Robert Hall

Not sure what is left of Mitsubishi to be of value...their car platforms are dated and redundant w/ Nissan platforms. maybe their heavy trucks (is that included in this?)...though Nissan has it's own heavy truck division. (Edit: the heavy truck company (Mitsubishi Fuso) is separate and majority owned by Daimler..so not part of this deal presumably).

Hmm...I'd take a '77 Z/28 (prefer the '74-77 styling over '78-81). Though my favorite 2nd gen would be a '70 1/2 -73. As for Mazdas, about the only one I'd get excited about would be a 3rd gen RX-7...the last ones...

Interesting..that's a different take on a Jaguar F-Type...

I think I've had so many rentals over the years mostly because of geography...Colorado and Arizona are fairly isolated from places I tend to go, other than So Cal being an easy drive from Phoenix, most other out-of-state trips I've taken were too far to conveniently drive in a few hours (cities up and down the West Coast, Chicago, Ohio, etc). With cheap flights from Southwest, United, Frontier, etc it was always easy to fly away for a long weekend and rent a car at my destination...

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An Escalade 'coupe' would be interesting, with a CTS coupe style roofline.

For a 'vette, it would have to be a '63-67 for me...coupe or convertible. For a Merc SL, maybe a late 70s 450SL in red w/ camel interior...with the huge US spec bumpers.

About the only exercise I'm getting is walking. Using my Fitbit to track steps, trying to maintain 5000 daily w 10000 as a goal. Now that summer is here, it will be harder to force myself to walk outside the next five months except early in the morning or late in the evening. But pool season is here also, so I can offset walking with daily swimming.

Do you lift, dfelt???? Am I talking to a fellow gym rat and didn't know this whole time??? Need you both to kick my butt into the habit once I'm done all of this travel at the end of the month. I was taught to never ski while tired or you'll end up hurting yourself, and I imagine the same is true for lifting. I can't get over the exhaustion to go make myself more exhausted at the moment. LOL, Yes, I was 6 ft tall at age 12, totally a mess in coordination and my dad took me to the Washington state body building competition which is now the Washington State Natural Body building competition. Saw Arnold and fell in love with the sport. I did everything I could to build myself and eventually bought his Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding and never looked back. Highly Recommend this book: ArnoldBible.jpg Even if you do not want to be a full blown body building but just to tone and shape up, this shows step by step the safest ways I know to lift free weights and build your body into a strong solid frame. At 48 years Old, I ski harder than most teens and 20's according to my son. Still hit the parks, jumps, etc. I truly believe being a Gym Rat is an important part of long life with little down time. Drew, best way to ease back into it when the Gym has not been a consistent part of your life is to have some dumb bells at home, not 20, 30 40 lbs, but simple 3,5 & 8 pound dumb bells, so you can do bicep curls and tricep presses while watching TV. Forearm curls to help strengthen and keep from having issues with your fingers and forearms for those of us at the computer all day. You can also then use these same dumb bells to do lungs while watching TV or a movie. Standing squats if you want to get a bit heavier dumbbells can be done also. This will get you into a routine and then you can slide back into the gym. So yes, a fellow Gym Rat and now hopefully people can understand why I find anything other than a full size SUV at 6'6" tall and 280 lbs to be a small comfy auto for me. Happy LIfting! Dude, I didn't know that! That rocks! Good lord 6'6", 280lbs. That actually sounds like a very in-shape height:weight ratio, great job! I definitely understand why you can't fit into smaller vehicles, you literally can't. lol Wow, yeah There was one kid I grew up with that was 6ft in middle school(13-14?) and he was insanely uncoordinated, just grew too dang fast. I was that kid. I was 6ft at 14, maybe 140lbs. Never got any taller, but gained 100 lbs over the years. Uncoordinated and generally awful at sports (though I dabbled in softball, basketball, tennis and squash). The academic life and computers suited me better than sports...

Yeah, I was thinking..20 years, 2-3 rentals per year average (3-4 day weekend trips with flying + rental, the occasional week or more vacation rental), that's probably 50-60 different cars...

