balthazar

Which must mean the "big" Silverado V-8 is likewise has 'strong off-the-line torque and great power all the way to redline.....!', especially considering the SS's undoubted weight penalty. I would think that was impossible, what with pushrods and an IBC and all.

According to Jim Cramer, the stock's performance subsequent to the York announcement has everything to do with York's resignation and not KK's likelyhood of selling off his stock. York has an impressive resume as a cost-cutter and reformer for a handful of major companies (IBM among them)- he is the catalyst here.

"branding" is a perception, and a weak one at that. An intangible. Motor vehicles have steadily become more & more homogenized WRT design/styling. In other words, if you knew nothing about cars whatsoever but knew at least some about different countries, you would not be able to tell where a toyota vs. a hyundai vs a mercedes came from.

Oh; they are. Loads of pristine GNXs and '76 Eldo converts in garages. These oddballs just stand out more.

Anyone know if the pending 6-spd HydraMatics are going to be double-overdrives or not?

Majority ownership (in this case 100%) by General Motors has rendered saab: American. Where the cars are assembled would not determine 'ethnicity', tho of course the perception that it's 'swedish' will continue to linger.

I am now leaning toward not going. I am too wiped out: between 2 jobs and family commitments, I don't think I have 4-5 hours of round-trip drive time in me. Can't get off tomorrow, either. This sucks royally: I opted out of Fall Englishtown, the local steam & tractor show, it rained Lead East weekend... and now Hershey scratched. I haven't gone to a show/swap meet since spring. Bummed.....

Yeah, I've been to Hershey the last 3 years- they start packing up after lunch Saturday, but I've still walked the entire day; you know how many vendors there are- plenty to see. I would love to go Friday but I can't get off work (I may find out differently tomorrow....)

NOT ALWAYS! GM's Allison 6-spd is a double overdrive unit that never sees 6th gear except on level interstates. 1st thru 5th are the same ratios as the older 5-spd Allison. Some other mega-gears autos are also double overdrives, yet we still read comments like 'why does it still have a 5-spd instead of a 6-spd?!?!?' Big gear counts may get some all sweaty & squirmy with lust, but the cold reality outside of press-releases is that often it's an intangible for those living outside of Nevada.

Not that the car even remotely appeals to me personally, but Chevrolet did sell just shy of 2 million Vegas in only 7 years. Not made from 1970's Japanese-processed steel??

>>"The so called 4-door coupe is actually a 5-door hatch. "<< No; it's actually neither. It's a 4-dr hatch.... and I say this not because I know the car, but because it's just.... right.

Good point- forgot that one. The Chrysler does earn the name, especially since a second windscreen comes out of that slot between the passenger compartments:

>>"...looks like a mimic of a generic US GM car from 10 years ago."<< I'm 100% with ocn here. Assuming it gets a new nose & tail on the exterior and little else, it's the '04 GTO all over again. Great mechanicals alone are not going to make a hot seller; it needs passion. The basic design is just not progressive enough for an aspirational Pontiac, ala the Solstice. Ocn- it may be that those who only know Pontiac from the '90s due to young age can't see Pontiac in context....

The coachbuilder-to-automotive glossary has modified to some degree, and there are exceptions as I stated earlier, but by & large the transfer seems more consistant than inconsistant to me. 3-drs/5-drs... what is the necessity for have such a distinction? What is a 1980 VW Rabbit; a 2-door hatchback or a 3-dr sedan? The size of the hatch doesn't seem to change the fact it's not used for ingress/egress in any case.

Entry doesn't seem to dip to the regular low levels of accuracy at wikipedia- not bad. It does bring up another irksome term: the 3-door or 5-door car. Doors are for entry/egress. A hatch -while physically being a door-is not used for that purpose. Early on in this bodystyle, manufacturers used more common sense here. Of course that soon went right out the window under pressure from marketing: more 'doors' must be 'better'- right? After all, no one counts windows when totalling the number of doors in a room in one's house...

Most relatively recent drivers never learned how to drive RWD in slippery conditions, thusly they need the 'hand holding/coddling' that FWD provides (to an extent). I've driven RWD my whole life (thousands upon thousands of miles in FWD too, tho I never owned any) and never had any problems beyond one notoriously light-in-the-rear RWD vehicle.

I'll be in Hershey for Saturday.... I need to see if I think I can sleep in the back of the folded-flat Crew Cab comfortably; if I can I may do Saturday/Sunday.

Curious to see ball --as opposed to roller-- bearings... less drag? Interesting development- maybe we'll see this in everyday items around the year 2075.

And the japanese didn't??? toyota, mazda and datsun were primarily or completely RWD in '80, but primarily FWD 5 years later. Mitsu was already primarily FWD by '80. It was an industry-wide trend, esp in the affordable/ economy/ family classes. The propaganda was seldom if ever pitched from a roadability standpoint- the consumer conception was one of economical superiority due to the economy models being so rapidly switched over to (or already being) FWD. Being the gas crisi was still so fresh in consumer's minds, FWD -by erroneous association- gained a deep foothold in the market. Naturally, what works by perception for econoboxes has a strong chance of adding to the bottom line in larger vehicles in many instances.

