balthazar

Interesting. Figuring 66% of the mileage is city driving, the gas vehicle should return a composite of 23, the hybrid a composite of 31, difference of 8mpg. Using the usual annual mileage of 12,000 and figuring gas at $2 even, the hybrid would take 11 years to make back it's $3000 premium. I wonder how many hybrid owners stop to figure this out.

They also did a lot of fraudulent advertising to 'reinforce' that image, don't forget.

That's only part of it, not the entirety. It has to be overengineered and intended to work. It can also provide comfort & convinence, but it must be able to work beyond it's capacity and last doing so. Recently I looked in the manual to see how much my F-150 is rated to tow. A measely 2300 lbs. Oops: last summer with 130K on the clock I towed 5400 lbs 45-minutes, bringing my '40 Ford COE back to my house from my brother's. Many other times I have towed double the factory rating with no strain or struggle. That's a 'truck'.

The Incredibles is a greatly entertaining movie, and not even within the genre of kid-oriented movies. I don't see movies as often as I'd like. Rented Million Dollar Baby & House of Wax last week; HOW wasn't very good and MDB was good but I couldn't really get into it. The movie that has been resonating in me since I saw it this summer is the [i]Dawn of the Dead (2004). The interplay of music and imagery clicked for me to the point I have to call it a "great" movie. The opening of Johnny Cash's [i]The Man Comes Around with split second shots of screaming zombies is cinematic gold.

WH-A-AA-AA-A-A-T ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Since when?

Art Bell has/had a nightly radio show where he covers the weird. Only time I ever heard him is I have a RealAudio file of him talking about & playing a pair of Bigfoot screams.

What would be even better is HOURLY sales numbers, then we could all toast marshmellows over the 9PM-8AM sales rates. I was being sarcastic. :angry:

I am somewhat on the fence about the styling of the XLR, primarily because I saw many pics of the Evoq. I did a walk-around of a black job at a dealer last week. It does look menacing, but one thing I really liked on the Evoq vs. the XLR was the longer hood & the peaked decklid. There was a clay concept pic online a few years ago that was really awesome IMO- a rounded front end with the Cadillac eggcrate cut into it. I'll have to dig it out & host it... Here 'tis> Nice combination of the rounded bumperless front with the sharp fender edges/lines.

Every year I hate winter just a little bit more. I've heard that a winter sport is a good way to deal with things. Mine to date has been snow shoveling & snow blowing (frost here too, ocn), which always follow the Season of 58 Trillion Leaves To Rake. Picked up a 2-seat off-road go-kart abouth a month ago for my sons, wonder if I can cram me into it.

I'll ignore the fact that that pic is quite small and take your post as a compliment. However, 30 is in my rearview at this point... and in fact there's a new road sign up ahead. Just my luck; instead of reading 'Dangerous Curves' it just reads 'DANGER'.

mid-november numbers, eh? I wish like hell we could get weekly numbers, or maybe even dailys. In this age of computers, you'd think that'd be easy. A daily doom-n-gloom report would be o u t s t a n d i n g.

That was Chrysler, not Oldsmobile. At least both of those marques didn't regularly portray their customers as mindless-idiot ('What do you wanna talk about?') garbage-pickers (smelly curbside chairs).

Define "outdated". Is utility, practicality and versitility 'outdated', because the traditional truck has those features in plentitude- where's honda? 'Needs to change' is primarily a conjecture of marketing departments. 'like the article says'??: clueless 'journalists': they're lending creditibility to the term 'sports truck' in reference to a 22-CI honda crapbox that likely shared another 'sporty' touch with the early honda car: chain drive- a feature the rest of the passenger vehicle industry abandoned sometime around 1915 as inferior. Define "superior". By what unit of measure and by exactly how much & under what criteria is this alledged 'superior' rating achieved? Who verified the testing? Will it handle a head-on impact from a 7000-lb H1 as well as a boxed hydroformed F-150 will? Can the honda exceed it's factory load & tow ratings by over 100% as a Chevrolet truck can? Is it more economical to repair in the event of a major collision? For Christ's sake- why doesn't the tailgate align with the bed tops? honda: ever hear of a lil' design element called an S-curve to match them up? Is it all about the unibody aspect for you then? Because clearly the truck market is not in agreement. Or maybe that's not a selling point after all. "large part": provide numbers, please. Don't have any, you say? <_< And how is pulling a usually-empty 4-foot bed around any more practical than pulling a usually empty 6 foot bed around? The argument is without merit. Next you'll be condemning cars with empty trunks. This is the same argument usable against any sports car or 'drivers car': it's totally not necessary yet the grand thing we have here in the U.S.A. is freedom of choice. If someone wants a truck yet has nothing to haul, who gives a tin sh!t.