I've been renting cars for trips since grad school over 20 years ago..still remember my first rental car--'95 Cutlass Ciera in white w/ red interior...the lady at the rental car counter at Reagan National didn't get my comment about it being a new 13 yr old car. In the following 20+ years, I've had a variety of rentals---5 generations of Mustangs (coupes and convertibles), a '98 Camaro convertible, a couple Sebring and 200 convertibles, a Nissan 350Z, several Dodge Intrepids, Concordes, a 300M, an LHS, several Grand Marquis, a half-dozen Town Cars, a couple Crown Vics, a couple early 00s Cadillac deVIlles, a '11 Cadillac STS, 2 CTS sedans, a couple Tahoes and Yukons, and a bunch of mainstream FWD models---from loathesome like a Cavalier and a Neon to blandly pleasant like 3 generations of Malibus, a couple Cobalts, a couple early Focuses, several '00-13 Impalas, Tauruses, Sables, a Dodge Avenger, 2 generations of Camrys, Sonatas and Fusions; a Grand Am and a Grand Prix, and some unique, one-offs like an '04 Ford Thunderbird, '04 Nissan 350Z, Ford Econoline Club Wagon 14 passenger van, '00 Cougar, '00 Mitsubishi Diamante, Hyundai Genesis, Mercedes A160, Opel Vectra.

Since my Jeep has 165k miles, I use it locally only. For road trips, I rent, usually from my neighborhood Enterprise. Though since Phoenix is kind of isolated, I usually fly and rent a car at my destination.

Life has been a bit depressing for me the last couple of months, work has been exhausting as I fight multiple issues in multiple IBM Websphere Portal clustered environments and DB/2 on AS/400... At least the dogs are healthy, my Jeep is still running and I have plenty of my happy pills, sleeping pills and wine... Though here in the desert, May-Sept is the $h!ty time of year, so I will probably be more online than outside..

Weird randomness of the day..whilst walking around the office and futzing with my phone, I turned on the video recording and captured my feet moving...while I was walking. Seemed very strange to see..

Yeah...reality is a drag.

1970s Rob would have probably been listening to a mix of the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, Marvin Gaye, Issac Hayes, Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles... As for other periods in the past, sometimes I'd like to have been 25-30 in 1985 rather than 15.. I did like a lot about the mid-late 80s, esp. the music..

I was born in 1970, was a child of the 70s, have no interest in living in the 70s...but I do love a lot of music, movies and cars of the 1970s. Had I been an adult then, I'd like to have been an early employee of Apple or Microsoft and been part of the revolution..that I would have enjoyed greatly. I've been in the tech game since the early 90s, so I remember the rise of the web browser, the internet, and cell phones, but to have been there in the early days of the personal computer... I would have worn checked jackets w/ wide lapels, aviator sunglasses, a handlebar stash, large side burns, and maybe driven a mid '70s Eldorado convertible or Lincoln Mark IV.. For '70s sex symbols, I'd have to pick Stevie Nicks and Farrah Fawcett... Now go back to the late 60s, I'd love to have been working at NASA or the JPL in Pasadena..that would been geek heaven in that era.

Huge Prince fan...ever since hearing 'Little Red Corvette' at age 12 back in the day...his music has long been part of the soundtrack of my life. Saw him twice in concerts..incredible performer, songwriter, and guitarist. At work today when I found out I streamed my Prince albums on Google Play...going to drink a bit tonight and watch some videos...just watched a blurry/grainy version of that great Super Bowl performance from 2007. This is hitting me harder than any other musician this year, even Bowie...I guess its because of the context in my life, my youth....not too big of a man to admit I was sitting in the grocery lot this afternoon with Purple Rain cranked waaay up and moved to tears...

Saw this Civic in my office parking garage today, looked rather bitey, like it was going to chew on the GMC..

I presume the weakness is due to the lack of crumple zones in body-on-frame construction when compared to a unibody.

The X5 has always been a unibody RWD/AWD model, so nothing is really changing as far as it's positioning or general layout...

I wonder if they are considering Taiwan's Luxgen. I saw a pic of a Luxgen S5 with Michigan plates on the Facebook. Looks a bit like a 200.

I saw a P1 last year at a car show at the local McLaren dealer..they look pretty incredible in person.

Interesting..I didn't think a manual could work with an electric motor, given the nature of electric power delivery (production electric cars have essentially 1-spd transmissions?)

A manual wouldn't make sense w/ an electric motor...