balthazar

The exterior has an unprecedented degree of fluidity for an Asian brand. I'd like to see some of the details fiddled around a bit, but it's fairly impressive overall. Wheel design is now quite tired. Hate the interior however, and that instrument panel is mad confusing...

Maybe your tools are just that crappy...

>>"If they had taken the 800 billion and spent it on roads, infastructure and building upgrades."<< While I'm not against improving infrastructure ... these jobs most frequently mentioned are all in one industry: construction. The white-collar financial world is crumbling into ruins- are data-entry & account managers expected to pour concrete & wire-tie rebar ?? In addition- roads, bridges & building upgrades are temporary jobs, and building upgrades in a time when more & more buildings are going empty sounds hopefully naive. If there's any chance for this 'spending bill' to actually produce measurable results, if it's truely designed with real efficiently in it, you'd think the same people would be able to articulate specifically how... much, much better than they have to date.

>>"We had a receptionist at work who had a mid-90s vintage DeVille who loved the car, but would tell me that every 2 months, she had an expensive power accessory go out that cost at least $ 400 to repair."<< So, the same problems her particular car may have had are present in subsequent DTSs a decade later ??

Upon reflection, I come to realize my initial impression of "snow tires" is the heavy, blocky, knobby, truckish tires RWD cars used in the '70s/'80s, yes; occasionally studded. Picture a -say- a Crown Vic with these on all 4 corners : In the 14 years I drove my RWD F-150, I never put snow tires on it of any sort: I don't even own a set. I've been thru snow above the rockers in it without getting stuck. More recently however, a 'snow tire' seldoms appears to be such, to the degree the aforementioned ones always clearly were; they're much more akin to street tires at a side glance. Here's one, for example: I suspect, as is usually the case, marketing has poked it's nose into the snow tire world, too... and tho there very well may be a detectible difference in their traction performance vs an OEM street tire, the 2nd tire pictured above still pales in traction to the 1st. Call the 1st one a 'real snow tire', if you like. Truthfully, I don't begrudge anyone who feels more confident in using modern 'snow tires', even 4 of them. Just wanted to clarify what I was picturing...

Back at being a blade jockey? Plenty of time there to muse over the world's itches. Just about 8 hours behind the wheel for me last night / this morning. -- -- -- -- -- It's easy to run to an extreme on the matter (>>"...retreating to complete economic nationalism..."<<), but there are a thousand degrees of 'in-between' before we went that far. Japan is far more isolated economically & culturally than the U.S., yet even they are not 'completely isolated'. No one is advocating a worse-case scenario.

But without nationalism first, how are people going to develop pride in producing in the U.S. ?? That pride will overcome some of the 'disadvantages' associated with things such as 'higher prices for U.S.-made goods", but it needs to be motivated first somehow. Tech & other methods of production are readily available for observation/emulation without most of the so-called "free trade" we current endure.

If you need 4 friggin' snow tires on a RWD car to make it thru the snow, you STILL don't know how to drive RWD in the snow.

>>"what do you expect with most of the teachers teaching our kids being lefties? start em young.....and then it gets worse at university level. you won't ever see any nationalist movement any time soon, because the educators in general in this country push left. why do you think so many rights send their kids to private school? even if they can barely afford it?"<< Oh; what I expect is what's happening, and exactly for the reasons you list. Doesn't make it right or for the better. >>"...the world is too interconnected now, we cant be overly isolated."<< Maybe not, be we can be more isolated than we are now, which is not at all. Besides, the quotes I posted don't point to isolationism, they point to nationalism. However, it may very well take some degree of isolationism to return to a degree of nationalism.

>>"I disagree with you, I would take it over either of these two cars. As a person who is 6'6" tall and 275, My boss drives an s500 and a fellow engineer here has an A8 and I am not comfortable in either of them when they drive. Big German will stick with his Big American Luxury SUV."<< I've seen this, too : friend bought a brand new S430, circa '02. Next 2 subsequent purchases ?? - loaded Tahoes LTZs. Absolutely loves them. >>"The Escalade has it's place, but it is by no means a flagship model. A flagship should never be based on a Chevy platform. "<< You're stuck in the '80s. There's no such thing as a "Chevy platform (frame)", esp. in the case of trucks. Everything has been corporate for years. If you meant 'the same frame also used by Chevy'.... not sure anyone outside of hardcore spec enthusiasts would know this, 'cause it certainly has not harmed either sales or the rep of the Escalade.

