balthazar

$40K is still in the thick of many segments, 100K is well beyond most of them.

There is no one currently on GM's BoD from M-L (tho there are 2 members new in '07) : http://www.gm.com/corporate/investor_infor...p_gov/board.jsp B-H A 52-wk high was 152K, now it's 116K. Everything is down. So you would prefer to take investment advice from Buffet- go ahead. As one man, he's obviously accomplished a great deal and you would probably do well. But -as with M-L- I'm sure he too has never claimed to be infallible. But if all business news was clear & open, there never would be wild daily swings in price- released info changes the picture continuallly. EX: BK A was down $2050 today. BTW- I've read analyst's predictions that Buick was soon to be dead since the '80s... for whatever that's worth.

GM was sold & re-organized in Canada???? Boy, your computer gets overhauled over the last 2 days and you miss HUMONGEOUS news. The Camaro will officially be Canadian because it's assembled there when BMWs are officially American because they're assembled in South Carolina.

>>"I think they only made 7 with air total and out of the 7 two 4 speeds came with air out of the 35 4 speeds cars."<< LS-5, 3-spd manual : 7 units LS-5, 4-spd manual : 1051 units LS-5, 3-spd automatic : 1386 units # of '71 Firebird LS-5s (455HO) built : 2,444. His car is one of 1051, further breakdown WRT A/C will not affect value notably- it's all wrapped up in that LS-5. Car is beautiful, design is incredible, engine is formidable. $59K is certainly not out of the question, and yes: $40K is too cheap. Comps would be the '73-74 SD455 or the '70 RA IV (which as a T/A is a 6-digit car in top shape).

On another note- it's this sort of exact thing that is no longer present in today's market, and it was a major factor in the unraveling of the industry. A Chevy was unlikely to have power equipment - it cost money and Chevy buyers were by & large on a strict budget. Whereas in a Cadillac you could expect a full compliment of the latest amenities. And so it went. Today we have the whiners and gripers moaning 'Just because I bought a cheap-assed econoturd, I should still have NAV & power everything and dual A/C... and did I mention NAV?' Now we have a worldwide industry so hopelessly choked with overlap we'll never straighten it out. Now so many are demanding & self-entitled, the only reason to 'move up' in the heirarchy is so your neighbors know by looking you spent more. What's the point?

In '68, only 3.6% of Impalas had power windows. Jump over to Pontiac (full-size) and it's 21%. Olds Delmont 88 : 4%. Buick Wildcat : 27%. Cadillac had power windows as standard equipment in '68. Interesting disparity >> Pontiac was slotted below Olds, but it's my belief that Pontiac buyers on average spent more money on optional equipment in this era, because the average Pontiac buyer viewed the car as something quite special- they had a very enthusuastic pool. Logically, Pontiac's PW take rate should be in line with the others w/ respect to their position : Chevy @ 3%, Pontiac at maybe 10%, Olds at maybe 15%, Buick at maybe 25%. I've owned 7 full-size Pontiacs from this era (actually: '64-66) and 2 of them had PW.

Thanks- I have been over there since I posted and found that same passage. That site has really been expanded in the last year or so- great stuff.

Now you're confusing things (or maybe just me) GMTG. As you posted w/ the "GM Folks" cover, the Futurliner was first built circa '41, and the site calls that the FuturLiner G1. The one that GM is calling a '53 is what the site refers to as a FL 'G2'. The '36 is the StreamLiner. What I now need to know is what is the bus HE posted????? ...Oh fine- you edited.... :/

Humanity sure isn't getting any smarter... And for those of you seeing the larger picture in utter dismay, brace yourself for the potential Socialist Tsunami of all time heading our way.

>>"haha well if u look at my signature, you'll notice, that someone said pontiac will be dead in 5 years, and you said:"<< You should have included the whole passage- once or twice I've wondered what the hell my response was in response to. I still don't see your point about the M-L article and what you posted after it. Prolly just me- my brain's fried.

{...reads more, as he should have earlier....} OK- the first generation were built circa 1940. The 12 were minorly restyled (given steel roofs to keep from frying the drivers) and re-powertrained in '53. I've never seen any indication any of the Streamliners have survived, XP- one would think if anywhere- there would be mention of that on that site.

I don't see any correlation between (alledgedly) pushing shaky investments and making a statement on whether something in the business world is possible or not. "Market is collapsing." does not specifically say the 'auction-rate securities market'.

Not that I don't dig it, man, because I do; but that above is what I refer to as the '59 LeMans, it was updated in '59 by GM Styling with quad headlights, a pancaked hood and '55-56-esque Eldorado 'shark' fins (plus the quarter scoops were added). I love the original with it's domed hood, dual headlights & the 'hump' fins. And this is -IMHO- simply one of the most beautiful, stylistically-divine rear ends ever penned:

>>"2 foot tall A-frame engine mount holding a RADIAL motor from an aircraft of the same era... My most original idea ever. Came up with it years ago while on a roadtrip down south."<< Chrysler built & tested a small Airflow-esque coupe with a radial engine circa '33- I posted pics here as a trivia question a few years ago.

