A Horse With No Name

I disagree a little bit. To me Pontiac is all about styling. Look at say the 55 Pontiac-much more stylish and elegant than the 55 Chevy, and to me (a former 55 chevy owner) the 55 Chevy is one of GM's best ever designs... Or look at the elegant wood dashboards of the 1960's GTO's vs. the plain jane Chevy dashboards. Or look at the sorta overdone "disco Era' 1970's Grand Prix cars, the SJ and the SSJ and even the later Pontiacs. Or look at the very well packaged later 3rd gen Firebirds, again a simplicity and elegance you just don't see in say an Iroc of the generation (and again, 3rd Gen Iroc another one of my fav. GM cars, and a future hopeful for my garage, but the Firebird is much more elegant.) I guess this is why I have always been so drawn to the 89 Firebird Indy Pace Car Replica with the Buick turbo V6-it seems to capture the essence of what is best about pontiac, upgraded styling and technologically driven performance. I guess that's what I like about Tri-power, it was state of the art for say 62 or 64 and Pontiac jumped right in, took it and made it work pretty well. Perhaps that's why I am such a Solstice fan-to me it symbolizes everything that is right about Pontiac. As does the G8-we have a member of our local VW TDI group who bashes American cars without mercy, who also belongs to the Mitsubishi owners group here in town. One of his female co-workers bought a G8 GT and he just can't stop raving about that car-he seems to be in a near sexual state of extacy when he's talking about how damn good the G8 is, and what a wonderful car it is. We've got another member who is like a walking VW encyclopedia, and is also a member of the local Buckeye Miata club with me. When we were talking about what we would have as a family car if we could afford any car on the planet, Eric, our Vw guru, spent the better part of dinner argueing that a G8 would be the ultimate family car. I think the real essence of Pontiac is defined for me though in its heritage, esp. the 1940's and 1950's cars. To me, there is nothing from that Era that screams "drivers car' more loudly than Pontiac. Sorry for the lengthy post, but I feel passionate about Pontiac. Chris

I think GM knows its going to be a low sales volume car. Maybe if gas prices stay reasonable by 2012 the market will have picked up. Chris

I wish I had forty grand to spend on a car. I'd like this little puppy in my garage. Chris

Warning-rambling post- One of the biggest problems here in Ohio is that virtually no one is left with a job to buy a new Chevy. With decent credit, you should be able to walk through the front door and get a loan through your credit union or bank. The biggest issue to me is that once you start buying your customers off you can never stop buying them off. Thankfully, this is spreading to the imports. During the Osu-Michigan game, Nissan was advertising 0% and a Versa at $9900. Toyota and Honda also have started playing more and more numbers games with financing to sell cars, on everything other than the Fit and the Prius. Also, thankfully they seem to be cutting content a little bit. The latest Civic doesn't seem to be as good as the previous cars, and lots of people around here are starting to have problems with Hondas. This is interesting because Hondas are built (most of them, anyways) just north of Columbus here, and central Ohio is Honda central. Anyways, good luck 'biz...when you ahve to go back to running your own video store because no one is buying cars, I'll come and wire it up for you. Just save me copies of Bullit and Smokey and the Bandit so I can remember when cars were cars, and men were men. Chris

Actually, your right, the cobalt SS will eat almost all of those vaunted "imports" Chris

I sorta just prefer having real sex with my wife. I guess I lack imagination...she knows what ai like and is very good at what she does. But there are a lot of funny porn titles. Chris

Yeah, well...in some ways an old beater can be really cool. Sometimes a beater fits the bill a lot better than a"new" car. Chris

Watching Sisterhood of the travelling pants with my daughters...I feel your pain, sort of. Although I'm not a big fan of porn. Chris

Import Tuner has to be one of the worst magazines ever...and while I like Mustangs there are about a billion other cars out there. What I don't like about the Mustang thing is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of individuality in the Mustang end of the hobby anymore. Seems like everyone is ga-ga over the latest Shelby's and has forgotten a lot of the other Mustangs. Chris

Wow, I pay a thou a year to insure two cars full coverage, including rental car coverage. I forgot you cannuks paid that much for ins. Chris

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/la-2008...ar-of-the-year/ This gives me hope that people are looking at cars other than the Prius, and that there is real hope for the Volt when it comes out. Chris/66

They did sometimes ahve good articles...but Sport Compact car is dead. http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/21/source-...laying-off-115/ I think the whole Japanese tuner thing is seeming to die down, at least outside of southern Cali. This may indeed point that direction. Chris

I think the whole Sequioa thing looks terrible. The Suburban is much better and much cheaper. Chris

The president of our Miata club used to ahve a 72 Celica like that. He was riding with a friend onto a military base. They ran over a speed bump and the spare tire went through the trunk floor (Florida car, not that rusty) in front of a whole bunch of guys. The SCCA team I used to crew for ran an old 82 Toyota Corolla 2 door. Not a bad car, but much better sense of design in 82 than they have now, IMHO. Chris

G6 V6 would be a sweet upgrade over the G5, Von. Chris

That Saab is right here in Columbus! My son and I put the convertible top down on the Miata tonight...al 24 degrees or whatever it was. With the heat on and both of us wearing coats, it was actually kind of a nice drive...amazing how everything from airplanes at the airport to train horns sounds so much better with cold air. Not sure why sound seems to travel better/clearer with cold air but it does. Moltar, I am kinda jealous of that big merc...when did you pick her up? Chris

Odd that a plant building Cobalts is being kept shut down. Seems like their was a shortage of Cobalts a few months ago. Chris

Like I said before, good luck and keep us posted. Chris

Given 20 or 30 years, how collectible will C5 andC6 Corvettes be? I am thinking they will be MUCH more of a collectors item than the C3 and C4 Corvettes, for a few reasons. 1. They are much better cars, and much more driver friendly. 2. They are being driven and raced MUCH more than the earlier C3 and C4 Corvettes-seems like everyone I know with these is beating the hell out of it on the road, on the track, autocrossing it, etc. This will mean that fewer cars will survive and more people will have more vivid memeories of just what these cars can do. Also, competition history helps a car become collectable. Why else do cars like the C2 Corvette, Early Camaro, GT350 Mustang, Cobra, Hemi cars, etc. bring high #'s at auction? People seem to really respond to performance cars that are actuallylegit performance cars. 3. GM may not be building supercar type Corvettes forever. Given fuel economy and emission standards, as well as the economy, the next generations of Corvette may indeed be tamer. Your thoughts? Chris/66

That would have helped it. And I think your right about the price thing. Chris

Nice pics, the red of the car stands out nicely with the fall colors! Glad tos ee you back and posting again, BV Chris

Actually I like the looks of the modern GTO. The Grand Prix was not a bad car styling wise, and your right Oldsmoboi, they kept the styling "in the family." Chris/66

This could be an impressive and powerful parade... Chris

This to me is the big difference between American cars and most other cars...passion. Our carmakers have built just so many cars that people should be passionate about, and many of them (like the Mustang I mentioned) are in the living memeory of a good part of our population. Chris

I've always liked the way VW suspensions were set up. I've been looking at buying an older Jetta like yours for a 3rd car/backup car. I'm curious to see what one would do on an open track or at an Autocross. My friend Dave Brown used to race a VR6 Golf and that car was prett amazing at speed for an front wheel drive car. BTW, I like your car, BV. Glad to see you ahve some fun with it, and glad you didn't kill yourself. In Indiana a few months ago, IIRC a teen was pulled over for doing 149 mph in a WRX, so I'm glad you didn't get busted by the police also... Chris/66