Is there much difference 'twixt a 1500 & 2500 other than suspension ?? Aren't they much closer mechanically than a 2500 & a 2500HD (which is closer to a 3500 than a 2500) ?

>>"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country."<< --- Theodore Rosevelt, New York City, October 1915 >>"I believe in nationalism as the absolute prerequisite to internationalism. I believe in patriotism as the absolute prerequisite to the larger Americanism. I believe in Americanism because unless our people are good Americans first, America can accomplish little or nothing worth accomplishing for the good of the world as a whole."<< --- TR In my personal opinion, tho I am not a student of the intricacies of the term or the practice, it is liberalism that has played a tremendous role in allowing 'hyphenated Americanism' to undermine the fabric that used to bind this country together. Sure- there are numerous other factors and contributors, but -again; IMPO- liberalism has consistantly pushed Americans to look abroad, to chastize & blame ourselves for who we are, to continually atone for who we are, to work toward the towering blame we've accumulated at nearly every turn at the undeniable cost of that 'American fabric'. -- -- -- -- -- One more ~ >>"If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs."<< --- Theodore Rosevelt, January 1897 Upon reading this, can anyone NOT be driven to consider the current direction of politics governing this nation ??

>>"Twitter in plain English ..."<< Ahh, it's even more inane that I could've suspected. 'I missed my bus'; read by 1 or 10 dozen other people, fixated by the Meaningless and wasting even more of their unproductive time not already taken up by blogging, e-mail, cell phones, blackberrys, & message boards. The only new thing about twitter is that it's tailored for those with attention spans too short to read beyond the "a" in "fixated" in this very post. God, think how many of the world's problem's solutions could be advanced if people were actually able to apply their attention & 2 hands to them, instead of "drawing closer" to their "friends" in cyberspace. I smell a cyber bubble coming. Prediction: Mini-Twitter, with a max of 70 characters, and Nano-Twitter, with a max of 35.

Camino / longtooth/ et al : Count me in. It amazes me we can cut off our own feet merely to appease others internationally, and shrug our shoulders at the same time like there's no other way. I've been waiting/hoping for a new line of thought like this for years. Sign me up.

pffft- the Stationette owns the Martinette up & down (but it's a '48). -- -- -- -- -- '41 Chrysler Thunderbolt retractable coupe - 6 built : 1937 Hunt House Car :

So... the answer is that in their future, everyone IS retarded, right ? I mean, how many more ways can we invent to disassociate & unrelate to the people around us IN THE SAME ROOM ? {snif} Smell that ?? Yep, thought so; it's P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S (sing it, Aretha!)

For the same price or lower, you can get a V-6 RC/LB Silverado with known over-engineering, longevity and resale. The only thing this has going for it in reality is the (in 'normal' times) fact it's foreign. >>"the trucks will finish assembly at a plant in Ohio to avoid high import taxes."< Bullsh!t self-castrating laws! Know how many billions has twirled down the drain from this galaxy-sized tax loophole ??

Heard on the news today that the more expensive mercedes & BMWs in Germany are starting to get torched as signs of conspicuous consumption. Which is really weird since the majority of those brands in Germany are taxis, police cars & fleet vehicles, you know; 'working class' vehicles. Wacky Germans.

>>"Where was this review of the GTO a few years ago? Instead it got compared to Mustangs."<< Most of the woefully outmoded 'journalist' think is to still compare vehicles based largely on country of origin, or at least U.S.><U.S. and foreign><foreign. Seems for most of them, news of a largely & increasingly global market hasn't reached them yet. >>"And who'd have ever thought we'd see teh day a Hyundai doing a burnout? Let alone from teh rear wheel! For building this car, I salute them."<< I thought you could look past the badge- as in: it doesn't matter.

Looks fat & bloated. Euro regs are giving it increasing generic FWD proportions, too.

Apparently Pontiac had a successful fire sale of leftover GP steering wheels...

God, XP, that '57 in your sig is f**king gorgeous {quickly saved to HD}! Know who built it ?

Well, if such were to pass unilaterally, it sure would suck really hard for millions of vintage vehicles !! Besides- I sure don't see much underhood 'hotrodding' going on with modern vehicles beyond CAI kits and chips. BFD. I had better get to ordering my Lunati cam soon....

>>"Why does this Vette have extra tailights?"<< The '63 Gran Sport Corvettes had 6 taillights. In fact for a split second I thought of those (6) factory race cars. I believe that's the inspiration for the trend back then.