balthazar

Not a big racing fan. I recall this only vaguely: Petty left Mopar for 1 year, then returned (Hemi was initially banned after '64 & I know he had a '66 Belvedere). Don't recall to what he defected to.... was it Ford?

The article is right; lots of these specials were built- and not just for show. In the heyday, any GM division would build you just about anything you wanted if you kicked in a little extra $.

Good news! I spent far too much time in a passat last winter- besides being a bore-fest, it fell totally short of the 'VW hype' and had some really strange ergonomics. I'm disappointed that this article failed to bring up VW's market performance peaked almost 40 years ago and has fallen ever since, instead picking the very recent year of 2002, as if it's only been a few years of trouble. Ironic- tho I'm far from a VW fan, their recent funky ads and the current Golf finally were catching my eye. >>"...we all know that's not gonna happen. Neither Volkswagen nor any brand in its portfolio in this market is going anywhere... they're too firmly entrenched in America to seriously consider leaving."<< Ever hear of a little outfit called Oldsmobile? And they weren't losing anything close to the cash VW has been bleeding for years (Olds was still profitable in 2000 when the discontinuance was announced).

Sig car is a '59. Off the top of my head, it's either the 361 or the 383 that was shared across the B/RB families.

I recall there were only (2) ZL-1 Corvettes.

You misinterpret: the Toro and Eldo did not have 'sideways' mounted V-8s- they were mounted as RWD vehicles are: longitudinally, not transversely. But the chain drive THM425s were deathly silent and had incredible durability.... what about either wouldn't today's buyer accept?? There's nothing to object over.

Thanks for the correction- I misremembered the color scheme. Blue over white, with a silver & blue cloth/leather interior. I got the "sweet" part dead-on, tho!

It would be... if he was wrong.

Was in NYC a few months ago; shocked at the quantity of toyota sienna taxicabs there...

I just looked at a GP for sale today: my buddy told me it was an "SJX" , so I was hoping he mistakenly was referring to an SJ, which is a 455 car. Triple black and "really nice" turned out to be a Model J, rust under the vinyl top, rust coming thru the wheelwells, rusted Rallye IIs, torn-up interior with speakers cut into the console, no chrome plating left. Not what I was looking for.... tho I still do dig the '69-72 generation. On the book cover is one of what I own, a '64. They are by far the most beautiful of all GPs, and moreso than scores of other cars. BTW- Don Keefe does excellent work- the book should definately be worth the price.

[/i]>>"How about first 1hp per cubic inch for a domestic car- optional in the model line...?"<<[/i] 1956 Chrysler 300-B: 355 HP 354 Hemi >>"How about first 1hp per cubic inch for a domestic car standard for a model line....?"<< 1957 DeSoto Adventurer: 345 HP 345 Hemi.

The famous 1959 Eldorado Seville (2-dr hardtop) Murder Car recently sold at Barret-Jackson for, I believe, $260K. The guy was shot in it in '59, and it stayed in a climate-controlled warehouse since; it has 5xxx miles on it. Sweet triple-white car.

VERY disappointing that BMW cheaped out and did not engineer a 9-speed auto to regain the class lead. Lexus's 8-spd is already a few years old.

My father also calculated he got 32 out of his 3.8 '89 LeSabre a few highway trip times.

I have Vista Vision and I love it. Ooops, you guys are talking computers and I'm talking windshields...

What argument? The point was merely that the car is ridiculously, BOF SUV-y heavy, and there's no excuse for it. No one mentioned the DTS or TC here. The hybrid powertrain struggles so hard to move all that, that it's outperformed in accel & MPG by the gas-engined version, so WTF do you get for $120K? Not weigh-saving tech, that's for sure. Think of the numbers for this pig if it weighed 4250. Toyota's 'image' with hybrids is all about economy- that's the perception and that's the PR push. But this car counters that hyperbole 180-degrees. From a PR standpoint, not top mention on the backs of growing evidence the hybrids shortfall of their numbers is class-leading in that respect... the left hand of toyota doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing.

OK: RECENT sedans. But to fit the definition-- 'Americanizing' of sedans in the last 30 years has been overwhelmingly making them smaller & lighter. Toyota is doing the opposite in the last 30 years. Perhaps the lexes is 'Japanizing'...

A hunnert an twenty thousand dollars??? WTF does toyota smoke to think the hybrid version, with worse mileage and performance and no cargo room, is worth even $5000 more?? God, the hyperbole... which by the way is what most of their (radio at least) advertising is relying on now. >>"Americanization?"<< What American sedan weighs 5100 lbs? I'm with reg: for the ridiculous money both charged, and in the coffers in toyko, the ls should be all-aluminum and weigh no more than 4000. Slice a few billion of the ad budget and hire some more engineers.

My father worked for 40 years for the DOD as an aerospace engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Trenton. Last aircraft he worked on was the F-22 Raptor, before retiring.

Didn't the '71 wagons likewise get the Flo-Thru ventilation louvers on the tailgate, like the coupes/sedans? That should jog your memory about it being a '71 or not. Friend of mine had a '76 Estate Wagon into the late '80s at least and the clamshell still worked fine. Pretty positive it was the downsizig of '77 that killed the feature.

Did it take hyundai "maybe a decade of solid 1000 batting" to get to --say-- a Chevy or toyota-level of prestige?? And tha coming from a unilaterally wretched history of utter automotive garbage. Why does Buick, with traditional high quality, need this "decade" in your book??

>>"No one shopping for an LS will even consider a DTS. I'm not saying the DTS has no place at Cadillac (it does, as long as there's a market for it) -- just that it's nowhere near an LS, far less an S or a 7 or an A8. "<< Just an anecdote: My millionaire friend owned 2 Cadillacs (the 2nd a '96 Brougham), and replaced that one with an s-class. "Never again" he said firmly after a few trouble-laden years with the s-class, which he dumped just before the warranty ran out. He claimed he would go back to Cadillac instead, tho since then he's only bought fully-loaded Tahoes instead.

I was pedaling the 10-speed thru my neighborhood tonight around 8:30 PM, so it was getting darker than it should've been for a lightless-bike to be out, but I live on the edge that way. Saw something I remembered seeing in the early spring this year: a mercedes sedan parked on a quiet side-street in a line of cars, it's driver-side taillight & front parking light ONLY on. No one around, car locked up tight. I assumed it was some sort of convoluted safety device, a 'Look! My car's parked here in the dark!' sort of thing. Problem with that was that tonight I saw one of their R-minivans doing the same thing... in a residential driveway. Is this indeed a 'safety' feature? Is it optional, and can it be overridden... or does half the car's parking lights stay on all night long?

B-57 looks great so far, looks DONE in fact, from here! I remember lifting the corner of a tarp in a junkyard and seeing a BLACK '57 Bonne, rough but complete and still wearing it's emblems. Biker dude behind the counter interrupted my question with 'Don't even ask about it', and it promptly disappeared. That was a good 10 years ago and it has not surfaced yet. Supposedly there were only 2 or 3 factory-black '57 Bonnes. Not sure if you were being literal, but such was NOT the case in the U.S. : 1965 Pontiac, grand total: 802,000 units, 60,383 wagons, 1971: 586,xxx units, 39,xxx wagons. Chevy, 1965: 243,500 wagons. Cadillac has sold in the neighborhood of 375,000 in one model year (late '70s).

Enclave is aiming at less 'Joe Sixpacks' than any previous Buicks ever did.