Mach5GTP

Agreed that the dividend cut is not so good for PR, but they really should tell the world about the executive salary cuts- I happen to think those guys make *way* too much money while their companies swirl around the bowl. I hadn't heard about that until this post.

Pontiac's official response:

So the Sky is in dealers? Cool. I'm a little torn between the styling of the Sky and the Solstice. I love the purity of the Solstice, the minimalism- it would make a great contrast parked next to my bulky, "armor-clad" GTP (I call it armor, leave me alone ). Plus it's a Pontiac. But I love the lines and angular sculpting of the Sky. Hmmm, I'll have to think about it before I don't buy either because I can't afford to.

I like this one, turned it into an H-wing (?) fighter from Star Wars: See more pics here, very detailed and creative: http://www.roadsquadron.com/cars/hwing So cool!

Sounds more like arguing "semetics". But seriously: my current most hated expression is using the word "sick" to describe somthing very good. "Man, look at that car, that is sick!" I mean, WTH? To me the word "sick" conveys a negative image, usually an unpleasant one. True, it is in the same vein as using the word "bad" in the same way, and you can argue they're interchangeable that way, but somehow "bad" doesn't seem as out of place in that sentiment, maybe because bad is sometimes good- or at least appealing. Otherwise, yes, "hella good" is another one (altho I do like that song, and Gwen Stefani- rrrAAARRrrr!), along with little internet things like "w00t". I am getting older, tho...

Ownign a GM redheaded step-engine as I do, an LQ1 3.4L DOHC V6, I was wondering about the "Shortstar" 3.5L DOHC V6 as found in the Olds Intrigue, etc., a few eyars back. Has that engine too been completely abandoned after a handful of years, like my LQ1? Anyone have any info, any experience with one? TIA

HOLY CATS I'M IN LOVE!!! I would say more, but I don't want to spoil it for others.

I know several LQ1 (3.4 DOHC) owners w/ high mileage and relatively few problems to report- myself among them. The reliability was fine if the owner took a few extra simple steps in maintenance, such as replacing the timing belt every 60k as recommended, and watching the oil level. It wasn't quite the right engine for the masses, sadly, and it was allowed to die a quick quiet death. GM's redheaded step-engine... The LQ1 was adapted from the 3.1 pushrod engine, and was not all it could be, unfortunately. Had it been developed further, it could have been a beast- high compression/premium fuel, variable induction, variable valve timing, etc. As it was in its final year, 1997, it produced 220hp and 220lbs-ft- very similar to the NA 3800's numbers w/ 10.5% less displacement. Hmmm...

Assuming I were going w/ a new car, I want to say a G6 GTP coupe, but that might be a little out of my range, even my imaginary range. :AH-HA_wink: I might settle for a lower-level G6 coupe, since it sorta fills the spiritual shoes of the GP coupe. Cobalt SS would be a nice choice too.

This one's from an ex-GF of many years ago. Middle of winter, lots of snow on the ground, and her mom is baking cookies in the kitchen, mixing the dough with an electric mixer. This is pretty stiff dough. The ex and her dad are in another room, and they can hear the mixer laboring under the load. Suddenly they hear a scream from the kitchen, followed by a door slam. They run to the kitchen, where Mom is standing at the back door, panting, and looking out into the snow-covered yard. Following her gaze, they see black smoke rising from a crater in the snow, like the Imperial probe droid scene at the beginning of "The Empire Strike Back". Turns out the mixer overloaded and caught fire; Mom did the reasonable thing ( ) and threw it out the back door!

Heh-heh, douchewagons. Shouldn't that be "douchewagens"? Yeah, that might be a bad angle for the tail, but it does look kinda bulbous. And safer or not, those side-mirror turn-signals are horrible, they scream "JC Whitney". Taking a closer look, parts of this pic look to be edited or otherwise fake- the lower nose and the pass. side mirror particularly. Just me?

This is what it's all about, people- drive 'em!!

Please adopt me. I would totally do all the maintenance on those cars for you for free. I won't eat much and I do not molest. Wow, what a lineup! I only have 2 Pontiacs, and only one of them is as cool as any of yours. What's powering the 67? I'm gonna go ahead and say the GP is your daily driver. :AH-HA_wink: More pics please!

