75 GA- there you could get a 455/4-spd in a 4-dr sports sedan. Case can still be made for the Turbo T/A, which -tho not quick by today's standards... people quickly forget it was in the same realm as a ferrari 308. Tho the pure dedication of DeLorean, Estes & Malone was not recreated under later management, PMD product still served the Division's focus well into 1980s. Relative to earlier PMD product, it's easy to point fingers, but the '70s & '80s need to be compared to it's competition, not earlier Pontiacs. -- -- -- -- -- Not that I think it will neccesarily come to pass, but --as opposed to ,say, Oldsmobile-- a Pontiac niche model can always make a return, the heritage is so great and long-running. Performance will always have an audience, and with the Draconian view of tommorow's offerings, a re-emrgence of PMD has more chance of happening down the road than another other discontinued marque in history, IMO. The opportunity to once again be the 'bad boy' marque will only grow in the future.

No SS's; only 2 Chevys : '63 Nova convertible, '04 Silverado HD

Most hot rodders are just that nice RE other's feelings... that, and they don't consider a pruis worthy of the 2-3 gallons a dust-off would take. :wink:

Could work, need a break before the storm hits. Folks stopping by tomm for something grilled for dinner. Praying for 4 straight hours alone with the Buick.

>>"Mine would be mostly 2 1/2 hours of car chases, shoot outs, explosions, gratuitous lesbian sex scenes and to tie it all together, Samuel L. Jackson calling someone a motherf@#ker. Really, what more do you need? "<< Save me a center level, aisle seat and a jumbo popcorn, no butter slime !!

Pristine '66-67 Riviera, an Aqua color, flawless & rumbling. For me; was like one of you seeing an Enzo.

I looked into buying a '70 Polara 2-dr hardtop about 4 years ago, just because it had the Super-Lite option. Too pricey.

My Chevy dealer is tiny (circa 20-vehicle lot) but seems to move a lot of product over a wide-ish area w/ no other Chevy competition (since circa '55, too). I haven't heard either way. He has a Camaro for some weeks, but the dealer right up the road from me (Ford/Linc/Merc, B-P-GMC, Chevy/Cadillac) still doesn't have one.

3 or 4 individual guys' opinion, nothing more.

>>"Those are more common than you'd think. "<< Weird how I never caught any of those before hyundai's (maybe their ads just weren't quite as obnoxious), but OK.

Apparently you don't pay attention to the mainstream news channels; it's only GM that has recalls.

Wait... lessee if I have this right: An $80,000 car first offers a 6-spd auto in the U.S. in 2002, and GM is "way behind" for not offering one until what- 2007 ??? Golly.

circa '70 Nova coupe, burgandy, tubbed, flawless. '66-67 Riviera, gold, unrestored, a bit worn. '62 Ford F-100 UniBody, "Lymon" green, sharp cruiser. '58 Merc Turnpike Cruiser 2-dr hardtop, like a velvet dream, a pearlescent vision.

This is nothing new. Local dealers are advertising all sorts of unbelievable, outrageous deals ; one in my listening area was giving away a free '09 accent with the purchase of a leftover '08 santa fe !!! I don't recall GM ever offering a "2-for-1" deal. The hyundai dealers come off like a pack of slavering mongooses (or is that mongeese ??) You didn't actually think hundai sales were up because of PRODUCT, did you ??

>>"CAFE isn't calculated with consumer EPA figures, but rather pre-2008 MPG that hasn't been adjusted. The Camaro V6, which gets 23-mpg combined, achieves 29-mpg combined CAFE."<< Any more detail on this; me confuseded.