balthazar

NM is pretty arid- sheetmetal should be fine- I certainly don't see a lacey lower edge to it. What will be a memory is any cloth & rubber- tho that is easily replaced.

62, seemingly.

May have been true in the past, but I would have to believe BMW today builds far more for Americans than Germans, most of whom know BMWs there as rental cars. So... how many cupholders do BMWs have in 2009? -- -- -- -- -- RE: FWD ... I'm no fan of FWD, having only owned RWD (or 4WD) over 20 vehicles, but you have to admit the numbers don't quite support your contention : .................................Lateral....Slalom .................................g............mph BMW 530i...................0.82.........63.0 Oldsmobile Aurora......0.81.........63.6

That's what called a 'rebate', I do believe. hyundai dealer near me is advertising making a full year's payments- the deals on hyundais are crazy anymore. No wonder they're eeking out a tiny sales gain, but what it's doing to the books is the question?

Progressive Utility Sedan. It's no more hideous than the rest of the increasingly-trucky lineup IMO, but the continued assault on every single segment of the market only dilutes the brand. This is what - the 5th SUV/crossover-type vehicle; enough's enough already.

Cheap, easy to engineer repro parts for completely worthless cars no one wants: :rotflmao:

I'm going to revise my opinion on this Corvette. The lowness/proportion of the car is exotically extreme, and the bird's eye view is 100% fantastic, but I do agree with those that found the front grille & the radical fender contours distasteful/ overwrought.

Hilton Head Sports & Classic Car Auction : Lot# 85, 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Tri-Power Convertible, est selling price: $125,000-$150,000. 2008 Barrett-Jackson Auction : 1959 Pontiac Catalina Convertible, the 'Pink Lady' SO car, belonged to Harley Earl's wife, sold: $225,000. 35 years ago, you'd have a hard time getting $7500 for the same cars. :rotflmao:

>>"Honestly I look at it as an engineering marvel, not in the sense of its complexity but in sense of actually solving some hard problems yet keeping it simple and cheap."<< I think you are taking this out of the context of history. This car, spec-wise, is not anything new, but a return to minimalist transportation, a concept executed countless times thruout automotive history but numerous marques. IMO, tho, it's highly overdue here in the U.S., but government regulation will no longer allow anything remotely close to this.

Not sure I can embrace the '66 Pontiac-esque RR fender contours here, but overall it's pure sex. Also- took long enough for an automotive emblem to surpass the Viper's in coolness, tho that was not an easy task...

It bounces around a bit stylistically, and I think that's also part of the rejection in addition to the 'skim over' impression (not to mention the expectation built up over all these years), but it does work together pretty well once you get into it.

>>"Ultra rare Lincoln. Aluminum body. One of a very very small number."<< I know where there's an aluminum-bodied '33 Model KB V-12- gorgeous restoration. Not sure which model it is, but the owner tells me there were only 15 originally built. >>"Jaguar. Don't know the year, but looks pre-war enough."<< Well -snif- being it's a jag, and all that that stylistically implies.... could be a '73. >>"The Lincoln's headlights are awkward, the grille says late 1930s but the headlights, nice as they are with their reverse teardrop covers, say 1941."<< Agreed. In actuality, that's a Model K, largely unchanged '36-39. Same guy who owns the '33 has a '39 limo. I love the whole face of this gen Model K, including the headlights. If they were not so well integrated, I could see an arguement against them, like -as you mentioned- the Pierce-Arrow's. >>"Just make sure Balthazar does not see it, those recesed grilles are not to his liking."<< Well, they are aesthetically idiotic.

>>"That's crazy. Did you attempt to buy it?"<< Couldn't- it was rollin' one way & I was rolling another. Saw one of those FWD-proportion ferrari 360s drive by as I was workiong off the tailgate of my truck today. As it droned off into the distance, the audio impression was none other than one of those commercial leaf blowers on wheels - I thought these things were supposed to produce some sort of mechanical symphomy ... BFunimpressiveD. I remember standing in the garage of a house I was working in a few years back, with a couple of Italian immigrant painters. The ex-husband comes out of the house and climbs into his ferrari 355 spyder, starts it (rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat) & drives off. The one painter asks me to affirm I am in love with it, to which I reply 'its sounds like an old Plymouth starting up'. Mystically, he made as if personally insulted at that. Perhaps it's not enough of a sampling to go by, but these 2 up-close exposures failed completely to cement the supposed religious experience I hear so many pre-teens say I should be having in the presense of a ferrari.