Packard experimented with radar braking circa 1953. Didn't work then, either (actually, worked fine to avoid hitting a stationary object in the test facility, but got 'confused' out in the real world with too many 'input signals'), but at least their's didn't crash into 2 other of their own vehicles. mercedes; bah.

Edited for clarity. ;)

There is a bottom-feeder import brand doing this also; hyundai? suzuki?

Dear God...

6 doors... now you want 6-door cars. Why limit yourself; get really 'welcome':

I am not liking the sketches of this proposal at all. Eddie Paul must be a differet guy than the one who engineers/build so many Hollywood movie & TV cars, like the General Lee & the Merc from Cobra. And I agree- there is something greatly amiss about the engine's specs...

The 455 was not physically labeled a "Wildcat" motor, and I am positive advertising never referred to them as such either. .....After a quick look-see, the last print ad mention I see for a "Wildcat" engine is '64. However, in a road test of a '67 Wildcat I can just make out "Wildcat" on the air cleaner lid- perhaps the 430 is the last labeled "Wildcat". But the 455 air cleaners had '455-4bbl' and 'Stage I' and the like. The straight 8 was called the 'Fireball Eight'. The new-for-'53 V-8 had no name (in print advertising at least, and I doubt any air cleaner/valve cover IDs). Only thing I see between '52 and '59 at a quick glance is in '58 Buick referred to the 364 as the B-12000, a reference to the "12,000 lbs of thrust in each piston stroke". I know the straight 8s had "Fireball Eight" painted on them, and my '59 did have a 'Wildcat 445' moniker on the AC.

If General Motors decalres bankruptcy, I would certain bear no ill will towards the Corp for merely that. It is a well-established legal recourse for business restructuring that has been used in every major industry numerous times. While short term sales may likely falter (the media will go ape-sh!t on that lil nugget), GM products have made such great strides in the last 5 years... the money bankruptcy would free up would undoubtedly build even better product, and in the long term that would pay off in greater volume. Reg- if the outcome of bankruptcy is so bleak, how could it be "too easy"? BTW- for those that think GM f'ed up so royally since the '80s and was at the top of the game prior to that, recall that GM was in major trouble in their first 2 decades; what with the president being ousted twice and nearly insurmountable money problems. FoMoCo ruled the American market and GM was a distant 2nd. If they had "died hard" then, none of the iconic vehicles since then would've happened. There is greatness in GM's future, but GM has to get there for us to get behind the wheel of it.

Worth taking note of, again: >>"Compared to high-line Camrys and Accords, the Impala SS offers a larger package with more personality and much more power at about the same price. The Impala SS also compares well to the Charger R/T, which shares much of its engineering with Mercedes products. "<<

Buick used the "Wildcat' name on more than one engine, starting with the 364 & 401 V-8s of '59. The Wildcat model began as a sub-series in the Invicta line in '62. Many many 'Wildcat' engines were in non-Wildcat Buicks. Buick sold their 215 aluminum V-8 to Rover circa '64. Land Rover may still using a V-8 derived from that same Buick motor. Buick also sold their V-6 tooling to Jeep circa '67, but bought it back in '74 and re-engineered it, re-introducing it in the '76s. The V-6 was engineered from the 215 V-8. I believe (without checking) that the V-6 first displaced 198 CI, and grew to 231 CI (3.8 liters) when it reappeared for '76.

Not sure why you'd see that; there's no more Chevy in that Cat than there is Cadillac... which is to say none.

YellowDart: very tough to find a nice pic of, but hereya go: