balthazar

This is just my opinion and worth what you paid for it, but I would support federal legislation to ban powder blue on any vehicle of any vintage. The. Absolute. Worst. ....tied with bright yellow. Sixty8- consider B-59's Lido Lavender, I've seen it in person and it's awesome. So is Canyon Copper. Buicks.net has a copy of my color chip chart, but you can go to autocolorlibrary.com and look up anything. For the record- I do not care for black on B-59s. My Invicta was Artic White also- didn't really bother me on this car. Leading new color choice is pearl metallic silver. Congrats, bud, let's see some goddamn pics already- I know you've got 'em.

Gotcha beat: 5 days straight, 14 hrs sleep at the end (I had to kind of force myself to go to sleep). No hallucinations, fine afterwards. End of semester @ college.I do not have sleeping problems, I can literally go to sleep at random points in the day, but I function very well. At night I lay down when I'm tired, sleep like a rock, wake up fine. Average sleep is about 5 hrs... I get up at 6:30AM on weekdays. Right now I'm working 7 days a week, sometimes until midnight. I have been referring to myself as "the robot"....

Most people don't own the place they live in. This would make the majority of people "losers". Not much one can do with sheer mental will to change this quickly. As far as age of daily driver- I was never prouder than when I was driving a 28-yr old car daily. Now that my daily is 2 yrs old, I am somewhat embarassed. Radio idiots dictate & define nothing if you're smart. Hear about the ones that pushed the water poisoning death? Case closed.

Ummm, what?

What happened was an unfortunate accident with relatively minor injuries. Good to know people you care for will be fine. >>"On a side note, I'm not trying to be an ass here, but are those three that posted the only ones that actually care enough to post kind words or anything at all? "<< Don't be an ass....

Yeah- you're left with different shackles (if available) or new, lower-arch springs as options (assuming sand bags is out). I put new springs in my F-150 when one side broke; bring it over.

Don't see why an XLR refresh/redesign would have anything to do with the timing of a Corvette refresh...

'enzl'= >>"I'm not sure how old you are, but I'll assume you're not old enough..."<< If only. -Lead (in gasoline) is a not a highly toxic poison (they fought for years against Unleaded Gasoline) No imports used leaded gas? And recall yourself what happened: low-lead & no-lead (hand-in-hand with the insurance industry) killed the musclecar era dead. As for 'fighting", see Catalytic Converters below... -Seatbelts won't save lives (they were concerned about the appearance of a safety device) How far back are we going to go here? Only time I know for a fact that a manufacturer was concerned about the 'inference' of seatbelts was the board of directors for Tucker ('48), tho Tucker himself wanted them (they were not offered). Ford launched a safety-centered advertising campaign ('56) to which the consumer reacted... hardly at all. It was not repeated for '57. GM began equipping cars with factory anchored mounts for seat belts in '62 (definately, but may started in '61MY), which is 4 years before they were federally mandated ('66), but both dealers and the aftermarket offered belts years and years earlier for whomever wanted them. -Airbags So where were the other major manufacturers airbags in the early '70s? Oh yes, 20 years in the future. -Catalytic Converters-Been to LA lately? Imagine the LA Basin w/o emission controls General Motors developed the first practical catalytic converter under Stempel, and with knowledge of the impending cat mandate, worked with refiners to engineer unleaded gas beginning as early as '71. Lead in gas was banned in '96. -Repeated issues with design flaws (i.e. Pinto... Not going to argue there, tho I have not researched the specifics of the fault, Sidesaddle gas tanks in Pick-ups Ahh yes, the ones that require incindiary devices to ignite, Corvair handling Can't have this one- charge thoroughly disproven by the feds. Ironically, the Corvair's handling was on par with what Americans were not familar with at that point but would soon be told they wanted: European handling (ie: Porsche). Ohhh, so sad. That's off the top of my head....the cold, hard truth is that when it comes to preserving profit margins, many business leaders WORLDWIDE have done awful things (and still are!) Agreed- but I still stand by my initial statement: I've seen much more deceptive (as opposed to defective) proceedures from foreign (ie: asian) auto manufacturers. They will not pop readily into your head due to the minimalistic coverage & short-term memory (and long-term forgiveness) of the media, but they're there. Here's a monster to chew on: mitshubishi.

I believe a Tucker has broken $700K, but yeah. Yesterday I watched for a little while, top car of the day at that point was a '59 DeSoto Adventurer convertible, 1 of 97, black & gold & f@#king gorgeous. $230,000.

>>"They are independent, good or bad, so they really don't have to disclose anything. "<< That very well may be true, but why refuse to reveal those methods & formulas- why all the big hush-hush secrets ?? If the PR spin is to be believed- they are only 'in it for the good of the consumer' or the like... so prove it. I realize that for some, CR a faith-based religion, but proving your above-board goodness to non-Pavlovians will only stuff the till that much more. Unless........

w-wh-What? The lienarts are on the take from toyota but they're car reviewers?? Not that anyone would ever read a single article and then take them seriously, but that is just F-ed.