If I had to pick a cut-and-dry answer, I'd sadly have to say "No". Agree w/ the styling comments above- very strange shape to the rear half, almost like a pinched-off turd. Too smooth and ovoid for my taste as well- I like angles and lines to catch my eye. I agree w/ BV- rereading his comments, I think that's what the G6 coupe needs! It probably drives great, haven't had the chance to try one yet. I bet the GTP 6-spd is a mover, too, but it is far too similar in shape to too many other cars to be truly appealing to me. I desperately want to like it, too, being so close to my own GP GTP coupe in size, function, etc. I sat in one, and it does feel smaller inside than my GTP. That roofline made me hit my head twice- once in, once out. If they would give it a rear spoiler or wing that hid that awful trunklid (kinda like the Monte Carlo), that would be a big step in the right direction. Hello, aftermarket...?

I personally define reliability as the number of times I return home in someone else's car instead of my own, or am otherwise forced to make special effort to get home in my car. In that light, I'm happy to say the Mach 5 has been very reliable indeed. 1- Spit a spark plug out of a cylinder head at just under 75k miles- and me w/ my 75k extended warranty! Dodged a bullet that time. Drove home from work slowly on 5 cylinders- chugga-chugga-chugga. 2- Left lower ball joint failed on a RH turn, had to be towed. I knew it was bad, and was about 2 days from getting the time to fix it. Nuts. 3- Differential shed its mortal coil in spectacular fashion ~180k, and almost 100 miles fom home. A $250 tow to my garage, which State Farm only reimbursed half of, thanks a lot, appreciate it. :angry: I did get to install a custom-made limited-slip diff kit, tho. 4- Just in early 05, had to repair a couple siezed spark plugs by pulling both heads, ended up doing a full top-end job w/ mild valve and port work and new gaskets. And how am I repaid? EGR is throwing codes now. 5- And most recently, a couple months ago, the factory fuel pump went bad, w/ about 230k. Good times! Those are the major ones, can't recall any more that made me walk home or anything. Keep in mind that, for the first half of her life, this car was seeing almost 30k/year. Go GM! B)

Nice to hear it's been in your family since new, that's something! I have some of that same paperwork for my GTP, which I bought new and I hope to keep it in my family forever too. Mine has a few more miles than your Cierra tho... :P Nice pics on your CD site, BTW! I love the old ads. I've always liked those Cierras, it's good to see someone take so much pride in one. And that service history, that's some great record-keeping! :o

I've got the TV off because my daughter is asleep on my wife's lap, and I swear I heard Harley's pics say, "Do me." Damn... And be sure to catch the Cien in action (!) in "The Island", now on DVD! B)

Thanks to FlyBri for wrestling this train back on track! As to why Cadillac should do this: simply put, old Caddies seem to become beaters, winter cars that nobody cares about and thus lets fall to pot. How many Mercedes (since this was "their idea" as I first posted) do you see in that role? Fewer than Caddies, I'm sure. It just seems to me that having old Cadillacs once again prowling the roads, like Jurassic Park T-Rexes, could be a boost to the company- not so much in "image", but in "perceived prestige", I'll call it. To clear the roads of clunker Caddies, to the point of rarely seeing any Cad at all, new or old, in less than good-to-excellent shape, would, I think, create an image of Cadillac's exclusivity and quality in the motoring public's mind. I hope I'm getting my point across. There certainly are many Cads that would not be worth involving in this project- or discussion-, such as virtually all the less-than-full-size efforts from the 80s and later, to name a few. I'm talking about the 70-80s SDVs and CDVs, from the heady days when Cadillac called itself- and maybe even was- "The Standard of the World". (Am I remembering that right? Maybe that was much earlier. :huh: ) Personally, I'd love to see even some mid-60s cars get this treatment, even tho they are virtually gone from the roads, even in the beater capacity. Simply put, I think it would be a tremendous draw to dealerships if there were limited numbers of restored classic Cadillacs sitting alongside the latest/greatest offerings. More thoughts please! :)

Read this in a recent car mag, can't remember which. Basically, Mercedes is collecting and restoring some of their classic models at specialized shops. For the longest time, I've felt Cadillac should do this. My family has had 3 beautiful old Caddies over the years- a 64 Coupe DeVille, a 65 Sedan DeVille, and a 75 CDV. Ours were all in great shape (dad was a bodyman/mechanic, so that helped) as long as we owned them, but I've always seen similar old Caddies that are just sad to behold- belching smoke, rusting to pieces, missing pieces, etc. I always thought that, out of respect for the brand, Cadillac should buy out all those old cars, restore the ones that can be saved, and put the rest out of its misery. Im my eyes, having all these clapped-out rotting hulks limping around w/ the Cadillac crest on them (the ones that haven't rusted off, anyway) takes something away from the brand's heritage and future. Imagine buying a "brand-new" 75 Coupe DeVille at a Cadillac dealer, full factory warranty, fit/finish, and performance. I'm a Pontiac man first, then Oldsmobile, then Cadillac, but I might move Heaven and Earth to get my hands on a new 65 SDV like my father drove...

I consider myself a decent typist, prob. about 50wpm or so if I'm just typing on the fly, as opposed to transcribing. Typos creep in, of course, but I find there are a few that I do very frequently, because of a particular series of keys that are close to one another, etc. 1- "teh" for "the"- ooh, that one bugs the crap outta me! Seems tho that it has become a "real" word on the internet; ugh. 2- "form" for "from"- funny thing is, I never do it the other way around 3- "fomr" for "from"- WTF? This one's like a total breakdown of my finger synchronization, yikes 4- "wierd" for "weird"- I can never remember which one is correct 5- "rember" for "remember"- it's that little stutter-step for the double "em" that gets me, almost like my finger-memory thinks I did both but only really did one I know there are more, but I can't recall them at the moment. Discuss. :)

My dad had a 64 CDV and my mom a 75 CDV (500ci!), both white, tho not at the same time (wouldn't thata been fun!). The 64 was restored for use as my oldest sister's wedding car, to take her from the church to the reception. It was completed, quite literally, the night before her wedding. Sadly, it wasn't used much after that, and was sold a couple years later. The 75 was my mom's daily driver (my mom rocks!), and would lay double-rubber as long as you wanted it to. Go mom! What I loved most about those cars, particularly the 64, were the enormous quarter panels, like a woman's legs, long and promising... :drool:

Holy cats dude, how bored were you?! :o :blink: :P Seriously tho, that is impressive and very very cool. Do you take requests? I can send you pics... :AH-HA_wink:

The stalk doth rule all. :bowdown: I love having all those functions in one place. I have no problem at all performing any and all of the functions on the stalk without looking at it and while keeping at least my thumb on the steering wheel. My only problem w/ it is that the markings are all worn out. It still has good tactal feedback to let you know exactly what wiper delay setting it's on, even w/ this kind of mileage on it. I do like the newer-style GM stalks better, tho, I would like to transplant one into my car.

The following owns all the above: :bowdown: The 1965 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. (Sorry for the crappy pic, wanted one quick.) My parents had one just like that for several years back in the 70s. First car I ever went over 100mph in. First car I ever "drove", sitting on my dad's lap w/ the cruise control on. (Shudder to think of trying that today!) The thing was huge- it would seat 6. For dinner. :D Some of my earliest car memories are of that Caddy. I remember going on a picnic w/ my family and another family, and it rained. All the adults got in the car, and 6 of us kids got in the trunk, w/ the lid up and a tarp pulled over it, like a tent. Good times...

Oh man, I can't even imagine using something like that! How much control could it really give you? I'm Colombian, so I'm pretty furry. I can't remember what comedian said it, but he was talking about a hairy guy at the beach with "hair in places monkeys don't have hair!" I'm not quite that bad, but definitely a salute to Robin Williams goin' on. My wife likes it- or claims to, but I believe her because she lets me do stuff to her. :P (Sorry, was that all TMI?) And yeah, back stubble has to be seriously uncomfortable.