A Horse With No Name

Excellent point about J-body buyers. For whatever reason I have talked to loads of people who have bought them and loved them. My only gripe is that 99.7% are automatics in my area. Actually kind of thinking about buying a manual J-body or Cobalt as a commuter car for my wife. Chris

Fuel economy is a real concern about the HHR. My Scion xB may be uglier to some than a red-bottomed baboon but I'm getting 10 whole MPG (real world) better than people I know who are driving HHRs. I like the HHR, but it does indeed need a fuel economy bump. Chris

Carbiz, Brian and the rest of us reading this. Do yourselves a favor. Go sit outside of an Autozone or an Advanced Auto parts store and see what rolls into the lot on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Watch what they buy. There are lots of 10, 15, 20 year old domestics chugging along just fine and lots of times their owners are just buying spark plugs and a set of wires or five quarts and a filter. What Carbiz is saying makes sense. The Malibu is a great used car bargain. Sadly, resale is a real issue if you do buy a new domestic as they depreciate heavily at times. However, given the lower purchase price you still can come out ahead. Back to the Civic topic, however... Chris

Also saw a sweet Yellow 71 Corvette with just perfect to die for Chrome near work yesterday. The rumble from the exhaust sounded healthy. Chris

...and getting back on the China topic here is a funny, true story. Here in Columbus right down the street from the electrical project my company is finishing one of our rivals decided to put in all Chinese made light fixtures in a 5 story office building. The inspector, who happened to be a really sharp guy, noticed that they were not U.L. listed. Every light fixture from the building wound up going into dumpsters and being replaced with stuff made here in North America. Some of the replacement was made in Mexico, which is alas much better than China. And yes, China does need to screw themselves. Chris

Shipping is very fuel efficient compared to trucking, though. It might take a long time for this to take effect. Chris

Hell, the offer for lunch is still on. Not often I get to even see a car like the B-59. Things will work themselves out. Trust yourself on knowing who the love of your life is. It hasn't been easy but I have been with Kim for 22 years now and I knew from the moment I met her that she was very, very special. Besides, this gives you an excuse to buy one more car for the stable because your on the rebound. You have Cadillac, Buick, Olds and Chevy covered (with the 68 Camaro) Methinks you need a Pontiac also. Chris

The French do indeed know how to build sweet cars. Unattainable for me would be a really cool 55 Pontiac ragtop in all black... Or The experience of buying a 69 Dodge Charger R/T brand new off of the dealer lot Or Just being a good enough driver myself to drive a c-4/c5, Solstice GXP, The Sunoco 69 Z-28 SCCA car, or a 1LE Camaro at the absolute utter limit in their natural environment. Chris

Mitsu doesn't build a single really desireable car anymore... Hell, the new Evo is even a lacking a manual shift... Chris

Perhaps Pontiac Custom S can help us on the cheap muscle car thing. Think you could sneak an LS7 into the plant in your lunchbox and drop it into a Sky? Chris

...and yes we had cheap muscle cars (used) until about 5-10 years ago when all of the good stuff from the 60's and 70's (and even 80's cars) started to dry up. Perhaps the whole body in steel thing will pick up and one will be able to build a 70 Nova in Kit form for a reasonable price in a few years. Chris

I am wondering how much fuel economy being a hybrid really adds. I drive a Scion xB ( I know, the most hated car at Cheers and Gears) same basic 1.5 as the Prius. last three tanks were 34.8, 35.7, and 38.8 m.p.g. Car has Aerodynamics of a Brick...soft tires, driven reasonably aggressively Question-would the 1.5 in a Prius Body shell without the additional weight of batteries, electrical motors and such, driven carefully perhaps deliver the 41-45 m.p.,g most Prisu owners report? Wondering if Hybrid drive does anything for fuel economy at all. Honda Civic Hybrid, driven carefully, 42 m.p.g from a discussion with someone I know. Another person has the same basic car as a gas 5 speed and drives carefully and gets...40 to 42 m.p.g on the highway. The damned Cavalier in my sig got an honest 44.5 a couple of times when I was real gentle and ran it at 55 without stopping between fuel ups. Methinks perhaps a small diesel is a better bet... Chris

I thought the Wrongler and perhaps one other model were built in Toledo as well... And yes, Toledo is a strong Union town with strong U.S. Loyalties. Chris

BTW, 1955 was a year of a couple of very rare colors-Black and supposedly copper cars were built, but they built more than one of each color each year. Chris

In addition to the "waterfall" some convertilbes I believe had an opening trunk, did they not? 1987 was the first year of export to Saudi Arabia. 1977 was I believe the first year for a trailer package. Let's see if anyone can get the color question. Yes, the car from the movie was right hand drive. Chris

Actually I was very impressed by the photographs of the plant in the "Lounge" forum about GMT"s vist. Kinda seriously makes me want a Kappa. Chris

Can I special order the Pontiac with that sexy wood thingie on the sides?

Although I am enjoying your posts on this forum...If I ever head out east I'd like to buy you lunch or a few beers...or a few beers over lunchy if you don't have to go back to work after lunch. Chris

+1 for the diesel Astra. Chris

Happy Birthday, guys! Chris

1. What was the first year the Corvette was officially exported by Chevrolet to Saudi Arabia? 2. What year was the first for an official trailer towing package for the Corvette? 3. Three times Chevrolet set up a paint color/code and only painted 1 Corvette that color all year. When were these three cars produced? 4. What unique feature would you experience if you actually drove the Corvette from the movie "Corvette Summer?" 5. Another feature from 1962 came back on the c-5 corvette rather than the C-6 Corvette. What is it? Chris

...and it sepends upon how you define regular production. In theory G.M. built only 1 68 Z28 Ragtop (I think for Pete Estes, but I could be wrong). IIRC, the car survives to this day. Chris

No regular convertibles were built in 39, so what I meant to communicate (my bad) is that 1940 restarted convertible production. I read (probably a bad number/source on my part) that Chevrolet built 77 83 Corvettes and that 3 or 4 survive, the one in the bowling green Museum and 2-3 in Michigan. Chris

The answer is 1962...key to the question is Bel Air 2 door hardtop, others were Biscayne or Impala line automobiles. The 62 was a "Bubble top" design similar to 1961. It was one of the lightest bodies out that year and set quite a few records at drag strips and on stock car tracks. A cool car, but kinda sad in a way...used to be an awesome (red) pro street 62 Bel Air buble top running around here that was a factory 409 car that the guy made into a pro street car. He did an awesome job but it seems a shame to "cut up" such a rare, rare car. The other car that was cool was a white on red car that the owner converted from a 327 powerglide car into a 409 clone. It used to run around (still runs around?) the Cleveland-Medina area. Teh guiy that owned that car raced one like it back in 62-he had lots of cool photos of the early days of drag racing. It was awesome meeting the guy and getting to know him. Chris

Why could G.M. not do this? Hell, the Miata is 1500 pounds lighter than the Camaro will wind up being and it has a power retractable hardtop that adds something like 100 pounds or so. If a much smaller company like Mazda can do it why not G.M.? Hell, the do it on the G-6.... Chris