OK- as long as we ALSO offset-slam cars & trucks into immovable barriers @ 70+ mph! Can't wait to see the pics! Seriously, I would have to imagine the 35-38 mph a lot of impact tests are done at represents some sort of median speed: most vehicles are not averaging anything close to 70. While the results would be interesting (well, we have them for car seats anyway)- it's statistically immaterial. Of course, the point is that CR lied. What else have they intentionally misrepresented or lied about to serve editor's agendas/personal biases, because no way in hell is this the only occurance.

All you starry-eyed CR worshippers that get the warm & fuzzies when quoting re-affirming company rhetoric, you may want to reach for some Valium. The associated Press is reporting this morning that the Yonker NY-based 'consumer advocate' magazine has retracted a strong, damning review of infant car seats (only 2 of 12 'recomended') when federal government review showed CR tested the seats at drastically higher speeds than they claimed. Most of CR's test samples showed 'disasterous failure' at speeds stated to be as low as 35 mph. One infant dummy was hurled 30 feet. But NHTSA revealed that some of the crash tests were conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at more than 70 mph. Ahh yes: "no advertising = 100% no bias or agenda". IMO: The magazine has enough clout & influence that it's practices and formulas should be subject to full disclosure & government regulation. Repeated refusal to do so (full disclosure) only points to one thing: hidden agendas.

>>"I don't really see people buying Corvette for status or fashion at all.......people buy it because they respect what the car is and what it can do."<< You've got to be kidding. For decades, the Corvette has been the poster-car for the Mid-Age Crisis- at least thru the late '70s into the '90s. A sizable chunk of older consumers buy Corvettes and never push their performance capabilities. It absolutely is a status symbol for some. Reg is right- if you look at a random sampling of bmw drivers'- they're often teen-age girl with phones growing out of the side of their head or bored, middle-aged mail-order housewives.

'blu- can you get us a pic of the axle/perch/spring area on your truck- I'm still curious about the specific set-up.

In my lifetime, I have not seen the scandal, the lies nor the deception from domestic auto manufacturers that I have seen from the -generally speaking- asian brands. So, IMO, the generalization confined to auto manufacturers, holds water.

The question for me is: are honda & toyota off by 4% due to happenstance/innaccurate component design... or intent?

2018??? I'm sorry, is... is that ELEVEN years from now ???? And people bitch about news releases as far away as 2 years in the future!

I enjoy the O.C.... been going there since a kid. Not pretencious and stuck-up. House on a mountain lake, super quiet, hike thru the woods, cemeteries, railroad tunnels, mine shafts, fun kid stuff like that. Oh: O.C., N.Y.

Not only is it going to 'bop you in the eye', it's going to bop you in everything from the kneecap to the baseball cap. Unless your power seat can raise you all the way thru the sunroof, there's no way to avoid something so large & broad. Then again, I believe that might be the point. An 8-way power passenger seat is in no way a safety issue; it's a gadget. >>"a clunky manual seat in a $40k+ truck was and is just dumb."<< I have manual seats in my truck, which stickered at $39K & change. I've never adjusted the driver's after Day 1, and no passenger has ever adjusted theirs, tho they've been 5'0" to 6'3"; in fact none have ever tried or asked. Look, I have no problem if people want to pay for the option- that they get it. But this issue is not that monsterous of deal that 'GM is stoopit' and 'the Enclave ain't a lux truck without it standard'. The gushing & raves over the styling should still be flying hot & heavy; we shouldn't already be at the point we're building federal cases over 4- vs. 8-way power controls on a passenger seat. IMO

What I want to know is: on the "3-door", which side gets 2 doors and on the "5-door" which side gets the 3 doors? Is the extra door a slider, and is it power?? Anything marketing can do to avoid the 'hatchback' moniker, eh? So stupid.

Of course, that's your opinion. I disagree completely. The press is incompetent in every respect.

As far as I have read, the Corvette Corvair was rumored to have been in Warhoops in the '70s, but when Bortz & son pulled the 4 dream cars out circa '89, but it was not there then and he doesn't have it/ never did. I have only heard rumors of rumors about that one surviving- the above chiefly being it. #003 is not all-original: it's chassis is under a '55 Corvette and the short-block has a '58 casting date. However, otherwise it was all 1953 and the experts decided the frame swap was done by Chevrolet (it has no VIN stamp & the date code is very late in the '53 MY)- the car was originally sold in '53CY. It's really a very interesting story- documents were uncovered that revealed it had done 14-hrs at -20 degrees by Harrison Radiator and 5000 miles on the Belgian blocks at Milford, among other tests. Article I'm referencing here (Corvette Quarterly) says there were 2 Motorama Corvettes.... I assume the 2nd one was the white hardtop (as opposed to the red Corvair). Another diamond needle in the haystack to keep an eye open for. #003 publically "redebuted" in 1987, #002 'reappears' circa 2006.... what's next?? All sorts of gems still hiding out there, why can't I find one damnit?!?

1933 Packard Eight 1102 Packard Super Eight 1103 Packard Super Eight 1104 Packard Super Eight 1105 Packard Twelve 1106 Packard Twelve 1107 Packard Twelve 1108

Is that true: the spring pack is on top of the axle tube on the '07s? Just seems weird to me- wouldn't that limit travel/suspension compression that much more? Doesn't seem logical, but I've not stuck my head under a GMT900....