balthazar

I'd like to see a number of extended deck phantoms, either close-coupled or true coupes. '58 or '60 Series 62 or a '64 GP. Picture a 2-dr hardtop '60 Cadillac, but with no rear seat & the backlight moved up 2 feet. Love the short hood / long deck look... ie:

The GM divisions toyed around with numerous 4-dr convertibles. ^ '66 Chevy Caribe', XP-834. Same name, different take - how many had heard of the '68 Camaro Caribe' : I hadn't. SO MUCH GM history trickling thru the cracks over the years........ :mad:

And how does sales volume have anything to do with judging the 2 actual cars vs. each other??

>>"Equinox, BRX, 9-4X, Terrain should all come in at 4000 pounds in AWD trim if GM knows what they are doing, but I predict closer to 4500."<< BMW x6 AWD (192", 66" tall) weighs 5300. What a bloated pig. Guess they really don't know what they're doing. >>"A Vue V6 awd is heavier than the current SRX..."<< Vue AWD is listed as a separate model- 3.5L AWD (180") weighs 4325. RWD V6 model weighs 4076. AWD does not determine an SRX model- it is an option, therefore, all SRX (195") weights are listed in RWD configuration, and there it weighs 4164, or MORE, not less.

>>"Need pics of that '65 vert Camino! "<< Close: \ -- -- -- -- -- -- "XP-725 : Special hardtop coupe/ sedan/ convertible station wagon" Ummm... WHAT?!?!

It certainly is a hot lil' coupe. Love the center exhaust- think it'll be maddingly and inexplicably 2" off-center like BMW used to consistantly do? Nah, I don't think so either. Also refreshing to see it's not a simple '4-door sedan w/ 2 doors', like the stuffy 3-series 2-dr. Yep- bummed it's not a hardtop, guess I shouldn't ever expect to see one from GM again if this isn't going to be one. Wouldn't come anywhere near close to being a deal-breaker for me, tho, were I in the market.

>>"...maybe two of those motors on a common crank..."<< A lil' JB Weld and you're motorvatin' ! Just within B-59s: I love to build a 'Estate Coupe' pickup, an extended deck Electra 225 with the XP-706 double-bubble rear glass, and the XP-75 Skylark 2-seat coupe.

Ahh, you make an excellent point, grasshopper. By default (& experience), I think in RWD engineering terms. Tho they do have an..... exhaust tunnel, FWD cars' transaxles are ahead of the firewall. GM does not 'push' the fact that the DTS & Lucerne (and the rest here on Gilligan's Isle) have 'only' 4 speeds, I doubt it plays much at all w/ most consumers. I'm curious- do you think the many sedans that still 'push' 5-spds lose sales to those with 6-spd? Are people really buying cars with 'number of transmission gears' as a primary factor? Some cars have 7 or 8-spds... are the 6-spds struggling against them? This issue gets greatly overweighted, IMO. Still, it's obviously only a matter of moving a few items around- we're not talking about an Allison trans in an Aveo; there HAS to be room for the 6-spd in a DTS- it's the largest car GM builds.

And grif cleanly demonstrates the fallacy of taking full stock of 'percent' figures. Good info.

Who "worships" toyota ??? More generic, one cannot get. Fins may be the single coolest contribution to autodom... ever. Thanks, Cadillac.

Let's boil this down- the G-Body requies a larger trans tunnel & a different trans mount provision. It does not require an entire platform redesign. They choose not to do this (tho it very well may be money that's the issue). Once you put the numbers pissing match aside, GM's 4-spd auto is still butter smooth, dead reliable and completely unobtrusive. It still may pay a tiny penalty in MPG, however. I'm not a huge proponent of mega-gears due to weight/ cost/ complexity. Current GM autos go like this: 4-spd = 3-spds + 1 OD 5-spd = 4-spds + 1 OD 6-spd = 4-spds + 2 OD I have the Allison 5-spd auto in my 2500HD, excellent trans. My brother has the Allsion 6-spd in his 3500, and the shift quadrant shows which gear you're in at the touch of a button. It never goes into 6th except cruising on level highways. Ratios 1-5 are identical, but his has a lower-still OD 6th gear.... yet his transmission is supposedly 'betterer' or 'more moderner' because it has 'more'. 4T80E (DTS) -- 2.96 | 1.62 | 1.0 | .68 5L40E (CTS) -- 3.46 | 2.21 | 1.59 | 1.0 | .76 6L50E ---------- 4.02 | 2.36 | 1.53 | 1.15 | .85 | .67 That's a big ratio change, 4-spd >< 6-spd- tho pure highway mileage is not going to go up noticably with the same OD gear. Theoretically, with today's wider & flatter torque plots, all these gears are even less neccessary, but I realize it doesn't play that way in the real world. I suspect electronics play a major role there.