That would be incredible. '53 LeMans is the highlight for me, tho I crave them all. I had a secret dream that GM would pull some long-missing concepts from out of dusty warehouses for the 100th, dropping jaws thruout the hobby. '55 EB Motorama car, the '56 Golden Rocket, '54 Cutlass are just a few that would be fantastic to see. One thing that puzzles me here is I've seen references numerous times (and here it's sourced from GM) that the Futurliner is a '53, when all 12 were built circa '41 as far as I've seen. Unless identical copies were built thru the years & into the '50s.... If the case, an identical copy of a '41 should still be, in hgistorical context, called a '41, IMO.

How about you take a huge, be-finned '50s hardtop coupe, give it race car underpinnings and a honking V-8 with circa 600 horse? Oh waitaminnit..... Seriously, I'd love to clone a '50s concept car, the original '53 LeMans or the '56 Eldorado Brougham prototype would be fantastic... Or the center-driver Tucker concept with the turning fenders...

And there you nailed it, DF (tho no one beyond a professional competitor will ever notice any differences in pillared vs. hardtop rigidity/weight). So where are our hardtops??

>>"Would you rather it not have the fender flares so the fat tires stuck out of the body like one of those Mexican customs?"<< Is tastefully integration & moderation too much to ask ??

>>"Hardtops are nice to look at and fun, but in reality, with air conditioning, how often do most drivers really drive around with all the windows down? Not to mention a HT Camaro would weigh as much as the convertible, and the coupe as it is is no lightweight..."<< WTH is the point of rolling down all 4 windows in a post-sedan... so how do you have any idea how many hardtop owners would roll down all 4 windows ?? Why bother making the rear windows in any sedan roll down, since all cars have A/C now? Think how popular that would be.... but it's the same dismissive attitude that states 'why bother' RE hardtops. Sounds a lot like 'how often do most drivers drive around with items in their trunks?' as a reason to not bother with trunks (read that sentiment many times RE pickups). These are not 'realities', they are individual preferences. As design progress irreversibly stagnates... 'little' touches like hardtops are going to HAVE to be played again, to keep any sort of interest going. It's not going to come from new directions in body envelope design. And no: a hardtop would not have to weigh as much as a convertible.

>>"Such a missed opportunity to make the new Camaro truly over the top stunning.....just making it a hardtop."<< Absolutely true. The willingness of the 'constructive criticism' crowd to accept the morph to sedan on the production 'maro is puzzling to me to say the least... yet wearisome diatribes on the softness of lower dash panels exist in spades in the archives of this very site.

>>"...one look at the reviews show just how much of a performance car this is..."<< And to my point- how much performance was added by the huge fender flares, spats and flutes? Ahh, that's right: none. >>"...their styling "add-ons" look the part: tacked on. I believe that's basically what Balthazar was saying..."<< Just about- they look cheap & out of place on a mercedes. They are as functional as a fake hood scoop. But mostly they look cheap. >>"...a Mercedes tunned by AMG with a handbuilt motor..."<< As irony would have it, while flipping thru the satellite menu, just as I stopped on Top Gear, the remote fell into the couch cushions as I dug for it frantically. Blockhead was testing an AMG CLK. What stood out to me was the fact that he made a point of the "handbuilt" claim, and the other dweeb on the show asked, "How many AMG engines does mercedes sell in a year?" Blockhead: "Eighteen thousand! That's like 100 units a day!" {{It actually works out to about 70, but BH's answer is typical of the "entertainment"-biased accuracy of the show.}} Clearly, they were both highly dubious of the handbuilt claim at that torrid pace- seeming to imply that perhaps the 'handbuilding' consisted of gluing their plastic signature badge on the plastic engine cover. Frankly, tho the power/performance seems impressive without question (tho the mercedes' Electro-Nanny still modulated the brakes even tho the car was in 'sport 2' setting, causing them to overheat and flash a dash warning...), at 100 engines a day, there must be VERY VERY minimal hands-on 'building' going on, regardless of what mercedes claims.

It's riced by mercedes, and looks like ass, picture or in person. These are supposedly classy, thoroughbred cars, not boy-racer jobs. None of those 100s of lbs of plastic do Thing 1 for performance. If the flares were squared off- they'd be straight off a Jeep. The factory hardttop is a nice look, well done (tho nothing new), takes the stuffiness out of M-B. And the stock clk is a clean, pleasant design- it's just the over-the-top plasti-bling of the amgs which drag it down to RicerTown.

Those benz fender flares are God-awful, as are the cheap-o black plastic inserts and grillemesh. Who asked for all that bloated plastic ?? Cut off roofline, replace everything below it.

>>"All it has different is a back up camera, and the touch release doors"<< Everything behind the A-pillar is unique; what's this crap about only the backup camera & door handles and it's the sedan?? It's pretty easy for bmw to pull a relatively mild re-do on a 2-dr sedan, 4-dr sedan and a wagon when those body shells have been engineered years ago (yet it still took the better part of 2 years from the 2-dr to the m3) , Cadillac did not have these bodies engineered already to just slap new sheetmetal stampings on, yet their timetable is still nearly identical to bmw's. IMO- it's bmw that's "behind" here- they had a head start.

I think Camino is right on. EVERYTHING is too heavy nowadays, the harping on GM alone is not justified (yea; it's a GM board...) - Camaro, as a much larger car, is still 500 lbs lighter than a 2-seat mercedes AMG- which by rights should weight 3200 but somehow is 4400. That's 400+ lbs heavier than my iron block/head long bed F-150. In the same breath, people scab-pick at a GM's weight yet lambast the same car for no sunroof or NNAAVVVV.