'Coupe' and 'sedan' terminology as defined by interior volume comes (relatively recently) from the Environmental Protection Agency- not an entity I am particularly motivated to recognize as the New World Order in motor vehicle terminology. There is a tremendous bank of evidence dating all the way back to the carriage age that has cemented the terms from a standpoint of physical configuration. Interior volume --a completely meaningless spec that may be useful to inflated balloon delivery persons if anyone at all-- has never entered into it. The EPA's formula is an unsolicited & strictly arbitrary declaration for fuel economy classification/comparison purposes- and nothing more. That said, even the time-honored terms have been misused numerous times, tho I struggle to recall an example in history so badly misnamed as mercedes' "4-door coupe" (or VW's "phaeton" for that matter. The last phaeton that I can recall was the one-off Cadillac Cimarron PPG car of circa '85.) "Coupe" is an abbreviation of 'close-coupled', and for the most part indicates a closed bodystyle with no rear quarter windows, AKA the Corvette from '63 on, for example, or the Viper. Ocn- yup: Chevy built both a full-size 2-dr hardtop ("bubbletop")and a 2-dr sedan in that era; some enthusiasts nickname the # 2311 2-dr sedan the "batwing" sedan for the 4-dr flattop-style roofline. In '61, Pontiac & Buick also offered that distinctive roofline on the 2-dr sedan. I believe Chevy may have had this same roofline exclusively into '62. Here's a '61 Pontiac Catalina (Super Duty) 2-dr sedan with the "batwing" roofline: moltar: the '42 Flxible/ Cadillac Innovation is a coachbuilt funeral car with a true coupe roofline and 4 doors- this is the only real "4-door coupe" bodystyle. The floral coaches often had 'close-coupled' rooflines, a single bench seat, yet retained the rear pair of doors with no glass/upper structures; they opened onto below-beltline storage areas behind the passenger compartment. This style was built by numerous coachbuilders on numerous makes' chassis's over a period of roughly 30 years. Not regular production; no. But an actual existing 4-dr coupe; yes.

I don't have figures handy and I cannot seem to find them online anywhere. VW's Rabbit/Golf has handily outsold the Beetle --the previous historical volume leader-- to the tune of something like 22 million by 1998, but again; I cannot find any hard numbers. Rabbits sold like crazy on Gary Busey in the '70s and '80s; they were everywhere. Which way would you care to spin the stats: higher percentage of FWD within each brand? Higher percentage of marketshare? Higher straight volumes in a given year?? We can twiddle these a dozen ways, no doubt.Again, IMHO volume is not the question at hand- the initial inspiration/push is. And that push came to the U.S. market primarily in big barges from across the pond(s).

fiat stradas were awful, horrible quality cars that pounded more than a few nails in fiat's U.S.-market coffin, but they were around; I remember seeing them. Lots of renaults also- wasn't it the first Car of the Year as an import (or was it another renault?)? Then there was this little FWD thing you may have heard of- the VW rabbit..... and the hondas... and the datsuns.... and toyota made a terrific stink over the tercel.... most all of these were far from niche or limited production. Point being: there were numerous affordable FWD choices from the import column, whereas there was only 1 affordable offering from the domestics and a trio of high ticket luxury coupes. It's clear that the 'inspiration' for mass mainstream FWD came from the imports, not the domestics.

No; not high beams vs. low beams-- low beams that are too bright. They're out there, I've seen 'the light' on this. Thankfully I primarily drive a truck and am well above them, but when driving my wife's car; some are far too bright. Utmost light may be fine for the driver, but it's not fine for oncoming traffic. High beams are completely counter-productive in the fog, which is why fogs only light with low beams. In this case it's not how much, but where.

In 1979 (and earlier) there were many incredibly dull and mediocre (awful in numerous instances) FWD cars.... from japan and elsewhere abroad. All foreign imports:audi fox audi 4000 audi 5000 datsun F10 datsun 310 fiat strada honda civic honda accord honda prelude mitsubishi (Dodge/Plymouth) Omni 024/Horizon TC3 mitsubishi (Dodge/Plymouth) Colt/Champ renault 5 renault lecar saab 99 saab 900 subaru DL/GF/FE volkswagon rabbit volkswagon scirocco There were other, less mainstream foreign FWD models imported. This same year the only domestic FWD cars were the Eldorado/ Riviera/ Toronado, all on the E-Body platform and the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon on the same ChryCo platform. All the rest of ChryCo's offerings (aside from the mitsu imports) were RWD, all of Ford's '79 offerings --with the exception of the German-built Fiesta-- were RWD, all the rest of GM's product were RWD. In 1980, GM introduced the X-Body 4-some and the Seville in FWD, ChryCo & FoMoCo were in holding patterns. To say GM 'made FWD popular' is to ignore the reality of the market prior to 1981.

Vauxhalls have not been sold in the U.S. since circa 1960, Opels since circa 1974. This is a solid enough track record to recommend bringing "Holden" to the U.S.??Moltar is correct- if nothing else the cost to launch a brand with zero identity would be disasterous to GM.