Chained to the grindstone is 'freedom' ??

HarleyEarl- >>"Up until about the mid fifties, you could barely tell the difference between a Pontiac and a Chevrolet. When you look at Pontiacs pre 50s, they almost look like rebadged Chevrolets. "<< PLEASE don't even suggest this !! All the detractors need is a gentle nudge to extend their 'rebadge' griping back another 2 or 3 decades. I don't have the heart to endure the wildfire bashing should such an idea gain traction. The cars are completely unique aside from a very minimal percentage of shared parts (5% ??).

This one is pretty close to me.... why-O-why couldn't it be a '58 ??? Brings back memories of Ol' Faithful- the family's '77 Catalina Safari - different gen body but same basic dash. It's far too new, and pillow-tuffed velour upholstery just doesn't do it for me. Also not nuts to see an Olds motor in there (not that Pontiac had much better to offer by '81.... tho a Turbo 301 would slip right in). I'll have to pass.

>>"This car had an economical four cylinder engine which was as tough as old boots - it simply ran and ran and ran. I've heard stories from North America, Australia and Europe of these cars running even with barely any oil in the sump. Compared to other manufacturers from America and Europe back in the 70s and 80s, nobody came close in this segment."<< Never heard of the Slant Six, huh? Nor the small-block Chevy?

Of course, now that car over 35 years old.... rubber out in the elements / atmosphere isn't guaranteed to last that long.

>>"I hate the big brake pedal you have to lift your left leg up high (I have long legs) to engage, and the hand brake usually takes up a lot of space in the console area."<< So there's no more console parking brake handle w/ EB? That's worth it right there, perhaps. Foot parking brakes are perfectly fine with me. Instead of adding needlessly complicated electronics to a simple mechanical assembly, engineers should design a system where the pedal travel is 'geared up' and thusly doesn't have to move as far. Simple and never burns out.

>>"One thing that's cool.. electronic parking brake."<< Why, exactly, is this 'cool' ?

Is it just me, or is design dead? mitsu looks like just about every other mitsu ; cheap & nasty.

>>"...I think three out of the five have leaked through the rear window, which is incredibly common for GM's from the 60's and 70's; it's the reason they all get water in the trunks and get that trademark GM rear window rot at the bottom corners as they age. "<< This is primarily an A-Body scenario. Don't forget, the A-Bodies were de-engineered from the B-Bodies- some details fell thru the cracks. None of my 7 '60s GMs had this issue.

>>"One would think that with the schedule you keep and the money you're making doing so, you may have enough saved at some point to retire a few years early, and end up having MORE goof-off time in the long run. "<< Well, that's a cheery wish, but (and I'm not against this neccessarily) I intend to work until I die. I can't sit around for long- I get antsy. Was on a job a few years ago- the electrician had his father working with him, ran around, full of energy, easily doing as much as anyone else there. 81 yrs old. That'll be me. No, the more hopeful think is: I may be able to save enough to pay someone else to finish it. It's pretty straighforward from this point on.

You have to be more specific. Most all-encompassing sites suck due to the scope- they lack the hardcore info. You need to pick-n-choose based on one brand at a time.

>>"That is a F*CKING awesome ride in your signature!!! "<< Kicks ass, don't she? P-59.

I feverently hope that 'Invicta' will be earmarked for a flagship sedan, not an entry-level one. ...unless Buick is considering reissuing 'Electra'; then I'm fine with it.

>>"Like I said, my only thing about a hardtop that I have to ask since I havent ever owned one is how well do they seal out water from a carwash or a very heavy rain? "<< Vintage cars are fine- they have rain gutters / slight overhangs and they were engineered correctly. Some cars, later on (can't recall which I'm thinking of - '70s) had more flush glass, and instead of the seal being on 'top' of the glass, it was more 'behind' it - I could see there possibly being problems with this later down the line. But I personally have never heard of hardtops leaking in a car wash as being a design problem - it would be more of a condition thing. GM always used to do a leak test as one of the final inspections (my '64 GP's paperwork lists this, handwritten, as 'OK').