A Horse With No Name

A bunch of us from Miatanet and North American Motoring (the MINI site) are planning to take over next. Pretty soon the GM owners will be in the minority on the GM site. How strange will that be? BTW, how much are you asking for the used SS Cobalt? I may know a guy who is interested. Chris

Oh my God in heaven yes! Sweet car... Chris

If you really want a good deal on repo's go to an auction where you can look at the car. I live down the road from the Ohio auto auction and every so often they ahve auctions that are open to the public and not just dealers. Also, my boss buys cars online from a place in Chicago I think. He just picked up a new Beetle for his girlfriend for $3500, needed some minor repair but ran great. But my two cents is to do what gm4life did. Find a car where you know the history and know how its been taken care of. I'd rather pay $500 too much and get a really good, well cared for car than spend $500 too little and get a car with problems. That thinking has always served me well. Chris

And if you wish to visit Ohio for a few days to clear your head, I could find a good place for Zora and Arkus. I have a friend who has some rural land if you just want to go quad and four wheel (he has a CJ-7 as well.) Maybe you just need to load up the wagon and do a C and G road trip? Too bad you can't sell the mothertruck and do the route 66 thing with knightfan. Chris

Kind of like what one of my friends who grew up on a farm said about life. "Life is like a big pile of cow$h!, and you are an ant. You get out from under one pile and another pile falls down on top of you. The important thing is to keep moving."

I love this way of thinking. Chris

Why do you think I love having a convertible so much? A good drive out of the city is wonderful...it helps clear my head. Chris

Change is actually good and healthy. Go for it! Chris

Good luck! Chris

I don't know about off of the grid but I am simplifying. Working on paying off the house... Get books from the library rather than buy them...I love to read. I shop for clothes at the thirft store and don't care about having much. I like the idea. I plan to travel as I get older. In your case, I would sell the mother truck, the Jag the wagon perhaps and the Camino. You need the big truck for work, and you could make the other truck run forever. Get one car you really want, build it and hold onto it. Build a clone of the 71 GMC Spring big block perhaps. Or build a clone of a 50's Pontiac Delivery. Whatever floats your boat. But as for me I have 5 children, so life can only get so simple. Chris

People in the country are SO-f@#kING-STUPID. I got rear ended by an 88 year old woman, only minor damage. Cop is leaning over my car writing his report. "...It shows on your registration that your car is silver. What actual color is your car?" "Silver. Why do you ask?" "I just have to verify the color." This as he's leaning on my car writing the report! Oh, and one of our customers was in an accident...she T-boned an F150 with a Cavalier convertible...she was going about 45 miles per hour. She was little stiff and had a few bruises (the F150 ran a light). When I asked them why they were getting a Corolla raher than a GM product to replace the Cavi, they said they needed something nice and safe for the family and wouldn't be buying GM. Amazing. Chris

True to a point, Sigen. But most of the cars that qualified as trade ins were domestic. One would see plenty of old Camcords and Civics traded in the government wanted everyone to drive a body on frame car for safety or something. That being said, the domestics have a LONG way to go in terms of small cars. It's just too bad the crop of current small Japanese cars (Civic, Corolla, the ungodly ugly new 3, the amazingly ugly Mitsu products, the trash from Suziki) is so progoundly unattractive. To think that one could trade a rusted F150 in on a new car and actually get somehing that looked worse... Chris

I disagree 100%. I mean, look at the current Acura lineup. Nothing the Americans or Euros have built in 110 years of car building is remotely that butt ugly. Chris

Loved that Vido also, 'blu. Once I had a guy offer to trade me even up an Airflow in beautiful shape for my 66 Mustang 4 speed fastback. Still think about that car...love the Airflow.... On another note, saw a 50th anniversary Camry hybrid the other day. Balthazar better get busy...we've got a missing 47 years of Camry hybrid production that no one seems to know about. Wonder if those "missing" 47 years of Camry are in the Toyota display? Or maybe Camino will buy 83 Cresida's 83 Cresida and build a hybrid Toyota "phantom" as that phantom he's been wanting to build. (stang ducks from flying wrench....) Chris

Damn Straight, skippy. My washing machine is 14 years old and starting to rust. It still looks better than a new Civic. Chris

...Would be nice if the two civics were a visual improvement over the wagon. That wagon still looks better than ANY new Acura product. Chris

Look in thbose twin 4V carbs...you might find a Honda sucked into one of them....

...and another thing Pudue Guy and I would prob. agree on: Older Saturns make great cheapo Autocross cars. On the local or regional level they compete very well in H stock. I always laugh when I see a $1200 Saturn in primer hand the owner of a $30,000 MINI his ass on a platter. GM chasis engeneers have gotten a lot of cars dead right, and it's not just the CTS, Camaro and Corvette.

It's dead stock. I'm trying to save $ for a Solstice, which is much faster. Chris

Love that Z, Cletus! Chris

...and while I'm off topic, methinks I'm going to do this school with my 16 year old son. http://www.midohio.com/School/Courses/Defensive-Driving/1 It's kind of funny to watch, they have a civic set up with outriggers so it can't roll over. They then wet down the skid pad and put teens through a set of defensive driving drills. It's a pretty good deal also. they probably have something like this out near you, mr balthazar. I would guess your son would enjoy that. Chris

...and you may want to try this in New Jersey when you get the B-59 done. Autocrossing is also a great way to teach a teen car control. Also, IIRC balthazar, one of your sons is 15. Tire Rack, which is now obviously a C and G sponsor, has a teen safe driving school that costs 60 bucks for a day. But they do some cool things. they let a real SCCA or NASA race driver ride with the teen, set up a basic Auto-X course, and teach the teens one on one what to do when the car starts to get upset/slide/whatever. They also bring out a semi-truck and park cars around it, so the teens are aware of just how little a semi driver sees from the cab. Also, they detonate an air bag to show what happens when one goes off. last year they sent a purple stuffed Barney 60 feet into the air with one. They also wet down the parking lot with a fire hose and let the teens experience a car sliding in a con trolled setting. The only downside is that a few of the teens had so much fun with this that a few of the parents bought a few tires. It's done in conjunction with the BMW car club. Linky here. http://www.tirerack.com/features/motorspor...et_survival.jsp Chris

No...to both questions. See my pics of the Pontiac in the Car spotters thread. Also...check out the Power Oversteer on the C6 Z06 in the car spotters thread as well. It's fun to run for a quick time, but also fun to slide the ass end of the car around and just go out to play. Chris

Glad to see them selling them. I really don't like the styling on the CR-V. Chris

Wow...someone that needs to go away looks like they will. Tell me why these guys are trying to sell cars in North America? Chris