My son picked the CD up about a month ago - at first listen-thru I was like, 'it's crap', but then select riffs began bouncing around in my head.... it's been 'checked on' in iTunes and it repeatedly popped up in autoplay during my nightly surfing. Been listening to the album repeatedly for about a week now, and am finding it increasingly... infusing. Where as I would've given it an initial '4' on a 1-to-10 scale, I now see the result of a lot of work on Axl's part. Have to say I like it overall- it's won me over. Anyone bothered to listen to more than the occasional radioplay?

>>"Access to the "Rated R" forum."<< I thought the Lounge pretty much was already rated R... to the point this perk needs at least a cursory definition/description, IMO, ie; what's this expected to consist of? >>"Ability to request free upgrade to the "Politics and Social issues" forum."<< Ahh, that's why this 'isn't ready'. Too bad this has been deemed 'too hot to handle' for the general membership, I'll miss peeking over the fence into CrazyTown. Sorry, boys; I have no spare change for websites- I'm scrabbling for dimes & nickels as it is. Already dumped half of my subscriptions and wearing my clothes to a doubled hole count. I'll have to stick with the riffraff in steerage.

>>"now you are contradicting yourself"<< Not at all. I said a car & a truck aren't functionally different, ie; they both drive, carry stuff & people and go the same places (lets stay on pavement here). But to look for the same degree of padding this & soft-touch that in a truck, a usually much bigger truck, means that all the money spent there comes OUT of the rest of the vehicle, giving you the same degree of chinzy tinfoil sheetmetal and barely-engineered mechanicals cars are built with - not good when a truck is often stressed well beyond manufacturer's recommendations. That's the physicality of a truck vs. a car... the other thing I was addressing is the idea that a truck should only be used like a truck, as opposed to a car. I don't get that: trucks can do both (be used as a car or a truck), a car only one. Truck wins.

About 2 years ago I saw a guy in a tiny river-side town with a stock, worn, baby&#036;h&#33;brown '40 Willys coupe as a daily driver. As a DD, the age didn't bother me, but the rarity, desirability and value of it as is, did.

Anecdotal observations should be noted as such, IMO. I drive my truck to work everyday, too; is it supposed to only sit in the driveway when I'm not hauling and/or towing ?? If you cannot see lumber, etc sticking out over the tailgate, am I using it like a car ?? Or are your observations based on the building's function you see these in the parking lots of, ie; a pick-up in a software company's lot is "being used like a car" ? A truck is functionally no different than a car- except it has no trunklid. No reason in the world that whomever wants to commute in a truck should not do so.... what; because it can do more than a car it cannot also do what a car does? There certainly are a fascinating bunch of interesting associations & assumptions WRT 'proper' useage of different vehicles...

Saw a solid driver '55 Chevy 4-dr sedan (maybe a Two-Ten), multi-colored blue paint & primer, but straight and sitting on fat blackwalls w/ 5-slots. '65 Buick Wildcat hardtop fastback, bright red, ... couldn't make much out thru the shrubs it was parked behind.

Neither- plaid insulated. Not sure if either my answer, or your question, really means anything... but feel free to probe further.

Steel, not concret... oops.

The above bugatti's grille is pushed back into the car a foot & a half, well behind the headlights. It's barely viewable even at this quarter view. Obscures the vehicle's ID & 'face', and envokes the image of a car impacting a pole. Requires a utilitarian 'spreader bar' to keep the fenders from vibrating too much, and nessitates bland flat sheetmetal panels to close off the front fenders to the grille. It's just... wrong on many levels. I'm would like to think the exposed, riveted sheetmetal edges were a stylistic choice rather than a construction neccessity, because I actually like the rivets... but I'm doubting it. Not sure why the front fenders are higher than the rears- weird. Headlights are kinda just... plopped there. Body is militairly slab-sided, and I don't care for the visual tension the side glass makes touching the radius of the rear fender at some angles. Choices though these may have been, they are not examples of what I would call fantastic styling. -- -- -- -- -- Define 'detailing', 68, please. To my eye, there is far more of it, -say- here: