Z-06

That is a good vehicle for the price.

Regular Cruze should have weighed the same as the ECO. Cruze is certainly the underdog in the compacts after Hyundai and Ford went flashy, VW went cheap, and Honda and Toyota bank on their reputation.

My guess is approx. $150-175 I have a mason jar of that size for my Z-06 fund and I save that much.Granted I save pennies too.

Adelle - Rolling in the Deep. The girl seems to be really hurt by someone.

Happy Birthday Y'all.

That sounds great Camino. Happy Birthday.

I drove the 500. Fun car and very good visibility. In current guise I would pick the Mini, but the saleslady told me that the Abarth with 150 odd hp is coming in August and the dealership has started taking orders for it. That will change the game. I like how 500's manual take rate is more than the automatic. People will buy manual if the companies make them desirable.

I agree with both posts of Sam that given the legacy costs are down, GM should venture into any small niche markets profitably. But it seems to be either not happening or the process is still painfully slow. I do not know how much of Bob's stuff is true in his book, but given the signals that GM is sending post-bankruptcy, I think NOTHING from the middle got washed away in the bankruptcy and hence I believe it is same old GM. The middlemen still are controlling GM like they did before 2009.

Again disagree. Cadillac does not need European market to support the ultra car. No matter how poor we have become USA still governs 40% of ultra car market, add another 10-15% for Middle East, who love American vehicles, and 10-15% of Far East and 5% for Eurasia markets and you have 70-80% of total pool to play with. F$ck Europe market at this time. Destroy Germans in US and in Middle East, battle for a solid ground in Far East and Cadillac will gain grounds. AGAIN KEY IS THE CAR SHOULD BE 100% DEDICATED EFFORT. Again XLR-V is not a good example as it was botched since start. I find it funny how sometimes with DOHC and High-tech engines and 100 speed transmissions people want Cadillac to be high tech and yet when it comes to a flagship car - no Cadillac CANNOT do. If people want Caddy to be aggressive then start from where making a statement is important. Attack at top as well as bottom - that is how Cadillac can be a force. Bottom feeders like ATS and CTS while good will NOT build a good image for the rich to buy. Cadillac had the panache in its hey-days to sell expensive vehicles, it needs to recreate it. Lowly 525i shares platform with 760i. Then a capable platform like Zeta, which is going to be modified to be better can definitely find its basis in a ultra car. And who in the hell asks about what platform underpins a car. That is a seriously lame argument.

I was wondering where you disappeared to. I'm hearing rumor that Buffalo's Central Terminal is going to be added as part of a high speed train line from NYC to Chicago. You hear anything about that? I figure my next big trip will be out west... not sure how I'd manage doing that in a train. Maybe get the GF on board (no pun intended) with a hybrid train trip out there, and a road trip back in some newly-acquired rust-free California classic. I have been living in Marriots for most of the past 3 weeks. I've been in Dallas, Houston, Chicago, back home and Chicago again. If you go out west (or take any big Amtrak trip for that matter) talk to me first. I have all the tips and tricks on finding good deals on rooms. Right now the Empire Builder that runs from Chicago to Seattle is closed indefinitely due to flooding. There is no proposed high speed line between Chicago and NYC that is even passed the "dream" stage at this point. Almost all of the new high speed work is going to be radiating out of Chicago for now because Chicago and Illinois have the vision of increased commerce and travel into the state. The first line to be completed will run from St. Louis to Chicago in 2:45. You can't beat that with an airline. The other one will be a mid-highspeed rail (not true HSR, but still 110mph) between Detroit/surrounding area and Chicago. Yes that is where the 1.2B that Florida's moron rejected went to. I think it is fantastic. the I-80/94 corridor is a mell of a hess and so are the flights for the two big cities that are only 300 miles apart.

When are you getting a Swagger Wagon - Toyota Siena? Congrats.

For comparison's sake again: Subaru Impreza WRX STI*: 17/23, 305 hp Mitsubishi Lancer Evo*: 17/23, 291 hp Honda S2000: 18/24, 232 hp Dodge Caliber SRT4: 19/27, 285 hp MAZDASPEED3: 18/26, 263 hp Regal GS: ??/28, 270 hp ... and I'd venture that the Regal GS is more liveable day-to-day than any of these five cars... and not just because it's a size class or two bigger, either. * - yes, they have AWD. But yes, they're still lighter than the Regal. What Camino is saying there is that a 3.6L DI could have been very well used in the car to give the desired or better results of performance with equivalent fuel efficiency, contrary to what general perception is being filtered about turbo-charging smaller engines to have equivalent power numbers of a larger engine to see tremendous gain in fuel economy. and utterly destroyed the very good (for a FWD) weight balance that the Regal has. Wrong sir, with plumbing the LNF weighed approx. 350 lbs (300 lb for block + 50 lb for the plumbings), which is in line with approx. 370 lbs for the 3.6VVT DI. So the 20 lbs more for a 3,800 lb car will not utterly destroy the FWD weight balance. Weight balance was an issue with the 3.0TT, which is why the OPC did not make to the shores here as a GS apart from the cost.

