SAmadei

I know that. But after paying to haul them across, they don't just park them there near the Chunnel... they drive them... so you have a mixing of LHD cars in Britain and RHD in France and beyond. Granted, I don't know that exact regulations on these crossings, but Top Gear has done several episodes featuring trips across the Chunnel stretching deep into the continent. There are numerous visibility problems involved with mixing these up... something we only experience in the US when we try to parallel park on a one way street on the "wrong" side.

It generally comes down to the countries that once were part of the British Empire, as the side of the road used today follows the old cart and horse setup. We use the opposite side, because after the war of independence, we purposely reversed many British customs. I've wondered how the Chunnel affects the RHD-LHD driving. Sweden switched sides because of confusion where RHD-LHD collided, either at boundaries or mismatches of LHD cars on RHD roads or RHD cars on LHD roads. I wonder if the Chunnel would eventually cause Britain to switch. Of course, Britain is really stubborn in their uniqueness... With the lopsidedness of the LHD-RHD difference, I would have thought RHD would have disappeared by now. Countries like India would be smart to switch before too much infrastructure is set in stone.

I've never driven a RHD vehicle, but since I'm somewhat ambidextrous from my mural painting days, I could manage a RHD manual car. But one thing I've never been clear on... in a RHD manual car, are the pedals reversed? My feet are NOT as ambidextrous, so that could be an issue... however, in all my years of reading, its my understanding that throttle is always on the right, clutch on the left, regardless of RHD or LHD, but my engineering side wants to disagree. That said... I have long arms and legs... so during my stint as parking lot security, I used to drive the LHD vehicles from the right side, as we would loop the lot counter clockwise looking at the cars on the right side. Used to freak out the people in the lot to see nobody driving. That said, I suspect that this is how people make those videos of their dog driving.

GM: 1969 GTO Judge convertible. Mopar: 1970 Plymouth Superbird. Ford: 1973 Ford Falcon XB Coupe with the special nose. Bonus... 1970 AMC AMX.

I'm one. I'm sure Balthy is another.

G6 coupe and convertible. And the Vibe! (*shutter*) So, lets flip this... Other than the ____, what did GMC have that Chevy and Cadillac didn't? Other than the ____, What did pre-2010 Buick have that Chevy and Cadillac didn't? In these cases, there is nothing to even put in the blanks!

So have I. Worst part... I could have driven home... on 5 cylinders... but the shrapnel from the engine block flattened one of my tires. Talk about insult to injury.

Best noise... broken rod bolt leading to bent rod and/or rod/piston exiting the engine at speed. But you can only do it once. Preferably, you want to hear this coming from the car alongside you.

But you grouped it with Pontiac and Mercury (both clearly midrange) and later mentioned that there was no tolerance for the middle ground. Reading between the lines one can get the wrong idea. I must've misread it the first time. Did you rephrase it after the edit and I got a stale copy? I dunno... losing my mind, I guess. For both of you, the prosecution withdrawn.

I wasn't trying to single out anybody, just point out that it wasn't a midrange brand, as you ware not the only one to group it in there... and this is not the only thread where Plymouth's position in the food chain has been incorrectly placed. The same thing goes for people who transpose Buick and Olds places in the GM hierarchy. That said, I preferred many of Plymouth's designs... most notable, the Cuda over the Challenger and the Road Runner over the Charger. Same goes for Mercury... I usually preferred the Cougar or (2nd gen) Capri design over the Ford version... even on the crappy designs (Sable vs. Taurus, Topaz vs Tempo). I would have believed Mercury. To be honest, I'm surprised it outlived the rest, even if by months. Mercury's demise has been rumored since the early '90s. And in 2010 when we say Buick, GMC, Opel, Chrysler and Dodge will be goners, we're just as crazy, I suppose. See ya in 2020. ;-) Of course, depending on your feelings about Dec 21, 2012, even Chevy, Ford, Mercedes and Toyota might be gone by 2013... but we wouldn't be here to gloat. LOL.

Plymouth was NOT the middle ground. Dodge (and Desoto) was. In fact, in the beginning, Dodge was positioned higher than DeSoto, as well. Plymouth was always Chrysler's Chevrolet, high production, low cost, mainstream brand. It only stopped being mainstream when starved of product and when Plymouths and Dodges were identical in appearance, cost and features, roughly post 1984. According to various sources (in retrospect), Daimler looked at its purchase of Chrysler and asked them "Why do these guys have 3 cheap, crappy, competing brands?!? (Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler) " So, Daimler killed Plymouth because at the time, it had the fewest models and sales.

I'm a long hauler... but when others are with me, I have to make stops for them. I rarely travel by myself long distance, so I'd have to my best non-stop trip was either: 1996... Brigantine, NJ to somewhere in NW Georgia for a drink stop. Time/mileage unknown. Or 1999 from Naples, FL to Miami to roughly Richmond, VA when I had some engine trouble. Again, time/mileage unknown. Both were over 9 hours, IIRC. Thats why I take overnight shifts on road trips... sleeping passengers don't need to make pitstops.

How does it feel? And downsides? Looking to get the GF a Studio 17.

Born 1983? Uh, more like 1978... or 1981 for the refreshing. Unless they are talking about the 1984 Grand Prix run... which roughly half were born in 1984. Odd text to put on the back of package.