Hyper, if the engine is based on any existing block as dwight is proposing, development cost should not be as expensive. Technically a new engine family build from scratch can cost at least $1B. Even an engine like the AMG 6.2 cost approximately $300 M to develop. Any guesses why MB charges $40k for the AMG engine compared to $17k for the LS7? Not because MB can but because of the high development costs and low quantities. With the new turbocharged V8's AMG looks to save the development cost for the engine by sharing the block with MB's vanilla V8s. My guess would be by the time all the testing, emission work and development is done, the engine may end up being about $100M, which is still not cheap. So Caddy does need a hyper car to fit the engine into. I disagree with the perception of people not buying a $100,000 Caddy. If built right, people will buy it. It has been seen in other GM models like Cruze where critics said it is not worth the money, yet is being sold in droves because it is almost what people want. The key is getting the car right. Allante was a disaster to start with from Roger Smith's heritage. If you look at the history, people would have said no one will buy CTS after Cimmarron, yet the car is doing very good. There is market for GM if it builds the right cars. ZR-1 and Z-06 carbon editions are other living examples.

Remember, GM's 8 got delayed by the bankruptcy. It would have been in business in 2009-10.

No one is. I am sick of GM's bureaucracy. Seems like nothing has changed.

4 quantitative positives, vs. 1 qualitative not so negative? The answer is simple.

His last three chapters are very insightful. Practically covers general feelings in our political section.

Read it page to page. Fantastic read.

I'm assuming the number comes from somewhat mixed driving with a heavy emphasis on highway. But I'd have to ask. Please ask him. I am very curious.

^ Problem is that $32,000 Audi is a FWD. And Buick GS has something that Audi does not to fix the FWD demons - Hiper Strut Suspension - reviews of which have been pretty good when it comes to driving dynamics.

High strength and lightweight materials have reduced the weight where they have been used and not much room is left in those areas. So, it has to be in the electrical/safety/amenities where the problem lies. Let us be careful here Camino. There is one more factor - i.e. increased standards' threshold meant increase in requirements of strengths to meet current standards. This means increased usage of high strength materials compared to the materials that may have been used for previous standards. So weight of structural components more or less remained constant. Currently because of high price of aluminum and high cost of molding structural titanium and CF, price of adoption of those materials is very high. Car manufacturers still use steel, albeit HS steel a lot. If the fabrication of aluminum, titanium and CF gets cheap, then we can have significant weight reduction in structural components.

52 mpg highway or city?

Here is how generally weights of various car components were used empirically in the past: Structural Components - 30 - 35% Body Panels, Glass, Grille, etc. - 15 - 20% Drivetrain (including wheels and tires) - 25 - 30% Interior (Seats, Dashboard, Airbags, etc.) - 15 - 20% Electrical systems, accessories - 5 - 10% Here is the note of present cars for the weight distributions above: Increase in the structural stiffness demanded increase in either high strength material, which kept the weight more or less constant or increase in the structural material, which meant increase in the % of structural components. Body panels, glass, etc. also went in the same fate as structural components. Drivetrain also increased because of bigger engines, bigger wheels, fatter tires, complex suspensions. Also increased because of more demand of amenities and comfort and safety. Electrical and accessories - again known increase. If you seek the reduction in weight, the targets should be in 1 and 3 to maximum weight loss.

Fixed it for you. The point Camino is making is not about cheapness and more hp, please read the arguments carefully.

For comparison's sake again: Subaru Impreza WRX STI*: 17/23, 305 hp Mitsubishi Lancer Evo*: 17/23, 291 hp Honda S2000: 18/24, 232 hp Dodge Caliber SRT4: 19/27, 285 hp MAZDASPEED3: 18/26, 263 hp Regal GS: ??/28, 270 hp ... and I'd venture that the Regal GS is more liveable day-to-day than any of these five cars... and not just because it's a size class or two bigger, either. * - yes, they have AWD. But yes, they're still lighter than the Regal. What Camino is saying there is that a 3.6L DI could have been very well used in the car to give the desired or better results of performance with equivalent fuel efficiency, contrary to what general perception is being filtered about turbo-charging smaller engines to have equivalent power numbers of a larger engine to see tremendous gain in fuel economy.