See, for me (and my love of large cars... especially large coupes), most attached garages are not very large... and getting out, unpacking and dragging a pile of groceries around the 18in around the car in the garage is not real appealing to me. With my grandfather's detached garage , your groceries were right in the trunk... walk 10 feet from the trunk to the back door. Easy... yeah, you got wet if it was raining... but thats why you move quickly. GF's attached garage... ugh... Corolla barely fits... have to drag groceries all the way around the car... down stairs... through two doors, up a narrow flight of stairs... another door, through a vestible, another door... sure, its dry... but you're sweating from the workout.

I did not say it was not serious... I said less serious. Having an attached garage increases your homeowner's insurance... and thats what replaces your house, regardless of if your Ford causes it or a pile of oily rags. If your owning a home without insurance, then I suppose parking anything more than a bicycle in your garage would be unwise. Some of my relatives have sprinklers. Thats why I included and/or.

IIRC, the cruise control recall problem only happened while the car was operational... turning the car off would have removed the source of the heat. Of course, in the case of your grandmother's Escort, I would have removed a battery cable before calling a tow. The plastics involved usually don't burn real fast and require a lot of heat to maintain the fire until the fire gets really going.

While I'm not discounting the seriousness of one's family perishing in their sleep because your car caught fire in the attached garage, most people don't have to stop the garage from moving and/or have to escape from the house from the garage door. In other words, I'm not sure that that recall is as serious as the Toyota one, because to my knowledge, no one died from the Ford ignition switch fires. Unfortunately, I can't let GM off the hook for the #2 and #3 recalls... they sound, well dangerous, and I wonder how many unrepaired cars still exist out there... It astounds me that 17 years later, GM has the same problem with the full size vans... and tells people not to park them in garages... LOL. I've never been a great fan of attached garages... this is one of many reasons... It was. The ignition switch, being hot all the time had parts that would fail, resulting in a short... that got smoking quite quickly. I think the thread got crossed here because I was trying to compare a dangerous operational recall failure to a somewhat less dangerous non-operational failure. Again, granted, it could burn your house down and kill everybody... but that's a cascade failure... of either the fire detection or sprinkler systems. Garages are already known to harbor a higher fire danger than most of the rest of the house... Kitchen, excepted, of course. Pulling our leg, right?

IIRC, they didn't... but they extended the earlier recall, either because the replacement parts didn't fix the problem or because there the problem was later found with a slightly different revision of the part. Ford's problems with hot switches was a nasty one... but then again, I don't think one ever burst into flame while someone was driving the car.

Posted this mainly because I'm generally calling BS on the infographic. I like the way Honda had the foresight in 1972 to recall all their cars built 14-19 years in the future.

See the story Here.

With the current state of unitized parts, communication busses, computerization of the manufacturing process and JIT inventory systems, I just don't give this argument much validity. In 1967 with virtually NO computers, people on the line could customize cars anyway the customer wants. It should be easier to do it today... but I don't think the General wants to truly appease more than 60% of the buyers. What GM forgets is that by winning over the toughest 5%, they will use word of mouth to help move more traffic to the GM stores. SAmadei ~>>"I'd start building them for resale."<< I'd prefer to save an original, half decent car. For $30K you can build a kick-ass, subtly-modified version of vintage iron. Sure, I'd like to, as well... but we're in Jersey. And finding repairable vintage iron is getting pretty hard. Plus, some trim parts are near impossible to locate or repair right. Not only that, but its can be a problem in some states when you rebuild a ship of Theseus. So, I'd rather create some vintage cars that may be common, but can be created as brand new... properly undercoated and treated from the start. My current parts list is 90% complete and has a "new" 1969 Firebird shipping for about $60K. Thats with a 6x automatic, 500hp IA engine, Brembos, build subframe with Corvette parts, etc. Could do a Camaro quite a bit cheaper...

If I had about $300K hanging around, I'd start building them for resale. I feel there is a small niche market there... and as battery tech falls in price, for electric vintage cars. Granted, though, I'd be limited to Dynacorn sourced models.

Uh, well, yeah, they were. Sorry, but your modern eyes are apparently too used to soft, friendly lines... unable to process the beauty in the old designs. The only crap you posted was the Plymouth Champ... hardly a "real" Plymouth. There was not a single bad looking American car in this entire thread. In fact, as time marches on, even the early imports are starting to outclass the current styling... even the Champ. I have had plenty of old cars and all had radios, brakes... and with one or two exceptions, they had air conditioning and power windows. _Functioning_ A/C is a different matter, I'll concede, but I could have ponied up for a R12 recharge. Heres some things my old cars had that new cars apparently will never have again... trunk space, easily understood drivetrains, body styles available as coupes, sedans, wagons and convertibles, and ignition that is not able to shutdown remotely (OnStar, HERF or electrical pulse). I'm not going to say the old cars are better than new in all ways... they're not. The technology has progressed to give us better batteries, build quality, transmissions... but when these technologies are added to an old car, you have a pretty unbeatable ride.

Are you kidding? ... this is roughly the same weight per linear inch (long) as a Challenger. And on the road, it'll get more attention than any American car built in the last 25 years. Hope somebody saves it.